SWAK (Sealed With a Kitty)

Ever since I gave away my car with the I'm Pro-Accordion and I Vote bumper sticker, I've worried that people may have trouble gauging my political leanings.  

So in case you're wondering:  I'm a feminist-environmentalist-urban dwelling-lifelong vegetarian, and I'm pro-seal hunt.

You heard me right.  

Feminist.

Oh, wait, was it the pro-seal hunt part that surprised you?

Yes, I'm pro-seal hunt like the Rock is pro-wrestling.  Really, it's the least I could do.  Because while I am from the great state of I ♥ New York my squeeze the Cheez is from the land of  I ♣ Seals.  

Not that he's ever clubbed a seal.  No indeed.  He's a gentle sort.  Bookish and computer geekly and not much of a hunter.  So instead of clubbing seals, he just gets out the can opener and opens himself a tin of seal meat, when the need arises.

Which luckily is none too often, on account of how hard it is to find the canned seal meat over at the Trader Joe's.  

Actually, Trader Joe's doesn't stock any food from anywhere in eastern Canada, due to outrage over the seal hunt.  Chocolate produced by enslaved child labor, that they have. 

But a little organic produce from Moncton, New Brunswick, no dice.  Too tainted by the several-hundred-miles-away proximity to seal hunting.  

Which is a little like boycotting Duke University because it's so tainted by what happens in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Now, I understand that seals are all white and fluffy and adorable (unlike enslaved children, who tend to be malnourished and scabby).  But you know, so are lambs and marshmallows.  And the Trader has no problem pushing those.

So what's the deal with seal?

Well, for one thing, as one of my favorite Rumbolts put it, you take anything out on the snow and kill it, it's going to look gruesome.   Martha Stewart's beet salad would come off like the Manson family supper.  

Luckily, beef slaughter always happens in an attractive manner.

But seal, they make for a picture-perfect Greenpeace fundraising campaign.  

Not that Harp seals are endangered.  There are over 5.6 million of them frolicking about. Frankly, Harp lager is in greater danger of being completely annihilated by Newfies.  

Cod, on the other hand, which seal eat, are kind of screwed, numbers wise.

Which is what has the good people of Newfoundland, who depended on the cod fishery for centuries, until overfishing by international fleets in the North Atlantic caused the entire collapse of the cod fishery, equally screwed.  

And now, they can't even sell their seal to the Trader Joe's.

Luckily, the Japanese are still buying.  Because the Japanese know first-hand that sometimes something that seems  fluffy and white and cute and adorable really ought to be bludgeoned to death ASAP.