Wednesday, October 19, 2005

How to inflate your stats in a hurry...

....I've got two words for you....seal and hunt.

Over at Web Talk Newfoundland and Labrador they did a little poll on what people think about the seal hunt. Things were going as you might expect on a poll like that from a Newfoundland website until this past weekend. And then, well, Voila.

I don't argue the seal hunt anymore. It's not that I've changed my mind about it, it's just not worth it anymore. I've written numerous stories, editorials and columns on the seal hunt. I've gone online and argued it before. And it's genuinely not worth the spike in my blood pressure when I do it. I appreciate that I'm only 35 and maybe I shouldn't worry about having a stroke or heart attack. But if it happens in the next five years, odds are you'll find out I didn't listen to my own advice and I was off arguing about the seal hunt in the previous hours and that's what did it.

I gave up because they will never convince me and I will never convince them. It's like the old saying, "Why do you bang your head against the wall? Because it feels so good when I stop." I've been on a one-year endorphine rush ever since I stopped arguing with them.

Besides - and I know not all of them are like this - some of the meanest, rudest, most vicious, nastiest, most arrogant sons of bitches I have ever chatted with or met have been anti-seal hunt people. Keep in mind that I've been a journalist for most of the past 15 years. I've met some unpleasent people. Few have been worse than anti-hunt people.

So this is pretty much my first and only word on the hunt, for which my wife will be greatful. This is a small apartment. She doesn't need me walking around fuming and ranting....well, more than normal, at any rate...

1 comment:

Liam O'Brien said...

I'll give the anti-seal-hunt people one bit of credit -- they're excellent marketers and businesspeople. They make Exxon, Coke, McDonalds, Haliburton and the rest look like Lemonade stands for effective use of small capital to make more capital....

They realize that one can be as ignorant as can be on the subject but still use emotions and lies and a little blood on some snow or white fur to get lotsa donations. The facts matter not.

I think Brian Davies and Watson and the boys are beyond the point of just being liars and morons, they've turned it into an industry of their own. Impressive.....and scary...