You know, one great thing about Sarasota is that our people are pretty conscious about animal rights. Whether or not you're a fan of PETA (which can be quite radical), if you live in Sarasota you're probably aware of what a vegan is, you might see more than just 2 vegetarian choices on restaurant menus, and you know how to adopt a dog or cat from a shelter instead of a pet store. I do love that about our town.
Gropius likes to make you laugh, but I have to get serious here for just a minute. There's something I want you to know about our VP candidate Sarah Palin. She's a true advocate for the hunting of wolves and bears from airplanes (coming from the state of Alaska's own press releases). Isn't that bizarre? I had no idea this sort of thing was even allowed in a civilized society.
If you're not an animal loving guy or gal, that's okay...just stay with me for a minute. This is not a minute detail to be overlooked; it represents the type of barbarism that most of us recognize as plain wrong. This video from Defenders of Wildlife is pretty disturbing, but if you're thinking of voting for the McCain-Palin ticket, at least look at it so you know what comes with your vote.
I'd love your comments to this one, whether you agree or not. It's all about a conversation. This is a conversation people should be having.
3 comments:
You're supposed to leave your comments heeeeere.
Two responses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-QevraCQUc
Know you’ll like this article appearing in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal
The War Against the Normal
Latest attack on Palin: She prays!
By JAMES TARANTO
September 12, 2008
The first cut of Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin reveals someone embarrassingly unprepared. His name is Charlie Gibson. Here's the transcript:
Gibson: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?
Palin: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote.
Gibson: Exact words.
Palin: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words when he said--first, he suggested never presume to know what God's will is, and I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words.
But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that's a repeat in my comments, was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side.
Palin was right, as we noted Tuesday. Although she had spoken the words Gibson attributed to her, his rendition of the quote was a dowdification. He took the words out of context to make a prayer that "the task is from God" appear to be an assertion that it is.
This misleading quotation might have been an error rather than a deliberate deception, and it did not originate with Gibson. Our Tuesday item noted that CNN had misrepresented Palin's words on Monday, and on Sept. 4 "AllahPundit" pointed to an Associated Press dispatch from the previous day that might have been the origin of the falsehood.
Yesterday the Associated Press, in reporting on the interview, relied on its own inaccurate reporting of a week earlier in claiming that Palin had "contradicted an assertion she made at her former church that 'our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.' " This claim disappeared from later versions of the AP dispatch, although we haven't found any evidence that the wire service issued a correction.
ABC seems to have realized its mistake as well. The version of the interview that aired on ABC's "World News" last night (video here) edited out the lines in which Palin disputes the accuracy of Gibson's quote and Gibson replies, "Exact words." In their place is a YouTube clip of Palin speaking at the church. Again, as far as we know, ABC has not expressly acknowledged the error.
The journalists at AP, CNN and ABC who took liberties with Palin's quote might or might not have intended to deceive. But there can be little doubt that they intended to further a stereotype of Palin as some sort of religious nut. What's interesting is that in the course of doing so, they ended up disparaging her for praying.
As we noted yesterday, some of the less well-grounded members of the political media have been harshly attacking Palin for having a baby. Egads! Can we really have a heartbeat away a Christian who prays, or a woman who has borne children?
It really does seem as though the media and the Angry Left loathe Sarah Palin precisely because she is normal. Through the words of his supporters, Barack Obama has become the candidate of those who oppose religion and motherhood. With friends like these, who needs Karl Rove?
Since you asked for opinions -here's mine. I completely respect your view and I am not an animal hater, I just think being President and VP is about a lot more than this issue. Also, having been to Alaska I must say it's so completely different there - whether it's right or wrong, hunting is as much a part of their culture as Starbucks is ours. I don't agree with Palin's stance on everything, however, I must say I really like her a lot. I respect the fact that both she and McCain stand up for what they believe in regardless of whether it's popular or accepted by the liberal media. Palin came up in conversation with friends last night and it's very interesting to me that most of my friends either love her or hate her - no middle ground. Thanks for sparking an interesting discussion
UB, thank you for your opinion. It's liberating to me that people can be friendly & have completely different takes on issues. What's the biggest thing our country has lost lately? People's ability to disagree and still respect each other. So thanks! It's good to get people talking...and being nice.
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