Richard Leakey has the vapors

Someone get him a towel.

NAIROBI, Kenya - One of the world's leading paleontologists denounced Ethiopia's decision to send the Lucy skeleton on a six-year tour of the United States, warning Friday that the 3.2 million-year-old fossil will likely be damaged no matter how careful its handlers are.

..."It's a form of prostitution, it's gross exploitation of the ancestors of humanity and it should not be permitted," Leakey told The Associated Press in an interview at his office in Nairobi.

It's really easy for white people from wealthy countries to make statements like this. Kenya has a resource that could earn them lots of money, money that they could really use. If you're so worried about Kenya whoring out their fossils, how about working to ensure that they're not that ass broke in the first place?

No, it's easier to blame the Africans. Leakey has a similar obsession with shooting poachers. Now poaching is particularly odious in my opinion, and certianly a threat to Africa's endangered wildlife species. However, shooting poachers on the spot is fucked up, and bound to be much less effective than helping the native people so that they're not so poor - or have so little opportunity to do anything else - that they have to sell ivory or eat bushmeat or whatever.

It's hard not to notice that poachers are only shot on sight in countries where black people are doing the poaching.