Should I buy one of these to wear to work?
I took no camera on the hike today, guaranteeing that Matthew and I saw many wonderful things, including my first California newt of the year. Great Horned Owl, Great Blue Heron, half a dozen raptor species and another 9.66 miles, another 2,137 feet climbed. Dork numbers: 53.5 total miles hiked in 2006, 9,485 feet clumb.
At about the halfway point I let go of my hiking staff to drink some water. The staff dropped onto a grassy bank. It landed on coyote scat. Figures.
nice logo on that shirt. kinda pricey tho. you measure miles to the hundredths?
Only for fun. As hiking mileage goes, the only significant digits are the ones crammed into the front of my boots on those long downhills at end of day.
Chris - Since you’ve adopted the vertical feet tally, you’ve put me to shame. I hope the miles you’ve hiked and feet you’ve climbed have helped you improve your “wellness”, both mental and physical. I know how much better I feel when I’m exercising regularly, and getting out into the natural world where I feel most at home. I’ve been a horrible slug this winter, with no notable hikes since my year-end trip to Saline Valley. And I’m at my grossest weight ever. Today we begin a “wellness” challenge at the office, with points accrued for physical activity - so, I’ll be starting out with a considerable handicap to catch up to you! Let’s hope we both can boast of our trim mountaineer’s physiques in a few months time.
It is illegal to hunt white coats. Your t-shirt is wrong.
Newfoundlanders are the endangered species. They hunt, fish, forage and grow their food, and live with an annual income most of us would consider not only well beneath the poverty line, but beneath the welfare line and completely unacceptable. Their youth leave their homes and families by the thousands, sending money back to subsidize this pittance. It is a culture demoralized and destroyed. By ignorance. Ignorance from outsiders determining what they Newfoundlanders should and should not do to survive, and a government that has it’s head up its butt.
Wresting a living from the hardscrabble terrain of the Maritimes, pulling their meager sustenance from the very rocks and glaciers, they have no time for southern luxuries such as, say, enough of a sense of humor to determine that the t-shirt is a joke on environmentalists.
No, wait, that’s wrong. They do have a sense of humor! It’s just you that doesn’t grasp that, Pony. It’s just you.
There isn’t a word in your argument that doesn’t parallel the whining of the developers and oil companies. I’m not against hunting. I am against skinning an animal alive for twenty bucks and not having the marginal decency to spend the money on a bullet to put it out of its misery. And whether the animal has cute white fur doesn’t matter a bit.
Culture does not excuse cruelty. Doesn’t matter whether its skinning seals alive, using leg hold traps on coyotes, torturing Iraqi prisoners, or performing clitoridectomies. There is not a culture on this planet that requires cruelty for its continued existence, and yet “culture” is always the first cry when the world calls a small group on their needless torture of some sentient being.
Where I come from harming or harassing any marine mammal is illegal, even if said harasssment is just allowing a sea otter to rest on your kayak’s prow. Are you really opposed to environmental laws so tame that even the Bush administration supports them? Do you really want Canada to have environmental laws weaker than those in Bush’s America?
What you’ve said about the hunt is wrong.
Take a look at nature if you want to see cruelty Chris.
Well, that’s persuasive.
Wow, what a wierd site that was (the one selling the t-shirt, I mean). I didn’t spend long enough there to figure it out. I noted the logo, though—an Easter Island statute, symbol (in my mind at least) of a people who caused their own collapse. (Yes, I’ve been reading Jared Diamond).
Only if you also buy the (very silly) “Stop clubbing baby seals” shirt from T Shirt Hell, and wear them on alternate days, to confuse people.
Caja, how about if I just tattoo this photo on my forehead?
Xopher, here are some fun facts about Easter Island:
- Rabbits were introduced to Easter Island in 1866.
- Easter Island’s feral rabbits are now extinct.
- They were all eaten.
I have not been able to determine whether they had their ears bitten off first.
We have the same problem in Australia, Chris!
“The poor loggers! they are living a rough, hardscrabble life away from the comforts that you latte-sipping Urban lefties take for granted! And if we say the only way for them to scrabble a decent living is for them to cut down the 2-3% remaining Old Growth tree cover of SE Australia and convert it to woodchips to ship to Japan, well, that’s just how it’s going to be! These hippie protesters just have NO sense of social justice.
The irony of it is, these attitudes (1) usually come from industry shills and (2) as you’d expect, continuing in that vein usually has an undesirable outcome. In our case, it will be the elimination of the old growth forest.