“reeled in for questioning”

According to a piece in my local newspaper yesterday, sea lions and dolphins are being trained to by the Navy “to detect and apprehend waterborne attackers” who may be tempted to float by naval bases without benefit of a boat.
The piece, reflecting what was reported here, goes on to say that

…sea lions have been trained to carry special “cuffs” in their mouths, attached to long ropes. If the animal discovers what the Navy calls a “rogue swimmer,” the arresting sea lion officer can clamp the cuff around the swimmer’s leg. “The individual can then be reeled in for questioning…”

I’m just thinking — suppose those sea creatures are even more intelligent than we supposed. What if they decide we’re not the good guys.
My local paper also had a short article (also reported here) about a partially mummified man’s body being found in a chair in front of his still-on television set. Apparently he had been dead for more than a year. A report from someone about a burst pipe brought police to the residence. What a world!
And, tucked onto the travel page is a bit about the city of Paris starting it’s own blog, www.voiceofacity.com, where 10 Parisians give visitors their insiders view of the City of Light.
And now, back to the “what a world!” perspective, here in New York State, the number of moral conduct cases against teachers has doubled over the past five years. Full story here.
They say that all kinds of “immoral” conduct has always gone on, only there weren’t the kinds of mass media capacities for instantaneous comunication before. And mistreated individuals feel freer to speak up these days. Maybe that’s all true, but I still think we are a civilization on the downslide, taking with us the natural processes that keep this planet alive. We are doing our part to rev up the Big Entropy on the way to the Big Whimper.

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