Topper (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} toppercub) wrote,@ 2009-05-28 19:52:00 |
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I *Heart* You, Michaelle!
One of the things I've had a hard time with lately is conflict. Conflict, of course, is almost inevitable, but there just seems to be so much of it lately. I simply have no capacity to listen to arguing, especially because lately it's become fashionable to hyperbolize the character of your opponent until they become Satan himself. Look -- Supreme Court Justice Nominee Sotomayor is a racist! Arlen Specter is a traitor (although it's hard to betray a cause you don't believe in)! The Canadian Governor General is an Arab wife beater!
"But Topper," you muse as you settle into your wing-back chair holding a brandy snifter. "WTF?"
Well, here's the story: in case you didn't know it, the EU recently banned seal products. OK. For me, this is not really high on my list of nail-bitingly worrisome policies, but if you live in a community where seal hunting is your livelihood, I guess I can see the problem. Anyway, in a show of solidarity with her country's Inuit population, Governor General Michaelle Jean sliced open a freshly-slaughtered seal and ate a chunk of its heart. It may be that she was telling the truth when she said that it was "delicious" -- maybe she was being diplomatic. Note that this was not a baby seal, and it was killed with a gun, not with the vicious pronged harpoons that could be used.
Environmental groups, PETA, and other animal rights groups were quick to slap a few lables on the GG. "The fact that the governor-general in public is slashing and eating a seal [...] I'm convinced that this will not change the mind of European citizens and politicians," declared Barbara Slee, an anti-seal hunt campaigner at the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Brussels.
"It sounds like [Her Excellency] is trying to give Canadians an even more Neanderthal image than they already have," said Dan Mathews, Senior Vice President of PETA. Further, his group went on to equate the GG's actions as being like "taking part in the beating of women in the Middle East because it is part of local practice."
Now you wait just a minute, Campaigner Slee and Senior Vice President Mathews. Let's stop a moment and get a grip on reality. A few facts....
1) Her Excellency did not run after a seal and slash it like she was the Bride of Chucky. First, it was cleanly shot. Then, she butchered it, which is a lot better than what happened to the cow that wound up in your Big Mac.
2) Animal organs and viscera are eaten all the time. Sometimes the dish is blatantly described (liver and onions) and other times they are coyly camouflaged as another word (giblet gravy...which is served in school lunches).
3) As often as I encounter stocky, furry men in Toronto, it has never crossed my mind to call Canadians "Neanderthals." I don't think anyone in the world has that conception.
4) Killing a seal and eating its heart is killing a seal and eating its heart. Beating a woman is beating a woman. They are not the same and you know it. Furthermore, suffering and cruelty (perceived or actual) are not currencies against which you can judge other actions. You can't say "Beating a woman is worth three seal killings." That's a spurious argument meant to invoke an emotional response, hopefully the same response you feel when you see video of a woman being beaten.
So you see, people, let's call things what they are. If you find what she did disgusting on its face, that's fine. Frankly, eating fresh seal heart makes my stomach twist, but on the other hand we slaughter, gut, and eat animals by the millions every day. To infer that the GG is evil or less than honorable because of what she did is flat wrong.
And one other thing: I believe that all living things should be treated ethically. Animal consumption, while wrong for many people, is nevertheless something humans do and have done for centuries. There's a right way to treat animals and there's a wrong way. I believe that if a seal hunt takes place it should do so in a way that does not allow the seals to suffer inhumanely. Granted, a quick death sure would make some seal's day pretty bad, but I think that humanely killing a seal for consumption is the same as killing a cow or a chicken.
Finally, a big BRAVO and hollow clapping to the Toronto Star for the most shameless bit of yellow journalism I've ever read. Here's the first paragraph from the original article (linked to above):
"First she gutted it. Then she had the heart pulled
out of its furry, flabby carcass. Finally, she swallowed
a slice of the mammal's dripping organ."
You know, it's funny...when I talk about "dripping organs", a seal's heart isn't what I mean. In any event, this article was deliberately written to make the GG sound like a ghoul and you know it. Shame on you.
One of the things I've had a hard time with lately is conflict. Conflict, of course, is almost inevitable, but there just seems to be so much of it lately. I simply have no capacity to listen to arguing, especially because lately it's become fashionable to hyperbolize the character of your opponent until they become Satan himself. Look -- Supreme Court Justice Nominee Sotomayor is a racist! Arlen Specter is a traitor (although it's hard to betray a cause you don't believe in)! The Canadian Governor General is an Arab wife beater!
"But Topper," you muse as you settle into your wing-back chair holding a brandy snifter. "WTF?"
Well, here's the story: in case you didn't know it, the EU recently banned seal products. OK. For me, this is not really high on my list of nail-bitingly worrisome policies, but if you live in a community where seal hunting is your livelihood, I guess I can see the problem. Anyway, in a show of solidarity with her country's Inuit population, Governor General Michaelle Jean sliced open a freshly-slaughtered seal and ate a chunk of its heart. It may be that she was telling the truth when she said that it was "delicious" -- maybe she was being diplomatic. Note that this was not a baby seal, and it was killed with a gun, not with the vicious pronged harpoons that could be used.
Environmental groups, PETA, and other animal rights groups were quick to slap a few lables on the GG. "The fact that the governor-general in public is slashing and eating a seal [...] I'm convinced that this will not change the mind of European citizens and politicians," declared Barbara Slee, an anti-seal hunt campaigner at the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Brussels.
"It sounds like [Her Excellency] is trying to give Canadians an even more Neanderthal image than they already have," said Dan Mathews, Senior Vice President of PETA. Further, his group went on to equate the GG's actions as being like "taking part in the beating of women in the Middle East because it is part of local practice."
Now you wait just a minute, Campaigner Slee and Senior Vice President Mathews. Let's stop a moment and get a grip on reality. A few facts....
1) Her Excellency did not run after a seal and slash it like she was the Bride of Chucky. First, it was cleanly shot. Then, she butchered it, which is a lot better than what happened to the cow that wound up in your Big Mac.
2) Animal organs and viscera are eaten all the time. Sometimes the dish is blatantly described (liver and onions) and other times they are coyly camouflaged as another word (giblet gravy...which is served in school lunches).
3) As often as I encounter stocky, furry men in Toronto, it has never crossed my mind to call Canadians "Neanderthals." I don't think anyone in the world has that conception.
4) Killing a seal and eating its heart is killing a seal and eating its heart. Beating a woman is beating a woman. They are not the same and you know it. Furthermore, suffering and cruelty (perceived or actual) are not currencies against which you can judge other actions. You can't say "Beating a woman is worth three seal killings." That's a spurious argument meant to invoke an emotional response, hopefully the same response you feel when you see video of a woman being beaten.
So you see, people, let's call things what they are. If you find what she did disgusting on its face, that's fine. Frankly, eating fresh seal heart makes my stomach twist, but on the other hand we slaughter, gut, and eat animals by the millions every day. To infer that the GG is evil or less than honorable because of what she did is flat wrong.
And one other thing: I believe that all living things should be treated ethically. Animal consumption, while wrong for many people, is nevertheless something humans do and have done for centuries. There's a right way to treat animals and there's a wrong way. I believe that if a seal hunt takes place it should do so in a way that does not allow the seals to suffer inhumanely. Granted, a quick death sure would make some seal's day pretty bad, but I think that humanely killing a seal for consumption is the same as killing a cow or a chicken.
Finally, a big BRAVO and hollow clapping to the Toronto Star for the most shameless bit of yellow journalism I've ever read. Here's the first paragraph from the original article (linked to above):
"First she gutted it. Then she had the heart pulled
out of its furry, flabby carcass. Finally, she swallowed
a slice of the mammal's dripping organ."
You know, it's funny...when I talk about "dripping organs", a seal's heart isn't what I mean. In any event, this article was deliberately written to make the GG sound like a ghoul and you know it. Shame on you.
