Just yesterday, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environment located a seal on the streets of New Haven. Seemingly only a few weeks old, the Mystic Aquarium’s Animal Rescue program rescued the seal from the streets and will be nursing him back to health until he can be released into the wild. While we in the Opinion Section are grateful that he has been rescued, we can’t help but wonder, how in the world did he get to New Haven? This week, the Opinion Section speculates on his path to the city.
Evelyn Pazan, Associate Opinion Editor: Troubled by the recently announced National Institute of Health research funding cuts, I think that the seal galumphed his way to Yale to organize a protest. Despite being only a few weeks old, even the seal knows that this is unacceptable.
Patrick Minnerly, Weekly Columnist: Who are we to speculate why the seal ended up in New Haven? Us, mere mortals? The seal’s goals are beyond our pitiful, shortsighted understanding. However, if we are going to speculate, perhaps the seal was sent on a divine quest by his gods. Consider the very name of New Haven – a term rife with religious connotations. Perhaps there exist texts we have not yet found from the seals, proclaiming New Haven as a place of holy pilgrimage. In making the treacherous journey to the city, the seal has fulfilled his destiny to worship a higher power.
Tomas Hinckley, Opinion Editor: This is actually a glitch in the program. We can clearly see that as reality generally has become more absurd, that the simulation is starting to decay and break down. The seal was an accidental spawn error in which the wrong character model was dropped in New Haven. It’s all an illusion. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
Isaac Grad, Staff Writer: Wind.