When Pigs Can Fly…On Second Thought, Maybe They Shouldn’t Try

Some things just don’t seem normal.

A while back I wrote a story about flying sea objects that seemed to be quite natural, albeit not something you see every day. 

Being in the midst of a multitude of flying manta rays was quite mesmerizing and did not at all seem menacing–at least until I got home and read about a unlucky woman killed by one in a “head-on” collision.

As you travel around the planet you are sure to find many things that are very unfamiliar from what you are used to. The word “odd” comes to mind.

These differences could just be the way other people live; often it is about what other people eat and how they go about it; it may be just the way they dress; or anything else we see as just not normal from ourselves.

Some call it exotic, and they would say it is one of the greatest reasons to get off the couch and trek out into the world.

Some call it weird and are put off by it. You wonder why these people every leave home.

And some people just don’t know what to make of it.

Religious practices are often near the top of the list of things that people see as dissimilar beliefs.

 

Dropping your baby off the roof of a 50-foot high building might just qualify in that category.

But in India they have been doing this for 500 years.

And it might be a leap of faith (pun, intended) but they claim they do it for good luck of the baby! Really.

Some things just don’t seem normal.

But as conscientious world travelers, who are we to judge?

 

Although I thought one of the posted comments on this story was poignant:

Posted by Bobby from Scotland 

“I am just expecting to see Michael Jackson’s head appear from the top of the temple.”

Ouch! (Can’t we just leave poor Michael Jackson and Britney Spears alone?!?)

So, apparently we can sometimes find natural acts that only seem disparate from our norm but occur whether or not we are there to observe the behavior, such as in the case of the flying rays.

And then people do things to themselves–or their babies–and seem just a little odd to us; but who are we to judge?

 

And sometimes we combine the two, with occasionally calamitous results.

In yet another story of airborne sea animals, dolphins jumping at a so-called “guest interaction program,” which may be another way of saying, forcing intelligent sea mammals to perform for our entertainment and allowing people of means to be able to pet them in an unnatural setting, lead to the death on one of them–the dolphins, not the tourists–caused by, yes, another mid-air collision.

Some things just don’t seem normal.

What is one to conclude?  Flying is hazardous for sea creatures?

Maybe there is a reason pigs don’t fly; could rumors of their intelligence be true?