Successful Parasites

A successful parasite does not kill its host

This started out to be a simple rant about humans killing off the earth we live on. Not exactly a strict parasitic relationship, but the metaphor was working for me. Of course I had to start by googling "successful parasite" to try to find some definitions.

I found out two things:

One:  When we talk about parasites as humans, I assumed  we were comparing humans to leeches.  the word origin is the opposite.  According to my New Shorter Oxford English dictionary, the word parasite derives from the greek parasitus, feeding beside, a  person who feeds at the table of another. No mention of plants or animals until the third definition.  It was the leeches who were being insulted by being compared to those ancient Greek freeloaders, not the other way around.


If you want to learn a bunch about the animal kind of parasite,  Parasites: Tales of Humanity’s Most Unwelcome Guests By Rosemary Drisdelle seems like a good bet.  You can learn more about it here: http://www.rosemarydrisdelle.com/?page_id=10


Parasites might have a strict definition in biology, but when we get into metaphor everybody has their favorite candidate for parasites.

Besides people who come to your house and eat your food without reciprocating, I learned that the banking system is parasitic, unions are parasites, democrats are parasites, rich people are parasites, poor people are parasites, corporations are parasites. The more nuanced posts differentiate  between the parasites that benefit their hosts and those that sicken or even destroy their hosts.  This was my favorite among them:  http://www.endtheillusion.org/economic/parasites.htm

So those two sites do a better job than I could at explaining it all, but here is my rant anyway:   All you parasites who are sucking all the juice out of the planet STOP IT RIGHT NOW. You are bad parasites and you won't have a host left if you are not careful.

Looking at rose colored glasses through Rose Colored Glasses

I have often been accused of looking at the world through rose colored glasses.  At least once this turned out to be a good thing.

Back in the 80's, I worked as a teacher in Ponce, Puerto Rico. The English language school recruited heavily from New York and New Jersey. We took the jobs figuring that the adventure compensated for the really low pay. The school hired us figuring  that our ability to speak American accented English compensated for our inexperience.  The first year teachers banded together each year in search of cheap adventure.  

One of the first forays was a trip to the island of Culebra, three pale teachers and my equally pale significant other. We drove to Fajardo and took the ferry, planning on finding a cheap room when we got there, but willing to sleep on the beach if we had too. Two days of white sand beaches, snorkeling and exotic foods.   It wasn't expensive, but it was enough to seriously cut into our resources.

Waiting for the ferry, I spotted a pair of sunglasses on sale-- big round rose-colored glasses. My significant other pointed out that they were pretty useless as sunglasses and tried to talk me into a pair I couldn't afford. UV protection, he said.  I can afford these, I said.

BUT, these sunglasses were magical. When we arrived at the white sand beach, I put them on and I saw that everyone was sunburned. I took them off, no visible sunburn, back on and there were big patches of bright pink and red skin. It was very simple -- the cheap pink/red lenses made everything that was white look pink. The paler something was, the brighter pink it would appear. I could look at you through those glasses and tell you exactly where you would burn and how bad it would be. I drove us into the shade before lunch and made everyone cover themselves with towels and shirts.

The next morning everyone was sunburned exactly as I had seen it the day before, but at least we were pink and not red. Worth every penny, and besides, I looked really cool in them.