 Previous posts
callin me a dog, well leave a dog alone tin full of nails pint of jelly timing device insa... well i beg your pardon together forever and never to part, together for e... wages of sin, we keep paying many people tell me the style is terrific, it is k... You're going to reap just what you sow we're the brews sporting anti-swastika tattoos but listen, we the Re-Up Gang, we ain't the norm when the bomb drops it'll be a bank holiday Friday, January 25, 2008
but they can never taint you in my eyes, no, they can never touch you now:
Kriston Capps has started something he can't finish. Like everyone else today, he takes note of the Independent's vile smear job on the adorable German polar bear Knut. Now, for the uninitiated, the Flophouse has a longstanding debate over which is the greatest bear. I say polar bears; Kriston says koala bears; Matt and Catherine say panda bears; Becks says we're all faggots. Kriston, with atypical misjudgment, says we're now in a two-bear contest.
In one sense, Kriston is right. We are indeed in a two-bear contest. After all, the koala is not a bear, as sensible people worldwide understand. Considering the koala to be a bear is a strange vestige of an outmoded era. The panda and polar bears are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The koala is Mike Gravel. But let's not win dirty. Consider the charges the Independent presents. Knut close up is disconcerting to say the least: he is not white but mired a filthy brownish grey colour by the mud and dirty pools of water in his enclosure. At a year old, and weighing more than 17 stone he is bigger than a man when standing on his hind legs.Really now? We're blaming Knut for the fact that his captors keep him in unsanitary conditions? I had no idea that blaming the victim was the Kriston Capps way. Onward: While some insist that bears born in zoos have a right to human intervention to save and secure their lives, others such as the German animal rights activist, Frank Albrecht argue that they become so dependent on man that they end up divorced from nature and turn into hyperactive, disturbed freaks. A few points. First, notice that there is no evidence presented for the proposition that there's anything wrong with Knut. If you click through the article, you see that the whole thing is predicated on the Nuremberg Zoo's fear that other polar bears raised in captivity might attack one another -- which itself is an evidence-free claim. You can see what a shoddy piece of journalism this is. Second, there's also no evidence justifying the headline that Knut won't mate. Just none. Only one context-free quote from some animal-rights activist and another from a zoologist. And finally, explain how an "addiction" to human beings is anything but a virtue. Knut, like a good bear, wants to warm our hearts with his winning personality. He maybe wouldn't mind if we hugged him. Only a fool would consider this a character flaw. Last thing. I notice on an email thread that when Kriston said polar bears are now out of the best-bear contest, his own special lady replied "are you kidding?" So he's put himself in the position of saying she doesn't know what she's talking about, bear-wise. What a terrible, unforced blunder. But such are the wages of dissing polar bears. --Spencer Ackerman
|
