"Snail fiddling is not a career to be proud of."
Now that I've cleared that up, I actually have something serious to say. Okay, so I was watching Close Up, and they were talking about these Catcha Cray machines - like soft toy crane machines, but with LIVE CRAYFISH instead of soft toys. The creator of these machines was such an asshole. He was saying that they're not cruel, that SAFE are extremists, that crayfish don't feel pain. WHAT A DICKHEAD. I felt sorry for the SAFE rep for having to try and talk some sense into this retard. I bet he (the pro-crayfish cruetly dude) supports bear-baiting and bull fighting as well - he kept calling the crayfish catching machine 'a game', going on about how it was 'for entertainment'. Crayfish DO get stressed if they're handled too much, and that crane could rip their legs off! And how long are they left in that little plastic box? Until they're fished out and put in a plastic bag, taken home and cracked in half - all while still alive - by some stupid idiot after a night's drinking at the pub where the machine was located. SAFE (Save Animals From Exploitation) are awesome animal rights activists - not crazy radical extremists who are against pets - and they are totally right in this argument. I reckon that these machines treating live animals - maybe not cuddly cute animals, but still animals - as soft toys to be used in a game by drunk humans are totally unethical and WRONG. Plus, they actually are illegal:
"SAFE and the SPCA now believe these machines are in breach of the Animal Welfare Act 1999, which aims to ensure ‘physical handling [is done] in a manner which minimises the likelihood of unreasonable or unnecessary pain or distress'." (The SAFE website).
So, in short, I was pretty pissed off at the guy who invented them. Bastard.
Oh, one thing I never knew - lobsters and crayfish are the same thing?? According to the American woman in the story they are. Crazy.
Okay, second thing. I flicked over to TV3 after the crayfish piece, and saw an ad for swimming lessons. 'Learning to swim means learning to survive', it said. I can't swim AT ALL, and I'm never going to drown. How do I know this? I am not STUPID enough to jump in water that is too deep because I know of the dangers!! Knowing about water safety and awareness is different to being able to swim. That add pisses me off. And no, guys, it's not cuz it makes me feel inferior about not being able to swim (as my mother suggested).
Okay, last thing. On Campbell Live they had an experiment with a very talented violinist busking to see whether people could recognise musical beuty when they heard it. Turns out they couldn't. Now, that guy was obviously gifted - I'm not schooled in classical music by any means, but I could see that he was doing a great job with a classic piece on one of the most difficult instuments. I normally try to give money to buskers if they are good, because even though I have a select taste in music, and I'm not fond of, say, classical stuff, I can still appreciate when music is good (rap isn't music). My nan plays her Bach and Mozart and Beethoven (Beethoven's 9th Symphony!! She played that the other day and I was like 'OMG no! Alex's favourite!!' and she was like '...?' because she hasn't read/seen A Clockwork Orange haha) and I can understand that it's good. But obviously most people walking through Wellington Train Station couldn't. Which is sad.
Lol at the guitar-playing busker who went mental though. What a maroon.
So, yeah, those are the three things I saw while watching TV between 7pm and 7.30pm on Monday 8 February, 2010 that I had an opinion on. Hopefully I've given you something to ponder. But probably not.
Now, I've already done a quote of the day, because this is my third post today (although one post was just a story) but I have to write this to finish off my rant on animal rights:
Today's (Second) Quote: "We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words." -Anna Sewell (Black Beauty)
yea i thought it was guna be serious XP
ReplyDelete