A Letter to President Barack Obama

A handwritten version of this letter is going in the mail tomorrow morning.

Dear President Obama,

Congratulations on your re-election as President of the United States. The results on Election Night gave me a renewed sense of hope for our country and our world. I have thought about writing you a few times over the past four years, but this letter that I write to you today is not about me. It’s about “a civilization of creatures who have never attacked us, who only show us kindness, and who have no defense against us: they are dolphins, porpoises, and whales.”*

A petition signed by over half a million people will be delivered to you, Vice President Biden, and the Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. regarding the dolphins, porpoises, and whales that swim near Japan. These beautiful, intelligent creatures don’t belong to Japan. They don’t belong to anyone. They don’t belong in captivity. They do belong in the ocean.

They do not deserve to inhumanely die by human hands in Taiji's killing "cove."

And yet, this is happening in 2012 and will continue to happen unless we, the people of the world, do something about it. And we are.

Mr. President, I am asking you, as our World Leader and as the Voice of the People, to please work with the Japanese government to end the senseless slaughter in Taiji, Japan.

In your final campaign speech in Iowa, you said, “Don't let anybody tell you your voice can't make a difference.” I took your words to heart and am now using my voice to speak on behalf of the dolphins, porpoises, and whales.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, Mr. President. I know you have a lot on your plate – believe me, I know. But as Captain Paul Watson has said, "If the oceans die, we die! It is as simple as that and, thus, to me, there is no cause more important."

Let’s move the country forward, and let’s move the world forward. Please help stop the killing and live capture of dolphins, whales, and porpoises in Taiji.

Sincerely,
Allison Cabellon
New York, NY

*Quote from "I am a Cove Guardian." Please click here to watch.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

Good morning, world. It is 6:45 AM Eastern on Monday, November 5, 2012. Around 11:45 PM last night -- though the cove was blue in Taiji (that is, a good day for dolphins) -- I could not stop thinking about why Yahoo has not stopped selling dolphin and whale meat when Amazon.com permanently did so. I don't want to go into the entire back story on this blog entry, but what you should know is that I was writing a note to someone who could possibly provide me with advice on bringing about change, and when I went to reference something on my Twitter, what I saw -- or rather, what I didn't see -- floored me. So take a look at the two images below:

1. A screen shot of my Twitter conversation with Yahoo-related Twitter accounts and Yahoo Care's response to me on October 25, 2012:


2. And now, here's what it looked like as of midnight and still looks like today:


Yahoo Care removed their response to me! Don't believe my screen shot? Click here to see it on Twitter. You'll see I had good sense to make a record of it with my RT of what Yahoo Care wrote to me, just in case. Now the "just in case" is a reality.

Please note that on Thursday, November 1, I made a follow-up inquiry to Yahoo on my Twitter.

.@yahoocare @yahoo Any update from bit.ly/TELfC7 team re: chn.ge/S4e0Hn petition? 129,273 signed. #tweet4taiji @seashepherd

— Allison Cabellon (@avgc) November 1, 2012

So, sometime between that question on Thursday and Sunday night, the Yahoo Care team removed their tweet to me.

WHY?

I can't get that question out of my head now... WHY?

Allison

P.S. If you have not already, sign the petition on Change.org. More than any other petition right now, I want this victory. I won't give up.