Seal Slaughter and Mohammad Cartoons

I haven't posted anything for a number of weeks and have considered abandoning this blog because, after all, should anyone really care what I think of anything? Well, maybe a couple of people do, but there are many pundits out there who can do a better job of analysing events and ideas. I'm below the background noise. However that may be, I do like to organize my thoughts and getting them down "on paper", so to speak, helps.

I caught the latter half of Larry King Live a few night's back. He interviewed Paul and Heather McCartney along with Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland, on the subject of the seal hunt. Every year we have the visit of a celebrity or two decrying the hunt, citing the barbarity of the slaughter and appealing to the world to boycott Canadian products and so on and so forth. Williams pointed out that the seal herd was healthy and not endangered, seals had almost tripled in number since the '70's, there are strict guidelines on the method of killing, there is a quota. He cited three environmental organizations including the World Wildlife Fund who have given their approval to the Canadian regulations. I am no fan of Danny Williams, but sometimes you have to give the devil his due and in this case I think he's right. He made his case rather well when he was able to speak, because Heather continually and rudely interupted. Paul seemed to be somewhat vacant; obviously his wife was the driving force. When Williams invited them to Newfoundland to gather the facts for themselves, Paul replied that he was already there when in fact he was in Prince Edward Island.

People in the middle classes and those without financial care are prone to moralize on the behaviour of the less favoured. Those who hunt seals are generally marginal fishermen seeking to implement their income. I'm sure they don't do it for pleasure. It's dirty work and dangerous.

All slaughter is cruel, not just seal killing. I'm told that when cattle are slaughtered, a spike is driven into their heads to paralyse them after which they are bled to death upside down. It improves the quality of the meat. (This is second hand info, so if someone wants to correct me. please do so.) Cattle, however, are not cute and cuddly, so there are no loud protests. I'm surprised that no one protests the slaughter of lambs. Lambs are cute.

I thought we had heard the last of the furor over the cartoons of the Prophet, but no, yesterday another group of jerks justified publication on the grounds of free speech. And they held a march. Free speech my arse! It's needless provocation. What's the point? There are limits to free speech. There are laws on libel, and there are penalties. There are laws on hate literature, and there are penalties. Do these people realize that dozens of people have died because of these cartoons? Ok, so they are crazy fanatics, but do even fools deserve to die? I notice that most of these jerks seem to have a right wing flavour about them, which is certainly the case with the Western Standard magazine, which "would not be cowed" into not publishing the cartoons. Yeah, knock the chip off my shoulder. Infantile.