3.05.2006

early spring

Spring comes early this year, as the 2006 World Baseball Classic has already begun. (David Cho, take note!)

I'm finding it hard to focus on this new tournament, before the regular season starts. I only want two things: the US to lose, and no Red Sox players to get hurt.

Place bets now for which player will whine the most about how playing in the Classic threw off their game. Mike Mussina milked 2004 Opening Day in Japan for all it was worth and then some. I think he was still complaining about it in September.

Viva La Dominicana!

7 comments:

SusanE said...

Having a lazy day at home and followed your comments on Stacie's blog to yours.

Glad you're enjoying Canada. I live 2 hours east of Winnipeg. It's a great city. Has so much to offer. It has all the great things of Toronto, but also many of the great things of a small town.

Regarding sealing. I live in a bush community. I know many people who earned their living trapping. It may be uncomfortable for city dwellers to think of animals being trapped, but the trappers are now largely unemployed and on welfare. In the case of the beaver, it is still killed because they damn our rivers and flood our roads and their numbers are out of control. Now however, instead of someone earning a living and an entire industry surviving because of it. The Ministry of Natural resources blows up their dams and decreases their numbers and the dead animals go to waste.

Just a thought. We're part of this planet and when a species isn't endangered doesn't it make sense for it's numbers to be carefully managed and some member of the human species maintain a culture and livelihood?

I'm sure if you had ever seen a living animal devoured by carnivours you would see that the food chain inflicts pain. The animal eaten by the wolf feels pain, the animal taken in a trap feels pain.

I don't support senseless killing, but I have seen many peoples way of life destroyed for nothing. As I said the beavers are still being killed.

I like your blog.

laura k said...

Thanks for your thoughts, Susan. I recognize your nice picture - with your adorable dog - from Stacie's blog.

I have no problem with the food chain and animals eating animals, including humans eating animals, as I mentioned. I'm not squicked by the pain or the idea of killing animals per se.

Lots of city people are on welfare, too. No one says it's ok for them to sell drugs to earn more money.

We're part of this planet and when a species isn't endangered doesn't it make sense for it's numbers to be carefully managed and some member of the human species maintain a culture and livelihood?

Not to me. Not at all. Humans are incredibly adaptable and will find another way to live. Seals have little choice.

As for maintaining a culture or a way of life, I don't think that's a valid excuse. Many ways of life have fallen away. Slavery was a way of life, too. For some people, beating up their wife is a way of life. Every human activity is not worthy of preservation.

Those are just my thoughts. I certainly respect your different view. Thanks for your nice words about this blog.

allan said...

Grover loves Flo!

SusanE said...

Interesting reply. One thing you didn't comment on. After the fur lobby some years ago beaver prices fell to the point that no one runs their traplines anymore. Now the Ministry of Natural Resources has to blow up dams and kill beavers because of the damage they do. The carcasses are left unused. That is the point I always try to make to the anti-trapper lobby and the one they always choose not to respond to.

laura k said...

I didn't reply to that because I don't know anything about it. I am only hearing your point of view, I have no way of corroborating it or researching it - that is, no time and inclination to do so right now. I generally don't comment on things that I know nothing about.

I've read a lot about the seal hunt, so I offered my thoughts on that.

Why other people don't comment on it, that's not for me to say.

Wrye said...

The seal hunt gets more press, is why. But the anti-fur lobbyists of Europe certainly drew no distinction between Newfoundland sealers and the largely Native, Metis or Inuit trappers of Canada's North.

Canrane said...

I am always of two minds when it comes to the seal hunt.

On the one hand, I feel that the mass slaughter of animals is just plain wrong. There's a difference between taking what you need (be it for food or clothing) and large-scale commercial slaughter that throws whole ecosystems off balance (whaling, clear-cutting, whatever. It's just not right.).

But on the other hand, what's done is done. We can't change the fact that the human race has systematically destroyed habitat and decimated the ranks of natural predators (at least not overnight). It's come to the point where human intervention IS needed if various populations are to be sustainable within the current ecosystem.

Too many seals can have a devastating impact on fish populations. But it's hard to get people/media to care about this aspect because fish just aren't as cute as baby seals.

That said, there has got to be a more humane way to do the seal hunt. There's no need to be cruel.