It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English — up to fifty words used in correct context — no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.

— Carl Sagan

Without self-knowledge, can anyone ever be truly good?

Hence virtue is perpetually feeble,
The great strength of evil being extremely intense,
And except for a Fully Awakening Mind
By what other virtue will it be overcome?

The world’s oldest turtle, Harriet, died at 176 years of age.  A giant Galapagos tortoise weighing 330 pounds (150 kilograms), she was called Harry for more than a century before it was discovered she wasn’t a he at all.  Born in 1830, she fell ill recently and quickly succumbed to an acute heart attack.

It is rumored, although unproven and certainly inconsistent with genetic testing, that she was taken from the Galapagos Islands by Charles Darwin himself.  Under the guise of that rumor, she is credited with helping him develop evolutionary theory (less specifically, Galapagos tortoises did play a major role in Darwin’s Beagle voyage, as did a great many forms of life from the Galapagos Islands).

Thus far there are no challengers to her inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest living animal.

Rest in peace, Harriet.  I’m glad it happened quickly and I’m glad you didn’t suffer.  I wish I had made it to Australia to see you before the end, but I suppose one is apt to take for granted any living being once they pass the 150-year-old mark.  That’ll teach me.

Um, how does one talk about such a thing without at least a smirk?  Perhaps someone else can, but I sure can’t.

Needless to say, do you think a 10-year erection is worth $400,000?

A former handyman has won more than $400,000 in a lawsuit over a penile implant that gave him a 10-year erection.

Charles “Chick” Lennon, 68, received the steel and plastic implant in 1996, about two years before Viagra went on the market. The Dura-II is designed to allow impotent men to position the penis upward for sex, then lower it.

But Lennon could not position his penis downward. He said he could no longer hug people, ride a bike, swim or wear bathing trunks because of the pain and embarrassment. He has become a recluse and is uncomfortable being around his grandchildren, his lawyer said.

I see his problem and certainly understand how inconvenient it might be in normal day-to-day activities.  It is worth noting that he made a significant leap from one end of the spectrum to the other: from having no erection to having the always-on erection.  My only question is this: During that 10 years, did he ever have his doctor and the manufacturer try to correct the defective implant?  Or did he enjoy the fruit of the aberration while suing?

This is certainly a case where I can’t decide what’s more appropriate: pointing and laughing, or feeling sorry for him.  You decide.

He is the last of his kind, at least in this particular colony.

He stands guard ready to challenge other males of his species.  There will be no such challenges for there are no other males.  He is the sole remaining example of these gargantuans.  He is diligent in his resolve to protect his space from enemies that will never come.

He stands ready to propagate his species, to continue the family line with available females.  There are no such females.  The last one perished just in the last 24 hours.  If he did not mate before then, he will never have another opportunity.

He alone protects the now sleeping children, the last traces of his generation, and the offspring of his colony.  They are children he will never know and will never see.  Safely entombed in the ground, they will sleep for a year before taking up the dance he alone dances.

He is the last bastion of a now dying race whose hopes rest solely in the ground he surveys from time to time as he answers his own genetic programming by still giving chase to anything that floats or flies by him.  Because there are no others, he now wrestles only with time as he awaits his own end.

He is the lone witness to the life and death struggle of his kin, members of this vast colony of life who have already expended what little time they had on this planet.  With so many burrows scattered about, one can only hope he shared in the brief tumult that is their existence.  If he did not, he never will.

He is alone now.  There will be no others before he dies.  The purpose of his life can no longer be fulfilled, so he stands alone waiting for death to embrace him.  He will die alone unlike the rest of his brethren.

Watching him guard a territory now devoid of his species, I wonder if he is lonely.  Perhaps I am projecting human emotions on this creature.  Perhaps.  One can not help but feel isolation and solitude when looking at him.

Seeing his last days in the barren landscape that once gave rise to a great many of his siblings causes me to feel for him insomuch as his last moments will be alone.  I do not know how much longer he can survive, but I do know he will spend these final days waiting for death, and the wait will stand upon his aloneness.

He watches me as I watch him.  I am now able to get close enough that I can see his head moving to follow my actions.  A part of me weeps for him.  It was only a few weeks ago that his kind filled the air and ground all about me.  It was only a few days ago that others of his kind still came and went.  It was just yesterday that the last remaining female arrived to finalize her nest, her hope for future generations, before she finally left never again to return.

And now he is alone.  Alone waiting for his own death.  It is the same unstoppable end responsible for wiping out everyone he ever knew.  He is alone.  Just alone.  And that is how he will die.