Friday, March 17, 2006

Rant. Long rant. But hell, it's Friday

Disclaimer: This post contains material that some might find offensive. Sorry, but there you go.

Oh, I love this one. A no doubt lovely American family (the McLellans – Ann, Pam, Nancy and Dale) recently sent a letter to every member of the Canadian Senate – perhaps thinking that, like the American senate they have some sort of power. Unfortunately for them, the Canadian senate is simply a place you park your old cronies to reward them for services rendered, but again, as usual, I digress.


As I was saying, this letter as sent to the Senate to protest seal hunting in Canada. Once again, the hunt is making us the pariah of the western world. Couple of weeks ago it was Paul McCartney posing with a whitecoat (you know, those cute babies with the big black eyes and white fur?), which, by the way are not the seals which are hunted. But l’m not gonna rant on millionaire celebrities who pick causes for photo ops and know nothing about what’s going on – and show it by their stupid half assed comments about well, then, if there's nothing else there, the people should just move and… shaddap Jazz.

So Tusday the McLellans – well known of course for their political activism no doubt, somewhere, maybe – announced in a letter to every member of the Canadian senate that they were canceling their holidays to Canada because of the Atlantic seal hunt, a practice they find horrible and inhumane. They noted that they had cancelled a vacation last year for that reason and were thinking of coming back this year but wouldn’t if the seal hunt wasn’t cancelled – 'cause the McLellans, they have some big time political clout I suppose. That’s $8000 bucks Canada is losing – granted it’s $8000 US, which might be enough to float the whole country for a couple of months if worse comes to worse.

They go on to say that they have a lot of respect for Canada because their ancestors are from here (um is that seriously a valid reason for respect?) but the seal hunt goes against everything the like about Canada, they want us to do what’s right and stop the horrible massacre of innocent seals.

One senator, Céline Hervieux-Payette answered them. She did get a tad bitchy about people getting into crap that is none of their business though. She said that what she finds horrible about the US is the daily massacre of innocent people in Irak, the execution of prisoners (mostly blacks) in American prisons, the massive sale of firearms to citizens and the destabilization of the planet by the aggressive US foreign policy*.

She also informed them that the seal hunt is a part of the basic economy of the coastal areas, whether for natives or whites and that the hunt is not recreational, contrary, for instance to deer and moose hunting – which so many Americans come here to do. It’s an activity which allows entire populations to stay in an area where there are basically no other commercially viable activities.

So why doesn't the McLellan family bitch about that? OK, I admit it!! A moose is way less cute than a whitecoat (which, dare I repeat it haven't been hunted since the early 80s). Apparently, Ms. McLellan sent an email to a paper here saying that if we refuse to stop the seal hunt, we should, at the very least, euthanize the animals before killing them… Euthanize? Isn’t that killing them? Last time I checked a dictionary euthanization = killing, get your definitions right, Ann. Oh, I guess she wants us to give them a shot to put them under before we kill them, all 300,000 of them. Yeah, uh huh, that’s gonna happen. We'll get on it right away. *shakes head* Shall we also euthanize all the cows, chickens, pigs killed in American slaughterhouses? Don't they deserve a little respect too? Nah, not cute enough I guess. And what about the Norwegian whale hunt?

Now, the fact that the seals number 5.8 million (three times the population of the 70, when Brigitte Bardot went ballistic over the hunt) and that only 325,000 of them are culled per year isn’t mentioned. You’d think Canada is getting ready to kill every seal in the northern hemisphere. Course, if the seal hunt is stopped, maybe we can go hunt Americans, ‘cause we Canadians are evil dontcha know.

All facetiousness aside, it really pisses me off how people think they can just waltz in and tell others what to do even without the facts and figures. And this goes for the seal hunt as well as any number of other issues around the world. If you're gonna choose a cause, why not that of excision in africa, of women's rights in Pakistan where girls reglarly get acid thrown in their faces if they don't live up to the in-law's standards, or where girls are given over to pay debts and end up raped and abused? Oh right!!! That's UGLY. That's no fun! Damn, how stupid of me.

Signed: Jazz, obviously having a hard time giving up the sarcasm.


* the term is courtesy of my friend ChooChoo because I couldn't for the life of me think of what it was in English - being a nasty immoral French wench and all. ;-)

1 comment:

Hageltoast said...

hmm, actually, I agree, but then I am a carniverous beast who raised cute little lambsies and helped make sure they drank their milk just to stick em in the oven six months later. mwahahahahhaha, perhaps I should be canadian. ;)
My personal rant, people who are vegetarian on principle and think we could rear cattle just for milk and sheep just for wool, erm, the cost of shearing is far more than the price of wool and what about all the bull calves, they'd be shot at birth if no one ate beef. ok ok, this is your soap box, getting off now.