THE CADRE e 5

Marcu 8, 2005

OPINION & CO

BANE AER

Ryan Gallant Contibutor

What the hell are people doing with Christmas decorations still up? It’s March for God’s sake. And I don’t care if you leave your lights on your house all year because you're a lazy ass, but

holy shit, after mid-January maybe you »

could stop turning them on? I swear, like 75% of the houses on my street still have some sort of decorations on their house. And call it illogical, call it an overreaction, or maybe call it the sign of an impending massive stress- related heart attack, but I actually became physically angry when I saw the number of houses that still had wreaths on their doors. How hard is it to take down a damn wreath? So why have the citizens of Charlottetown become such a bunch of slack asses? Well, if I recall correctly, fifteen years ago the city asked people to leave their lights up to give Charlottetown “a more festive look” for the 1991 Canada Games. Evidently everyone took this as a license to throw as much random shit on their houses as possible, and to leave it up until the 5% of never, or at least until another Juan rips it off their house. That or until I go insane and start going door- to-door and punching people in the face.

Adding to a list of randoms, which include Pierce Brosnan and McIver, Paul McCartney has become the latest celebrity to crawl out on PEI ice floes in the dead of winter to yell at Canadians about seals and hunting and global warming or whatever. Islanders, in typical fashion, reacted by reading The Guardian to hear every detail of what he did, what he bought/ ate/said/touched (“Then he went into Roots. Then he bought a sweater. It said ‘Canada’ on it.”), the same thing that happens every time Lucille Poulin or Steroid Ben or Prince What’s-his- face and his wife show up. Of course the average Joe Blow doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether he’s here for the seals or for a drink at the Legion. All they want to know was if their brother’s wife’s cousin’s daughter was working at Cow’s (which is right next to Roots) when he bought the sweater. Through this unique and complex “Oh yeah she’s related to my third cousin’s bus driver” scheme, I am convinced that an Islander has been involved in every major world event since the beginning

... And Now For Something Completely Different: The Rants of a University Student

of time including Noah’s Ark, the French Revolution, and the Kennedy assassination (Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother stayed at Blue Jay Cottages once.)

Following the visit to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Paul and his wife, Heather, appeared on Larry King Live and faced off against Newfoundland (or New Finland according to Larry) Premier Danny Williams. The problem with that, first of all, is Sir Paul had no idea what the hell he was talking about and looked about as comfortable on TV as he would be during a rectal exam. His loudmouth wife, on the other hand, was far too preoccupied with not shutting up that she didn’t allow any time, oxygen or reasonable thought to make it through her brain. Oh ok, the money the sealers make is inconsequential? Yeah, maybe for you and your husband’s $1.5 billion bank account. What? You think the guys who spend their winters freezing their asses off walking around on the ice killing adorable little seals are just doing it for kicks? By the way, who the hell do you think is buying all these furs? I think you’d be hard-pressed to see anyone in this part of the world who can afford that extravagance, let alone one who would be stupid enough to wear that shit. It’s on the runways of Milan and Paris and London that you find the yield of this hunt, so maybe you should go home and talk to your pop-star friends rather than preach to bunch of Islanders and Newfies who don’t really care what your point is anyway. My favorite part of the whole trip was when dear old Lady McCartney scoffed at Prime Minister Harper because he didn’t meet with them because he had meetings all day. Imagine! Well excuse us. We’re sorry that the Prime Minister of our country doesn’t drop everything he’s doing every time some two-bit celebrity and washed up rocker climbs out on the ice to harass seal pups.

Now I know already that people will be pissed off that I seem to be erring on the side of the seal hunters, but that’s not exactly the case. I am not going to stand here and defend the act of beating the life out of a seal pup, God knows I wouldn’t have the heart for that kind of stuff, but I also think it would be a tad bit inaccurate

to suggest that the hunters themselves are having a blast out there and are beating seals for the fun of it. For them, it’s money in the bank and food on the table. I don’t endorse the seal hunt or its methods in the same way that I don’t endorse factory farms or slaughterhouses. My issue is mainly with the celebrities who come from around the world where there are many problems of their own I’m sure they could be solving, yet insist on getting pictures with the cute furry white baby seals (which have been illegal to hunt since the 80’s). If you want to advocate for humane treatment of animals, fine, but I don’t see any of them mucking around pig farms or chicken factory farms bitching about the conditions or about how they kill the animals. Today there ate 5.9 million seals out there, almost 3 times the number there was in the 70’s, and that in itself is wreaking havoc on the cod fishery, not to say that that is a justifiable means, but it’s a hell of a lot more compelling than the McCartney’s arguments against the hunt: “Because they’re cute, because it’s mean and the money doesn’t really matter.” Well if the money doesn’t matter, then shell out the $20 million these families need to survive on. That way you can have peace of mind and these hunters can stop spending the dead of winter freezing their asses off.

Actually, why even piss on our rug when in Britain, seals are culled on a regular basis to stop them from destroying fishnets. Maybe, try fighting the hunt back home before coming over here and telling us how to run our own country. Ah well. Live and let die.

Well the Olympics are over, and other than Team Canada’s Chokefest on ice, Canada’s Olympic Team, all- in-all, came out in good standing, poised to have the strength to actually win the games in 2010. With the exception of Jeremy Wotherspoon and Chris Pronger, who may as well just not come home, Canada’s athletes kicked a lot of ass and defied the typical Canadian pessimistic expectations. Stephen Harper was so impressed with the athletes in Turin that he released a special statement specifically to the men and women who contributed to Canada’s record medal haul. The official statement read: “Congratulations to Team Canada in Turin.” Wow. No wonder everyone was so keen on getting this brainwave into office. Sigh.

Have a good one!

®

ryangallant.blogspot.com

Get

large pepperoni - $8.99

DOMINO’S PIZZA NOW OFFERS GREAT STUDENT DISCOUNTS!

DHH-IQOOV

large 5 toppings - $10.99

Delivery to UPE| campus, Browns Court and surrounding areas only. Must present student ID.

great prices on pizza when you present your UPEI student ID

large 3 toppings - $9.99}