“Deer problem” is a human problem, too

by Kelly Walsh, Alestle copy editor

Kelly Walsh

I was sitting outside Alumni Hall the other day and overheard two people talking about the “deer problem” on campus.

One person commented that some poor teenager might hit the deer and be killed because they are “overpopulated,” while the other mentioned he couldn’t wait for deer hunting season precisely because of this. Both came to the conclusion that something must be done about them, as the amount hunted and killed during the appropriated days was simply not enough.

By the “deer problem” I suppose they mean the fact that humans built a university campus on top of the land the deer lived on before us.

At the risk of being called a “treehugger”, the notion that we, as humans, should take prevalence over every area we set foot on and get rid of any previous occupants, sounds dangerously familiar. No doubt the vehicles we drive and the roads we paved between the trees do indeed get in the way of deer trying to move from one place to another.

Yes, it is dangerous, and the deer as well as the drivers, have to be incredibly cautious to avoid an accident. I guess I just feel like we could use those big developed brains of ours and be as careful as the deer and drive safely.

Deer, for the most part, do not deliberately run into cars. They shy away from human activity. It’s obvious because the only time you can see them on SIUE’s core campus is late at night and early morning.

They do populate areas quickly and live in large numbers. A doe can have one or two fawns at a time, and the gestation period can be up to ten months. However, they do not breed and reproduce all too differently than we did not long ago ourselves.

I don’t belong to PETA, nor do I claim to be a strong conservationist, but I don’t believe it to be far-fetched in calling attention to this unsettling logic – that deer are a pest to be shunned away. I admit that they are larger animals and they do take up space just like us, but, as we’ve seen with the growing endangered species list, it’s not all too rational to shoot them all.

We are the first species in a long time, or perhaps ever, to so drastically dominate and change the environment for ourselves and others. History says our species will most likely be extinct someday as well. So I think we could at least like that recently popular bumper sticker asks — let’s “coexist.”

Anonymous secrets unite an online community

by Kelly Walsh, Alestle copy editor

I had the opportunity to see Frank Warren, founder of PostSecret give a lecture and hold a discussion with audience members on his experience as “America’s most trusted stranger,” Tuesday night in SIUE’s Meridian Ballroom of the Morris University Center,

The PostSecret phenomenon is a project allowing anyone to anonymously send Warren a decorated postcard with his or her untold. The community project really took hold and has spawned into several books and a Web site, which Warren updates every Sunday displaying chosen secrets.

Not being familiar with the project beforehand, I was unsure of what to expect Tuesday night. After a brief description of PostSecret from a friend, I expected to see secrets about funny sexual taboos, common guilt-ridden family issues, etc. However, what I experienced was something much more informative and heart-warming.

I realized how Warren’s PostSecret blog actually turns the common perception of new technology as isolating people on its head. Here this Web site, uses the Internet to form a virtual community. Sometimes Warren uses related secrets to create a dialogue between strangers, showing others they are not alone and helping people in the real world.

Warren also brought to light the overrepresentation of crime and murder in the media. In reality, self-harm is far more serious and prominent problem. Recalling serious statistics of suicide and attempted suicide, Warren explained how letting others unleash these kinds of feelings and seeing others with similar feelings does a great deal of help.

I was surprised by Warren’s laid back attitude and sense of humility, despite being what I see as an almost “saintly” figure. He takes on some pretty heavy confessions from a great number of people.  His project offers positive, non-judgmental, and most importantly, a secular way for the individual to unburden something long stifled.

The time allotted at the end for the audience to ask questions or share a secret moved me the most. After hearing some hilariously honest or tear-jerking stories, I realized how easy it is to become alienated from people within my everyday life simply due to a lack of communication. It really struck me to see something as genuine and positive as real people with real problems reflecting on their feelings in a crowd of strangers.

While the project does reveal a suppressed reality of the dysfunction in everyone’s lives, it was not a negative experience. In fact, it was the first positive connection between strangers I’ve witnessed in a long time, and it gave me a much more optimistic view of the human condition than I believe is generally expressed these days. It was refreshing see a little hope in something as simple as sharing a secret.