My husband and I debate hunting
And I even let him get the last word.
As always, read from the bottom up.
-----Original Message-----
From: J.
Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 6:10 PM
To: 'Jennifer'
Subject: RE: King Ranch Buck
I would agree that no one should ever kill an animal and not eat it. Rare is the hunter these days that does that. It is highly frowned upon. So let's agree that killing and dumping it is bad.So now we are only talking about people who hunt and eat what they kill. If I eat a deer, that's one less cow that I am eating. It's a pure substitution. They aren't going to kill that cow that I would have eaten and just dump it out on the ground for me since I didn't eat it. My not eating meat for a week is a small effect, but it does have an effect. If everyone ate deer for a month this year, fewer cows would be killed because there just wouldn't be as much demand for meat.
Finally, I think hunting is a fine and noble endeavor. It's a basic human skill that is enjoyable and useful, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. In fact, I think it's preferable to raising animals for slaughter. To say otherwise while wearing the leather and eating the meat of animals you paid someone else to kill for you strikes me as hypocritical. To me it smacks of the kind of moroseness that only the idle rich can achieve because they have time to obsess over such things.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jennifer
Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 5:37 PM
To: J.
Subject: RE: King Ranch BuckDon't confuse rich yuppies hunting in 2004 with being opposed to the death of animals in general. Obviously I can understand the concept of hunting animals for food. I am comfortable with the food chain. The difference is that it is completely unnecessary in this day and age.
You make it sound as if you shoot an animal in the wild that it saves an animal from the slaughterhouse, but it's not a binary choice -- the animal in the slaughterhouse is going to die anyway. Of course I think it's a better life for an animal to live freely and be shot than to live cooped up and then die in a slaughterhouse, but since the animals in slaughterhouses are going to be killed anyway, regardless of whether you go hunting, why not just eat them? Given that more than enough animals are already being killed for food and tons of meat is wasted every day, why destroy one more living being just for amusement? To me it seems wasteful and disrespectful of life.
People in the modern era are incredibly greedy and gluttonous, and I feel like hunting is a prime example of that. Yet in this case it's wasting life rather than just material goods, which seems especially disrespectful.
-----Original Message-----
From: J.
Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 5:33 PM
To: 'Jennifer'
Subject: RE: King Ranch Buck
Jen-I can't believe you are down on hunting. How did our ancestors survive all this time? Were they all just bad people? Is a slaughterhouse better than a gun? Personally, I would rather live freely as a deer and take my chances against a hunter than be a penned up cow slaughtered in a slaughterhouse. Every creature gets hunted by the creatures higher up in the food chain. There are even a few enterprising lions and sea crocodiles that hunt us. Because we live in a society where meat comes in little plastic bags, you have the luxury of being overly sensitive about killing animals to eat their meat.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jennifer
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 6:43 PM
To: Dad
Cc: J.
Subject: RE: King Ranch Buck
I am so opposed to that.
People suck.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dad
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 6:19 AM
To: Jennifer (E-mail)
Cc: J.
Subject: FW: King Ranch Buck
Importance: High
Jen,Heres my point about trophy hunting. I could not bring myself to kill something like this just to show off the rack. The meat on a buck like that would be tough as a boot.
D
-----Original Message-----
From: Alex T.
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 6:45 PM
To: XXXX
Subject: King Ranch Buck
Importance: High
[Picture of large dead buck attached]I WANT ONE!!
Ooh, look at how cute the baby is. NOW!
I never used to be a "baby person." When friends and relatives had babies I thought they were mildly interesting but never gave it much thought other than that. Which is why I'm surprised at how much of a baby person I have become. In fact, with my own baby I have become an aggressive, militant baby person.
It all started when I learned how to use my sling correctly. After the wonderful lady at Special Addition showed me that it was not in fact correct to stuff your baby into the sling in an upside down, sideways position ("Do you think that could that be why he screams every time I put him in it?") I found out how to place him so that only his little head sticks out of the top. Combine that with the fact that I usually have him wear his hat that has a bear face on the front and perky little ears sewn into the top, and you have the cutest thing in the history of civilization. I'm not biased, it's just a fact.
So the first time I headed out to the grocery store with this baby-hat-sling combo I prepared myself for the huge response I'd surely get. Would I feign modesty? "Oh, I guess it is kinda cute. Hee-hee!" Or would I just need to be direct and use force to push through the crowds of people that would inevitably congregate around us. "I know, it's insanely cute, but I'm going to need you people to clear a path to the creamed corn."
When the first few people I encountered in the produce section didn't immediately drop the tomatoes they were inspecting to coo over my baby I assumed that they just must not have seen him. I found that I instinctively looked at everyone I passed in anticipation of a response from them as I walked through the store. I also found that I instinctively got pissed when there was no response. When a white-haired, grandmotherly lady walked by and only gave a passing glance to the sling ensemble I huffed and wrote her off as a sad, bitter person with no soul.
Today I was walking down Congress Avenue and came up to a crosswalk where two businessmen were waiting. They glanced over briefly as they continued their conversation. I wanted to jump in between them and halt their pointless banter about some billion-dollar this-or-that until I got some proper oohs and aahs. The hat has ears on it, people.
My mom called today to say that she bought the baby a little Christmas outfit with a matching Santa hat. This could potentially bring the cuteness level around here to Defcon 5. I'm planning on attending a couple of holiday events with the baby in this getup, and woe be to the person who begins a conversation with me without first falling all over themselves about the baby and his little outfit.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: I know I used the word "little" a lot in this post. However, it is impossible to discuss infant clothes without it. It's also impossible to discuss the subject without raising your voice to a high-pitched squeak at every noun-adjective combo, as in "the little baby shoes!" or "the little itty bitty jacket that Babies R Us had the nerve to gouge us $65 for when you know it cost them like, what, five bucks to make."
No heat
I was half way through a great post a while ago but have decided to scrap it in favor of a post bitching about the fact that I am COLD. I would go put on some gloves but it would be impossible to type and then I wouldn't be able to share my bitching with all the world. It is interesting to note here that I am writing this not from my tent on the Lhotse Face of Everest nor from my arctic lair, but from my living room in southern Texas. Indeed, I even have the "heat" on.
When we were considering buying this place I asked many probing questions. What are the homeowners fees? Has any lead-based paint been used? What are the neighbors like? But never in my dreams did it occur to me to ask if the place has HEAT. I assumed that that was one of those things like indoor plumbing and running water that you could just take for granted.
Unfortunately, as I found out last winter, our building has some sort of "heating" system that involves blowing air over hot water pipes. Thus it is possible to get warmed air into your condo, but it'll never be hot. If you leave it on long enough you might even be able to warm the room up to a toasty 72 degrees.
My optimist husband cheerfully suggested last winter that we simply open the oven to provide more heat to the place. Nice idea, but the problem there is that we're not mountain people. If we're going to do that we may as well cancel cable and pass the time picking banjos and playing spoons. Or, hey, maybe we could even get some old gloves with the fingers cut out of them and burn some trash in an aluminum can like the homeless.
Yes, technically the oven will work to increase the ambient heat level in our living space. But it's the principle of the thing.
Anyway, in other news the baby seems to need less and less sleep every day, hence the lack of posting. But I'm learning to live on 4 fragmented hours of sleep per night (and no heat, as I may have mentioned), so life is good.
Where is PETA when you need them?
Why does it not seem to bother anyone that Ozzy Osbourne is having kids bite the heads off of live bats as part of a reality show? I'm no animal rights fanatic but this is ridiculous. Sacrificing animals for the sake of reality TV? Seems like it should be the other way around. The bats were at least contributing something to society by eating insects.
Where is PETA on this?