February 7, 2015
Letter to the Editor
The sun Sentinel’
500 E. Broward Blvd
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394

RE: “BEAR HUNT A SAD COMMENTARY ON PEOPLE” - A few modest comments on your unbelievably named unlinkable editorial in today’s Sun Sentinel.

Sirs,

In a week featuring turbaned, zealots burning people alive, in a week featuring a TV news anchor lying like a rug, in a week where a President in the finest tu quoque fashion reminds up of the chilling effect of the 9 century old Crusades and the slippery slope of the 5 century old Inquisition it is refreshing that you, the proud standard bearer and purveyor of all the nit-wit clap trap that modern American Liberalism demands of its ink-stained votaries, you have struck a perfect chord.

After the morning sacrifice of Logic and reason to the great Goddess Gaia you have come back from the temple and proclaimed

DOWN WITH PEOPLE!
UP WITH BEARS!

There is a simple fact, an inconvenient one certainly, that you fail to include in your sermon. The cute cubs are told as they suckle

YOU ARE A BEAR
THERE IS NO WORD IN BEAR TALK FOR VEGAN
IF YOU WANT TO EAT YOU HAVE TO KILL

When I moved to Florida in 1996, 4 years before we were told by very smart people that we would either starve to death or freeze to death with the smart money being on a 2 horse parlay, I advocated killing all the manatees as a source of sausage for the homeless. Alas, the plan failed to gain traction.

I advocated importing mad cows from England to provide cursory targets for Florida’s endangered, but still proud and noble, panthers. Again, I was before my time.

In my beloved New Jersey the Everglades would go by its proper name: Swamp.

That is why when Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, a woman who made a comfortable living for more than 69 years convincing guilty middle class White people t despite empirical evidence to the contrary that swamps were good for them died I suggested a Viking funeral of sorts for her. Strap her to a motorized. Floating wheel chair and launch her from the middle of Alligator Alley. Beat the drums like was done in King Kong. Give the predators she so loved a chance of a square if sparse but certainly gluten free meal. I can think of no better end for a naturalist than to become part of the food chain, to become the last arc in the circle of life.

That too was rejected.

I am nothing if not persistent.

When I got here I was told that manatees must be protected because they were weal and submissive.

Now I am told that bears must be protected because they are wild and aggressive.

Then you hector me with neither a hint of irony nor a tinge of sarcasm that because 61% of the people surveyed oppose bear hunting we should encourage them to breed, multiply, and do what bears do. Bears don’t discriminate. If you are made of organic material they will hunt you down, they will kill you, and they will eat you.

May I ask, stifling a chuckle, why 61% of the people who are opposed to bear hunting can set public policy on 4 legged predators why 62% of the Florida electorate cannot set public policy on 2 legged marriages with no hope of issue?

Bears, manatees, whooping cranes, furbish louseworts, snail darters, unicorns, yetis, undiscovered denizens form the unknown depths of the Bermuda Triangle and/or Atlantis…where does it end?

I remind you of what Faulkner – Have the Word Police banned him yet? Is it still PC to cite him? – said when he accepted his Nobel Prize.

“MAN WILL NOT ONLY ENDURE; HE WILL PREVAIL”

Put differently, my Aunt from Hester Street says

‘”SOME DAYS YOU EAT THE BEAR. SOME DAYS THE BEAR EATS YOU.”


Kevin Smith
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET

PS – If the Florida Air National Guard has some underutilized A-10 Warthogs, the all-time tank killer, on the tarmac let them use some ammo approaching expiration date on these moving targets.