Santa Nailed to a Cross : Shifting Baselines

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Jennifer Jacquet is a Ph.D. candidate with the Sea Around Us Project at the UBC Fisheries Centre. She works closely with Dr. Daniel Pauly, who coined the term Shifting Baselines, the syndrome on which this blog focuses.
Josh Donlan is a conservation scientist and a Visting Fellow at Cornell University. He often hides out in the backcountry of the Teton Mountains, pondering bygone giant beavers and ground sloths. He also is also the founder and Director of Advanced Conservation Strategies and has a habit of restoring remote islands.

Scientist turned filmmaker Randy Olson, founder of the Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project is also a blog contributor.

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November 2008 Jennifer Jacquet is lead author of the study In hot soup: sharks captured in Ecuador's waters published in Environmental Sciences.

November 27, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet gives the talk "Why Consumers Alone Can't Save Our Fish" at 1pm at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C.

August 2008: Josh Donlan is co-author on a new paper titled Integrating invasive mammal eradications and biodiversity offsets for fisheries bycatch: conservation opportunities and challenges for seabirds and sea turtles published in Biological Invasions.

August 2008: Jennifer Jacquet is co-author on a new paper titled Funding Priorities: Big Barriers to Small-Scale Fisheries published in Conservation Biology.

August 2008: Josh Donlan is an author on a new paper in Journal of Applied Ecology titled Diversity, invasive species, and extinctions in insular ecosystems.

July 26, 2008: Randy Olson's film Sizzle premieres on the East Coast at the Woods Hole Film Festival in MA.

July 24, 2008: Josh Donlan gives a talk on biodiversity offsets to The Alcoa Foundation and the Alcao Intalco Aluminum Plant in Bellingham, Washington.

July 22, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet gives the talk "A Way Forward in a Sea of Market Based Initiatives to Save Wild Fish" at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA.

July 19, 2008: Randy Olson's film Sizzle premieres on the West Coast at Outfest in Hollywood, CA.

July 17, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet gives the talk "In Hot Soup: Shark's Captured in Ecuador's Waters" at the Society for Conservation Biology Annual Meeting in Chattanooga, TN.

July 9, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet gives the talk "Flawed Data, Reef Fisheries, And Food Security: A Close Inspection Of Marine Fisheries Catches in Mozambique, Tanzania, Fiji, And The Solomon Islands" at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

June/July 2008: Josh Donlan attends training for his Kinship Conservation Fellowship in Bellingham, WA.

May 2008: Josh Donlan is an author on a new paper in Ambio titled High impact Conservation: Invasive Mammal Eradications from the Islands of Western Mexico.

May 15, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet reviews Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood at the Tyee.

April 2008: Trade Secrets: Renaming and Mislabeling of Seafood by Jennifer Jacquet and Daniel Pauly is published in Marine Policy.

April 2008: Randy Olson and the Puget Sound Partnership release the flash video Shifting Baselines in the Sound:.

Mar. 2008: Dr. Josh Donlan joins the Shifting Baselines blog.

Jan. 2008 Jennifer Jacquet launches the Eat Like a Pig Seafood Wallet Card

« This Christmas, Pass the Jumbo Lump | Main | From Randy Olson: What, in the Name of Christmas, Has Happened to Us? »

Santa Nailed to a Cross

Category: What the...?
Posted on: December 24, 2007 8:21 PM, by Jennifer L. Jacquet

In the true spirit of Christmas, a man in Bremerton, Washington nailed Santa to a cross in his front yard. Horrible? Gruesome? Repulsive? Art Conrad says his crucified Santa is an artistic piece condemning the commercialization of Christmas. His neighbors are more disturbed, though, by the headless carol-singing Santa on Conrad's front porch...

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Comments

As an atheist, I think Christmas is all about getting together with your family, eating some good food, and exchanging gifts. Does anyone seriously think about its religious meaning anymore?

Posted by: JJ | December 24, 2007 10:21 PM

Certainly every nativity scene and almost every Christmas carol sung, every church sermon tomorrow, every Midnight Mass tonight, everyone watching It's A Wonderful Life, and every angel on Christmas treetops would allow even the worst investigator to conclude that, in addition to the consumption and the family togetherness, there was indeed religious symbolism and meaning (whether it trumps presents, though, is still under inquiry).

Posted by: Jennifer L. Jacquet | December 24, 2007 11:13 PM

JJ -- there are two Christmases nowadays. There is the Christian holiday, and then there is American Consumer Christmas, an entirely secular holiday. Some people gleefully conflate the two, but there really isn't much need to.

-Rob

Posted by: Rob Knop | December 25, 2007 10:05 AM

I'm not sure what the difference is if it's Santa hanging there or some guy scantily dressed with long hair? It's actually stupid and repulsive at any rate.

Posted by: Lee Zehrer | December 25, 2007 10:12 AM

Since when does everyone's opinion count? Why not let everyone celebrate Christmas the want they want to as opposed to the way you think they should? If people want to commercialize it, then so what?

Posted by: Kevin | December 25, 2007 12:30 PM

As an atheist, I find Christmas pretty safe since it has become completely commercialized.

That said, I would not celebrate it if my family didn't expect it.

Posted by: Milan | December 25, 2007 7:02 PM