Hm, typical bad-faith and irrational argument to obscure the fact that we are treating our domestic animals very poorly indeed, and destroying many wild species and their habitats with bad policies and lack of real science. (And I do have to deal with mice in my house – I keep cats partly for that reason. Poison and traps are not fun to deal with. As for insects, I almost never use bug spray and I appreciate spiders, birds and bats for their power to control bug populations.)

Moving right along…Very interesting points, mouthyorange – I am grateful for your insight and comments. I don’t really know what the GG thinks about these things, maybe she has a public and a private take on them, and constantly finds herself in positions where she has to balance politics with personal views, I don’t know. Of course, if a person rises to the position of GG, it seems to me almost necessary that she will have to make compromises on her political views and personal feelings. I think she’s maybe even done so with regard to Quebec nationalism – she has endured fierce criticism, even from family members on that score.

I don’t envy her position, and as I said, I would’ve probably eaten seal heart myself if I were on an official visit to the North – I don’t really have any objection to that, and in some ways it even seems like a mystical, atavistic connection with nature and hunting. Very far removed from commercial hunts.

Why ever do we want to shove unwanted seal products and furs down the throats of unwilling Europeans is what I want to know.

I discussed this topic with a friend this morning before I read your post. Taking it into account with the decision she made last Autumn when she disempowered one of the most important check and balance mechanisms our parliamentary system had, we propose that although Jean has charm and grace she appears to be superficial and so lacks the depth that the GG needs to have to handle the issues and events that someone in that position must deal with. And so has said and done things without fully understanding the implications or effects they will have, or knowing how to handle them more carefully. In other words, in spite of knowing how to move gracefully throughout the world, there is still a naîveté. (Did I spell that right? Not in my French dictionary.)

Which raises for me the philosophical — or perhaps psychological — question of what is dishonesty. If Jean was being dishonest in the way you suggest, do you think it was a conscious kind of dishonesty? That would be one thing. If it was not conscious and instead has to do with dealing with political events in a superficial way, I wonder whether her handling of this event (and the earlier one, as well) reflects a lack of awareness (not yet awakened), or rather a suppressed awareness (denial). And I wonder whether we can even know.

What do you think, brebis?

Interesting. Would you also, say, be willing to oppose the senseless slaughter of innocent mice via mousetraps? The genocidal use of bug spray against our brothren the mosquitos?

In nature there’s this thing called a “food chain” which commonly doesn’t leave much room for interspecies “respect and understanding”. Seals, for instance, and carnivores. They shed no tears over the fish, birds and other smaller animals they eat. And if a small child went up to one of these fully grown beasts, it would cheerfully bite his face off.

Funny, I don’t what’s wrong with bleeding from the heart from time to time, and furthermore I’m too young and well-groomed to be a hippy.

And as pale pointed out, a lot of us non-hippies are working on getting the message out about cows, sheep and chickens – all of them animals that I have learned to love and respect. I’m not racist, and I’m not speciesist either – all animal species deserve respect and understanding. And I have nothing against hippies.