Eel Be Right

Our local newspaper, The Rodney Times, does a fine job in its reporting of local affairs. Not that there are many local affairs—a small community and a lack of accommodation have seen most affairs conducted in Auckland—that is of course if we exclude the annual orgiastic aftermath of the aptly named World’s Longest Dinner. But, I digress. What local affairs there are, are reported wonderfully well by our local ‘paper. One cannot fail to be fulfilled as one reads of the activities of the Scrabble Club, the Writers’ Club and the intriguingly named Probus Club. Then there are the fine fictions of the pontificating of local politicians (don’t even get me started on those of their spin doctor(s)). Sport reigns supreme as the vehicle for great photos and the continuation of the scrapbook industry. The newspaper of this fine burg doesn’t technically sell its papers; it gifts them—even, in the experienced and capable hands of its current editor, bestows them. We are anointed.

But, sometimes, we are also annoyed. Last week the editor ran a front page story and photo of a small boy’s killing of a large eel. Condemnation has since rained down on both the editor and the boy. The only party to escape is the eel—if you can call being dead and integrated into this year’s radish crop an escape. At issue, if we are to read the letters to the editor, are:

1. The boy should not have killed the eel
2. He should not then have used it for fertiliser
3. The editor is sending the wrong message to young people by publishing the story.

Well, my first point is this: the boy having done nothing more than thousands of kids before (indeed it is a customary right among Maori) by doing the first showed commendable aptitude and environmental consideration in conducting the second. As for the editor’s action, I don’t see it as his job or responsibility to send messages, good or bad, to young people, and I don’t believe he has done so here. He has simply reported an event, an affair, in the community.

But my second point, and this is what annoys me, is that in writing to the newspaper in support of a very dead eel these arbiters of public morality are publicly taking to task a very young boy who doesn’t deserve this. The writers of those letters will no doubt defend themselves by saying they are simply pointing out to the boy the error he committed (sic) and are trying to prevent it happening again. Well and good. But it is still a young boy you are using to get your, frankly, paper-thin and poetically pretentious, message across. No doubt many of you now feel good having thus written. But what about the boy? How does he feel? Not good I imagine, thanks to you. My message (and, yes, I at least have one) to you is the eel is not the only fertiliser in this story and I am not here referring to the boy.

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