If You Build It, They Will Come.

Thursday, June 06, 2002

The following is an article posted to NHL.com.

Time for tradition to end
June 5, 2002


All God's creatures deserve respect.

"So we went to a sports event last night and when the home team scored we threw our neighbor's dog, which we had previously boiled, onto the playing surface."

Trying telling your co-workers that one some day. The men in white coats will be arriving soon. Then the ones in blue coats and badges. Then your neighbor.

Why then does anyone think it's cute or funny to throw octopuses onto the ice at Joe Louis Arena after the Detroit Red Wings score during the Stanley Cup playoffs? It's more out of touch with 21st Century values than the Tomahawk Chop.

It's also the cause of a local backlash following a recent article in the Detroit Free Press by Hugh McDiarmid Jr. who quoted Dr. James B. Wood, project manager of CephBase, a project of the National Resource Center for Cephalopods, in Galveston, Texas.

"It's like buying a deer carcass and throwing it," Dr. Wood said. "It's a waste of an animal's life for entertainment. When you eat it, it serves a purpose. I'm biased, but taking any life form and throwing it in a sports arena -- why?"

Blah blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah hippie crap blah blah blah....

All God's creatures deserve respect. Tell that to the chicken who's eggs you took to make your omlette. Tell that to the mosquito you just killed, he was just trying to survive by sucking your blood. Tell the pigs that you eat, or the mice in mousetraps. Tell that to the fish you catch and release, I'm sure they enjoy being dragged out of their habitat by the brand new hole in their face just so you could take a stupid picture. Tell that to the moles you drown because they ruin your lawn. Tell that to the ant colony you wipe out with your lawnmower or a can of Raid because they are an eyesore. Any animal that ends up in Nugget form does not gain your respect. Lice are God's creatures, so stop shampooing your hair, they gotta have a place to live too.

The octopi that hit the ice at JLA are already dead. If they weren't thrown on the ice, what else would they be doing? Rotting? Being eaten? The ink in those things are poisonous. The little meat that can actually be eaten would've been eaten by some yuppie rich punk who could've spent a lot less money on a salad. So what is more wasteful? A dead octopus that has the equivalent of a foot used and the rest discarded to feed some spoiled rich guy, or using the whole body to get 19,000 people on their feet in an applause that makes everyone except the Carolina Hurricanes feel a little bit better?

It's already dead, so what is more wasteful?

When you kill a rat, do you eat it? Or step on an ant, does he become your snack? You kill these animals because you don't like them, and their lives are meaningless to you. You don't respect them. You don't kill a roach so that your family can live another day, you kill it because it's gross.

So, if you want to start a "Save the Animals" campaign, find a more noteworthy place to start than Joe Louis. Start in somewhere like Alaska where we're wiping out animal habitats to dig for the oil you use to drive your car. I love people who have causes, but I hate it when they are too dumb to actually think about it.

Bad hippie. No reefer for you.

In a world where everybody cared about everything, this article would have merit. But this is Earth. This is America. This is reality. No one cares. Your tragedy goes unnoticed here, unless it can pull in good ratings. Ask Nicole Simpsons family, ask Jon Benet Ramsey, or Chandra Levy. Here is the truth about life.

It doesn't really matter.

Those pushing apathy will never win, and those pushing care for everything will never win. It is a delicate balance. It is a constant battle between Liberals who want to make things better, and Conservatives who think things are fine the way they are. Don't get me wrong, your struggles matter. You can win a battle, but you will never, ever win the war. But the little things matter. It's a tug of war, and if one side gives up, the other side will take over. It's like Alice in Wonderland, where The Red Queen tells Alice that she needs to run as fast as she can just to stay where she is. And for the last 200 years, the liberal mind has won more of the big battles, we freed the slaves, we let women vote, we let minorities into schools. Conservatives win a few too, we still send money to the middle east countries that want to kill us all, so we can buy oil for cars that are destroying our resources, we still tear down forests and wipe out populations of animals to build factories that pump harmful carcinogens into the atmosphere. But the liberal mind is going to far in a few cases. Especially by putting the term "Pollitically Correct" in the minds of all of us. Don't try to make me feel bad for not caring about two dead octopi that hit the ice in game seven at Joe Louis. Don't try to make me feel like it's wrong for me to think a stereotypical thought about women, but I have to smile when a chick says "men are scum." Shut up.

I would still consider myself liberal. Conservatives are closed minded, rich, white supremisist assholes. Well not all of them, but most of them.

On another note, (this post is a long one dealing with many issues), I don't want to grow up. To my parents, this isn't news. But it's a conclusion I came to last night. I know I'm going to hate my life. I know it. I know I'm going to graduate from college, and go to bed that night, and wake up and I'm going to be fifty. The idea of actually getting what everyone calls a "real life" to me is dying. I'm not anxious to dive into the rut I'm going to be in for the rest of my life. These are the best years of my life. Once they're over I'm rolling down a hill and all that waits at the end is death. I'll be in a 9-5 job that I'm going to hate. I'll hate waking up in the morning, and I'll hate going to bed, because I'll know, I'm just going to wake up again. I'll be in a job that I'll have to do to survive. I know what some people would say who are like 40 and doing a job, if I ask them if they like their job. It doesn't really matter if I like it. It's a job. It pays well. I'm going to fifty and looking back, wondering when it stopped mattering if I liked it or not.

I could get a job that I like. Columbus could win the Stanley Cup next year, monkey's could fly out of my butt, world peace could come about next tuesday, and I could win an Oscar for the film I'm putting together. I'm going to graduate with a degree in Behavioral Science. I hate Behavioral Science. It's false, faulty, wrong, and stupid. The next thirty or fourty years of my life are going to just be splendid. I can't wait to strap on the chains that are life and get rid of this free feeling.

But hey I guess we all gotta grow up sometime, right?




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