Killing Elephants is for Losers

“What kind of a person looks upon the world’s largest land animal — a beast that mourns its dead and lives to retirement age and can distinguish the voice of its enemies—and instead of saying “Wow!”; says something like “Where’s my gun?”

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I dislike litterbugs and big game hunters with the power of a thousand suns. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can redeem someone who tosses their trash out of a car window- this happens all the time on the road in front of our farm- or goes to Africa to kill majestic, and often threatened or endangered, animals.

I haven’t read GQ since the 80’s, but I saw a link to what turned out to be a well-written and thought-provoking story about an elephant hunt.

Part of the reason I am so vehemently against big game hunting is because I am a gun person and a hunter. But much like religion, I have become hesitant to mention my affinity because I don’t want to be associated with the losers who kill lions and tigers and whatnot any more than I want to be associated with the haters who use religion to further their right-wing agendas.

I admit to being confused by the fact that countries that allow legal hunting have more elephants than those that don’t. And it’s interesting that the World Wildlife Fund at least tolerates regulated elephant hunting.

But here’s one thing I’m sure about. If you have enough money to hunt and kill an elephant, you have enough money not to.

Animal Rights Extremism + Duck Dynasty = Hilarity

One of my favorite things is when someone takes a stupid position on something and the rest of the world makes hilarious fun of it. I do it. Sometimes it’s done to me. Either way it’s good.

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Duck Dynasty is one of the best shows on TV. My entire family loves it, and you can rarely get all of us to agree on anything. Virtually all of the cast members come across as genuinely good, moral folks. Things I’ve read and heard about them off-camera are consistent with that impression. The Smiths were pretty cool. A long time ago. Post-Smiths Morrissey, not so much. So when Morrissey decided to cancel his appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel show because the Duck Dynasty crew was appearing, hilarity ensued.

Here’s the thing. Animal rights activism suffers from the same malady politics and gun control debate suffers from. There are very few logical, middle ground voices to be heard in the chaos of stupidity and extremism. I am generally inclined to favor reasonable animal rights. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to eat some of them (though close to half my meals are meat-free), but I generally get it. Nothing, however, makes me want to shoot some animals as badly as 99% of the things PETA publishes.

So props to Jimmy and the Duck Dynasty crew for making fun of Morrissey. I get it. If you’re going to cancel this appearance because hunters are appearing, you better have a very small circle of friends and business associates, because if these guys violate your sense of righteousness, so does most of the rest of the population. On the other hand, if the cancellation is really just about you being you, maybe it doesn’t matter so much.

"Oh man, I shot Harry in the face"

One of the great things about being the Vice President is that, in addition to getting to go hunting all over the place, if you accidently pull a Vincent Vega and shoot someone in the face, they apologize to you.

Maybe this will start a new trend.

Someone steals your car, write them a note apologizing for not having a nicer one.

Lose your wallet to a pickpocket, track them down and slip them an extra 20.

The neighborhood kids egg your house, take their parents a dozen eggs to replace the broken ones.

I think this might get legs