Happy St. Patrick's Day to you. Stay calm. No need to go ape. It's a happy holiday, not an opportunity for mayhem. We have enough of that around here when it isn't St. Patrick's Day. Besides, it's too cold this morning to do anything outdoorsy. It's so cold it'll freeze the Leprechauns right off the Blarney Stone.
Now, let's move along:
Yesterday's rant about hunting drew notes from people who know and love hunters in spite of themselves and from people who'd just as soon see hunters put down their firearms.
Reliable tipster Mary of Oak Cliff wrote, "Have you read about the guy that has come up with the click-and-shoot-the-deer site? Then, there is the canned hunt people who shoot tame animals. Really sick people."
(I didn't know about the web site, but I have often been disgusted by the canned hunt people. Makes no sense to basically go hunting for an animal that would eat from your hand. It's like stalking cows in a pasture. Look, hunters, you want some big game? Drop by the post office. Look at the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List. If you want to hunt something, well, suit up, tough guys. Or, how about this: Volunteer with an animal shelter to help safely get stray dogs and cats off of city streets and into the safety of a rescue group. Sure, that would be a good deed, but, maybe you could do it and nobody would find out and ruin your reputation.)
Another tipster whose folks live on a lake in East Texas, writes, "My brother visits sometimes and takes his camouflaged boat across the cove from their dock to duck hunt. If I happen to be there, I'll go down to the dock and when I hear a quack in the distance, I yell as loud as I can, "Hey ducks! Run for your life!" to scare them off. It really 'p..s' him off. I love it. Needless to says, he doesn't come to my folks for duck hunting much anymore."
And there was this experience from a woman who loves her ex-hunter husband. "He took me on a deer hunting trip and he said every time a deer came along I would start talking. So he gave up and put his gun in the truck. We went back to pick up pecans and seven deer ran out in front of us. They stopped and stood there looking at us. I think they were laughing." Hubby hasn't hunted in years, she says.
And there's this note from a friend of mine who was at the Canadian Consulate in downtown Dallas earlier this week to protest "the slaughter of baby seals for their coats. How a person who is not a total monster to the depth of their being could do this is -- again -- beyond my comprehension. The interesting thing is that there were two police cars and a paddy wagon there! Do you believe it! Thirty-four tax-paying citizens taking long lunch hours from their jobs to protest this atrocity and they send the cops. You don't see that police presence in Angie's neighborhood (Angie Manriquez' West Dallas neighborhood) where her neighbor likes to step outside and fire his AK47 when he gets frustrated -- about once a day. Lord help us all!"
Yeah, it's a puzzler. I guess the police were making sure there were no international incidents stirred up by the peaceful people. You never can tell when anti-animal abuse people will snap and riot. No, it has NEVER happened, but, gosh, they don't want the first time to be in Dallas, where people use Jaguar's as rolling urban assault vehicles so they can gun down enemies from bar fights.
A reporter once told me about a guy arrested after a big murderous shootout in an otherwise pleasant Dallas neighborhood. Among the weapons the guy had: a bazooka.
A BAZOOKA! It might be legal in Texas, who knows?
Ah, the Dallas Defense Kit: a Jag, a bazooka and a driver's license.
Dallas -- Home of the uninsured but well-armed motorist.
