Friday report - and asking a favor
First, before rambling on about nothing, I want to ask a favor. I was going to listen to Paul and Heather McCartney on Larry King but they were talking about clubbing seals and trying to stop a specific hunt about to happen in Canada. They were showing all kinds of video of it and I couldn't handle watching it. But Humane Society is also fighting this and is asking people to sign this petition. They have a countdown to the hunt - 25 days, however many hours and minutes. So, time is crucial for them to stop such a cruel and barbaric practice. PLEASE sign it. I can't handle hearing about cruelty, whether to people or animals, and am adamantly against any kind of hunting and government sanctioned torture! There's so much of it in the world, and I try to shield myself from hearing about it because I can't do one thing about it than sign these petitions and pray people won't be so cruel and sadistic. So, I admire the McCartneys and those like them who take action to try to stop these horrid things.
Okay, with that heavy, heart-wrenching plea out of the way, there's really not too much to report again today. Guess I'm going to have to do something to get things moving around here again. I did manage to get out and pay my rent and get my microwave. Beaumont pretty much sucks as a town in a lot of ways, but it's home and people are friendly.
While waiting on a clerk to come to the service desk, I overheard an elderly man talking to his wife about maybe they needed to go back and move the TV and hook it up to the DVD player, etc. Then they turned to me and told me all about their problem, they bought a new DVD and it worked just fine and their TV worked just fine and they couldn't get audio through the TV. They were probably in their 70s. Then they told me how they had stayed together for so long because he was a truck driver and was gone a lot, and how maybe having five kids and neither would have wanted full custody of those kids -- they lived in Jasper and their daughter called from Orange where they were supposed to have met up to go dancing, but they had decided not to go. Really nice couple, years of love and affection was so obvious. And they were as open and friendly as you would want to meet.
Then there was a man, probably about my age, commented about his kids, and would be glad when they were moved out and I commented how I missed mine. He explained he had a late life child who was now 15 and was giving him a run for his money. Funny, you talk to people in these situations, learn more about them than you know about your next door neighbor.
Anyway, there was so much traffic. I guess construction toward Vidor must have had lanes blocked because I-10 was backed up for miles and I was thankful I wasn't needing to route that way. I always wonder where all the people come from and where they're going. Every street was bustling with people and cars. Well, it is Friday. But it was about 11:00 so, a little early. I was glad to get back home.
This afternoon I was reading all over the net about O'Reilly threatening a caller to his radio show because the caller just mentioned the name Olbermann. Listen to it here. It's not long. Oh, it's a riot! So, I was quite anxious to see Keith Olbermann tonight, and he didn't fail his viewers. He played the clip and commented that by his air time, it had been taken down off O'Reilly's web page. Evidently he has his radio show on his site, but I think you have to have a subscription for it so I don't know. Anyway, I'll try to catch O'Reilly on the rerun tonight and see if he says anything.
Back to my own little world, my little flower seeds are mostly doing pretty good. I've been trying to keep them watered and putting them out in the sun. What's come up so far is tiny. I need to get some pictures soon. There are some that may not come up; but I think I'm going to have more flowers than I'll know what to do with. I might have to enlarge that flower bed maybe sooner than later. In fact, I'm thinking about trying to make one along the fence and then maybe buy some of that black netting cloth that they put on roofs of greenhouses and tack it on the fence to hide that ol' ugly business behind me. Sounds pretty ambitious, doesn't it! I wonder how much my yard man would charge me to dig the bed? Oh, well, it would be exercise. We'll see. At least it's something to think about.
Well, if I'm going to work tonight, guess I better get to it. Talk to you tomorrow.
posted by Lumoto @ 9:28 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Seals are tasty. Put 'em in a pie and eat them all up. Make a jacket or slippers outta the fur and now you got a full belly and warm feet! Now what's wrong with that!
I suppose nothing if your conscious will allow you to bask in your own self-indulgent comforts knowing what the poor unfortunate seals had to endure. But better them than you, right! You didn't feel a thing.
Let me say this -- I do eat beef, chicken, pork and fish (that's about it!) and do have some leather goods, though it's at a bare minimum the more I learn of how these animals are treated. My biggest complaint is the "sport" mentality of a something that inflicts pain and cruelty upon the innocent. There must be a more humane way to deal with these things.
Thanks for your comment.
I am a vegetarian, but I have to say this: Please inform yourself before you go willy-nilly trying to get people to sign petitions for things about which you know very little (and that may just be stretching it).
If you are worried about animal torture, how about this: If seal hunters don't control the seal populations, the lack of cod stocks in the Atlantic oceans (depleted by foreign trawlers) will allow an even greater number of these adorable creatures to starve and die. But there's no blood or people involved, so I guess that's ok.
Or how about this: Sealers are honest, hard-working folk who participate in an age-old industry that is part of their culture. If we place further sanctions on the hunts, what happens to sealers families? Children? Oh sorry kids, dad can't put food on the table this week because Paul McCartney says so.
Here, seal is eaten seasonally... every year my mother participates in a charity-based seal-flipper dinner that is hosted by one of the many local churches... The money goes back into the community. Furthermore, seal oils are used to cure the protective clothing that is so needed in harsh northern climates.
But then again, those seals are just so darn cute. Definitely cuter than cows... who cares how much capital is made off their mass slaughters every year.
I've grown weary of the ethnocentrism that continues to allow high-horsed celebrities to nose in on cultural practices that they know absolutely nothing about. The real tragedy of the story is the lack of cod for both the native Newfoundlanders and the seals... but no one wants to cuddle up in a photo with a slimy old fish.
Thanks for the snapshot of your world. Living near the Gulf of Mexico is indeed a world away. It sounds like maybe control of the foreign trawlers might be prudent. Mankind creates all sorts of problems that Nature could handle just fine if left alone.
Of course I realize that we all need some animal bi-products; but as technology increases, like with synthetics, etc, that dependence lessens.
Most assuredly it's all round truly a tragic situation, but regardless, the torture of any living thing should never be allowed, permitted, condoned, sanctioned, excused, no matter how ancient the practice. To say to club it to death so it won't starve to death.... I would hope society could move past barbarism.
If the man must have it to feed, clothe his children and there are no other alternatives, then shoot it in the head, quick and sudden death. I would guess that the situation of choice of starving opposed to hunting is rare.
Where I live hunters are far too plentiful (Texas). All with their rifles in their racks in their big pickup trucks and bragging what game they shot. They paid a fortune for hunting leases and are in absolutely no fear of starving to death, and even go to these canned hunts calling themselves sportsmen! I can't stand that mentality! Then they try to say, but the deer are encroaching on the neighborhoods and need to be shot. But at the same time, they hunted wolves to almost extention, allowing the deer population to go unchecked. See? Leave nature alone! Respect nature and try to be part of it instead of analiating it. Why did they have to hunt down the wolves to begin with? Well, that's another issue.
But be that as it may. Nobody is asking me to solve these problems, only to sign a petition of protest every now and then.
Cudos to you for being vegetarian. Maybe one day I'll take that step and do the same.
And for what it's worth, I seriously doubt Humane Society will be able to stop the hunt. I'm sure it's safe for another hundred years.
Most of these seals ARE shot, quickly and efficiently. Regardless, when you club an animal, they are knocked out before they know what is happening.
What is actually inhumane is how the animals filling your own dinner plate are treated.
I would be careful using the word barbaric to describe the practices of another culture. Learn first, judge later.
Also be careful signing anything of which you are uninformed. That includes petitions. Especially if you eat meat... Like they say, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
Indeed, I'm fully aware of the inhumane treatment of our cows and chickens, etc, and if I could change it I would. And yes, I sign petitions for them, too, and I do boycot KFC! If there were a law passed tomorrow that all slaughter houses were to be closed and out of business, I would get me some tomato plants and cheer!
I enjoyed the dabate. Take care.
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