Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
its habitat and documented its secret location. The rare plant had a
bulbous shape on top, like “W. C. Fields’s proboscis,” as he circum­
spectly described it for general audiences, right before the shocking
image was flashed on screen. A botanist at the California Academy
of Sciences had already confirmed that the plant was not in the tax­
onomy, and he coauthored a paper with Moff, which was sent to a re­
spected journal for peer review. After the paper was published, Moff
said, the plant would officially be known as Balanophora moffet­
torum, named after both Heidi and him, who were soon going to
marry. Moff proudly published a scientific article in Weird Plant
Morphology, and Weekly World News did a huge spread on the dis­
covery, complete with testimony from happy middle-aged women.
The episode of Junglemaniacs! on which Moff and Heidi ap­
peared was widely watched; the night before it aired, they had been
on Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman had started the
interview by remarking that Moff and Heidi looked positively “radi­
ant.” He leaned in close, as a confidant might. “Could it be the
aphrodisiac plant you’ve just discovered?” Moff laughed and said
there was no scientific evidence that the plant had any effects on li­
bido, performance, or stamina. But a bit of probing from Letterman
led him to divulge that some people, in service to science, had
bravely subjected themselves to experiments over a period of two
months. The “empirical findings” were merely anecdotal, hardly sci­
entific; however, they suggested—did not prove, mind you—that
consumers could enhance and maintain “reproductive-oriented ac­
tivity” for days, and most interesting of all, the plant was equally ef­
fective for women, if not more so. Headlines in the media ran the
gamut from “Women Say: It’s About Time” to “Church Leaders Fear
Rise in Infidelity.” To assess potential medical benefits, a start-up
was formed with venture capitalists, and some of the profits were
promised to the tribe. “God is great,” chanted the twins. “It’s a mir­
acle,” cried their grandmother.
436