Club Sandwhich not Seals?

Nothing offends me more then animal rights advocates. That’s right, you heard me.

I was at work minding my own business when I got an email from a coworker today. At the bottom of her email she had the typical signature along with this little graphic:

Is this lady for real? Yes, because at the very bottom of the email is this poem:

Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,

For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.

America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,

And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.
-George Carlin

I won’t get into environmental issues right now; they are only second to animal issues.

Back to the little fur balls. Do people really club seals that much? Nothing pisses me off more then people who are passionate about causes such as this... it’s like when I kept seeing stupid op-eds about the abandoned cats during Katrina... what about the abandoned PEOPLE? Or for that matter what about the people on the streets before Katrina? What about the kids being beaten or the parents who love their kids but can’t afford medical care for their ill child? What about grandma down the street living off food stamps and Medicare?

I don’t mind people having a cause. I, myself, have a lifetime commitment to four philanthropies (Prevent Child Abuse America, The Girl Scouts of America, the Children’s Hospital, and Orthopedic Research). Note: All humanitarian based.

So, she brands every outgoing message with a "don’t club the seals" seal... right, I was just about to trek out to Alaska and have a whack. But, you know something after seeing that moving graphic on her email I said "Not today, not on my watch". She must be reaching millions of potential clubbers and/or their influence over clubbers. (For the record, I’d rather have food on the table due to money that came in from killing a seal then have a cute seal overpopulate.)

I was getting all riled up after chatting with Wayne about this, so I ventured over to one of the leading volunteer sites on the World Wide Web; Idea List. I casually perused the site and here are some findings:

There are 2,924 “Human Rights & Civil Liberties” Nonprofit organizations listed within the United States compared with 2,004 “Wildlife & Animal Welfare” nonprofit organizations. And an inconvenient truth: there are 4,759 nonprofits in the US focused on “Environment & Ecology”. Did you get that? We (thanks Drock and Jay) crunched the numbers. That is 62.75% more tree hugging clubs then people hugging clubs! (excuse the "club" pun). Sickening.

They basically say they would rather spend all their time, mental and physical energy and money on some animal instead. I say, lets take all that and focus on domestic violence, drug addictions, homelessness, poverty, medical attention, mental illness, prison reform, terrorism, the global market.

I will leave you with a quote before I go to visit the elderly tonight:

“We do not support the killing of any animals but we consider the slaughter of the seals to be humane.” – Trevor Scott, Executive Director of International Society for the Protection of Animals

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