After this post, I will blog no more about the donkeys, forever!

On Friday I was in the Parker Ranch Store in Waimea. I checked out the photographic prints for sale. One photographer (I won't mention the name, mostly because I can't remember it) had little stickers on the back of each print saying (something like) "I don't enhance my photos. They show the world just as God made it."

All weekend this irritated me, in no small part because I Photoshop the bejesus out of my own prints. My reactions, in no particular order:

1. Well, La-di-frickin'-da for you!
2. Don't you see that the act of taking a photograph, in and of itself, is an editing of nature?
3. It's obvious from the color of the sky that you used a polarizing lens. I guess it all depends on what the meaning of "enhance" is.
4. I'm sure that God is very grateful to have someone who doesn't "enhance" his handiwork. Must be nice for Him.

But enough about non-donkey-related subjects. Back to the donkeys. Last time.

The thing was, the donkeys had no defense. They aren't endangered, at least not in the legal sense. (although in the common-sense use of endangered, they surely were, and in fact are now beyond endangerment) They're alien, though not really any more alien than I am. We couldn't use the laws protecting native species to protect them. And the Hawaiians didn't like them. Their hooves wreck petroglyphs. They really do. So all the donkeys had on their side were a few people who thought it was cool to have wild donkeys living out on bare lava, running free. In short, they were doomed. I wrote to Patsy Mink pointing out that donkeys were the symbol of the Democrats, and Patsy bought them a couple years. But now Patsy's well, as dead as the donkey herds. And now I have beaten this dead uh, horse, to the end.