Pass Me a Heater

Michael Catalano on the dangers of over-hyping your activism:

When I first saw the linked truth.com ad, I was sitting in my living room with five teenage boys. At the end one of them said, “These commercials make me want to start smoking just to spite them.” The other boys laughed and agreed.

While you can certainly suggest making smoking "cool" led to people smoking, probably no more so than people scolding you not to. There is something gratifying about thumbing your nose at sanctimony.

Cat Overpopulation

Added to the ever-growing list of things caused by global warming is the increase of cats in shelters:

The cause of this feline flood is an extended cat breeding season thanks to the world’s warming temperatures, according to the group, which is one of the country’s oldest and largest animal welfare organizations.

It's a regular cat orgy. When will the madness end?

Maybe They Are Killing Themselves

It's the Christmas season again, and you know what that means. Animals worldwide will be abused for the sake of silly traditions:

"Those animals are subject to all sorts of terrible fates in some cases," Vergerio said. "Animals have been stolen and slaughtered, they've been raped, they've escaped from the nativity scenes and have been struck by cars and killed. Just really unfathomable things have happened to them."

Not as unfathomable as becoming props for the terrorist radical Christians, I suspect.

Now Where is That Cat?

PETA has provided me the perfect opportunity to show off this 4-pound large mouth bass with their "get tough on animal killers" anti-fishing campaign.

Just look at that baby.

We were doing some early morning casting at Spirit Lake near Grantsburg Wisc., not being too picky. The bait was likely one of the roughly dozen spinner baits we went through that week. The lake had been offering a lot of action from smaller northerns with the occasional large-mouth out of the weedline. This fish was the biggest bass caught during a week of large fish.

It marks the first fishing trip in 17 years of marriage in which I caught the largest fish. Needless to say, that fact alone dictates that every opportunity be taken to display it.

PETA offers this stellar caption:

"Your Daddy Kills Animals"

Well actually, I put it back in the lake like a good conservationist. Still, I think PETA's sentiment captures the spirit of the thing, and their hysterical fear-mongering can certainly be understood in context.

In my estimation, about 90 percent of the kids PETA reaches will toss their over-the-top drivel off the boat the first time they hook into a fish like this. The exhiliration as it leaves the confines of the water to soar majestically through the air, only to dive and run, is pure joy.

PETA's depiction of fishermen as drooling, psychotic, animal murderers has created a yearning in me to once again dangle a juicy leech or sucker minnow in front of an unsuspecting and perfectly innocent non-Bush supporting trophy fish.

I hereby declare than, that this is the year I take up ice-fishing.

After all, I have only so much time on this planet and there are only so many chances to drive PETA followers insane with rage. Hell, I might even keep a few fish from now on.

Surviving Minnesota's Environmental Ground Zero

It's good to be back in the land of blog today, although as I perused the archives of a week gone by it becomes painfully clear that little to nothing happened in the world of politics during my self-imposed exile. Northwest mechanics are still on strike and local Democrats are wasting not a second to take advantage of the situation for some face time. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Chavez the madman. Cindy Sheehan is still in Crawford.

I almost feel sorry for the poor bastards who were forced to stay home and pay attention to the news this week.

On the other hand, I spent my week sleeping on an air mattress in the largest of Minnesota's state parks. Along the way we had a few adventures. Squeezed in an obscene amount of fishing over the course of the week and pulled a number of attractive smallmouth out of the St. Croix River, despite the park's best efforts to discourage the arcane pastime.

The raccoons started visiting on Monday night, a mama and four babies who knew no fear. Their presence required the locking up of all foodstuffs at night, which we did in the safety of the family van. Nevertheless, the little vermin would stroll around our campsite after dark practically under our feet, careful to stay out of the firelight or wake our two extremely effective watchdogs, who never did detect their presence before we were able to roust them from their slumber and point out the intruders in the beam of a flashlight.

Wedensday we left our youngest daughter in charge of the dogs while mother and I went fishing in the afternoon, and it should not have come as a surprise when, an hour later, she arrived at the shoreline to report through tears that she had somehow let both of them get away. Thus began an hour-long hunt, me on my five-year-old's bike with 12-inch wheels, and the missus in the van. Both were secured, though the retreiver required us to pull nineteen porcupine quills from various parts of his anatomy as a result of their foray.

The wife and I decided at that time that our vacation would be much more like a vacation without the presence of the dogs and road-tripped back home Thursday morning to leave the dogs in the kennel for the final forty eight hours of our vacation. Not only did this improve the vacation greatly, our fake dog-barking at the coons on Thursday night actually proved more effective than the real thing earlier in the week.

A solid trip to be sure, but no one is happier than I to be home again. Slept in my own bed last night and sat on my own throne this morning. I love our park system, but it is a constant battle to appreciate the natural beauty while fighting off the influence of the environmental lobby that attempts to control every thing you do while there. How do you tell a six-year-old boy that he is not suppposed to pick a single flower, throw a single rock into the river, or disturb a single bug? As if the eco-system is so fragile that the tossing of a single stone into the river will lead to the immediate destruction of the entire 30-plus thousand acres.

Even the shower stalls in a state park scold you, by shutting off every 30 seconds as if to say, "How dare you put scrubbing off the day's grime above the precious resource of water."

I don't know how the french do it.

A Week of Environmental Indoctrination

So, we're heading off into the wild northwoods of Minnesota for a week with only a tent, firewood, and three cell phones. I would love to ascribe this trip to the recent news that the world is coming to an end and we are simply trying to get a look at it while we still can, but in reality we have had the trip planned since long before the doomsday reminder.

While we are there we will be paying close attention for any jets dropping needlessly out of the sky.

I'll think of all of you when I am sitting back in a portable recliner, cracking a cold Fosters in the evening. I will return to this blog a week from this Monday, thoroughly saturated with wood smoke, a week of sweat, and covered in wood ticks.

Until then, may your joys be as deep as the ocean and your troubles as light as the foam.