Since today seems to be the day for me to defend animals against unjust accusations, let me turn my attention to the charge that British squirrels have become drug addicts, and are deliberately ingesting crack cocaine:
Drug addicts are known to be hiding small stashes of crack rocks in people's front lawns late at night.
Squirrels have been spotted in the same front gardens, seemingly hunting out the buried narcotics.
The discovery has led some residents to speculate that the squirrels are already in the grips of addiction. One resident, who asked for his name to be withheld, told the South London Press.
"I was chatting with my neighbour who told me that crack users and dealers sometimes use my front garden to hide bits of their stash.
"An hour earlier I'd seen a squirrel wandering round the garden, digging in the flowerbeds.
"It looked like it knew what it was looking for.
"It was ill-looking and its eyes looked bloodshot but it kept on desperately digging.
"It was almost as if it was trying to find hidden crack rocks."
Crack squirrels are a recognised phenomena in the US.
They are known to live in parks frequented by addicts in New York and Washington DC.
The squirrels have attacked park visitors in their frenzied search for their next fix.
The stodgy Economist has speculated that crack-loving squirrels are another urban legend.
But let's think about whether this story is all it's, um, cracked up to be.
Does anyone remember Rocky the squirrel?
What made him fly? And the name "Rocky" -- isn't that a thinly disguised drug reference for "rock" cocaine?
Moving from media depictions of squirrels to depictions of pigs, I'm wondering whether it's a coincidence that there are now increasing reports of censorship directed against the latter. The campaign started with the ban of pig calendars and statuettes in offices, quickly spread to children's books in classrooms, and even piggy banks.
I don't know whether there's a direct connection between the two, but a country cracking down on pigs should hardly be surprised to see its squirrels pigging out on crack. I see this apparently dysfunctional behavior by squirrels as a classic cry for help, and I hope that the censorship which started in Britain doesn't spread to this country.
Well, I say the best defense is a good offense. Just as all animals are equal, all cartoons and all media depictions of animals should be equal, and treated equally. Michelle Malkin reminds us of another venerated cartoon image, and that is Piglet:
There's a campaign to save Piglet, who, it seems, is being held hostage by people with absolutely no sense of humor. People unable to laugh at themselves, and who don't consider even this cartoon (quite tame by American standards) to be funny:
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Comments
Even squirrels know you don't eat freebase cocaine, you eat cocaine hydrochloride!
Squirrels are all very good chemists.
Sigivald · October 25, 2005 06:19 PM
I remember Rocky the Flying Squirrel very much, and Bullwinkle the Moose, and Boris and Natashia and their Fearless Leader in Pottsylvania. (Must be near Lower Slobovia.)
Squirrels on dope? And beware of those squirrels lurking up in trees way, way out in the boonies in Yosemite National Park waiting to bite somebody and spread the Bubonic Plague. Happy Halloween.
What I fear far more is Political Correctness and appeasement, the complete capitulation the West to her enemies. The rest of Europe is sinking fast. I can only pray that there are enough Jews and Christians with the spine to rebel against this Godless tyranny and capitalize "Jew" and "Christian" and "Christ". I don't remember even the Godless Soviet Communists passing such a despicable law, though no doubt Mao or Pol Pot would. What will be the punishment for violating it? Death? Christians are commanded to "render unto Caesar" but they are even more commanded to "render unto God" and "to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). I, for one, will always capitalize "Christ".
Clarification: I was responding to article linked, discussing the "new orthography" in Belgium and Holland, which outraged me even than this pig nonsense.
There isn't anything I know of in the Koran or traditional Islam which forbids images of pigs -- except the commandment in Sunni Islam which forbids all images. Obviously, these Muslims picked up the Politically Correct fad of banning "offensive" images such as images of guns.
I'm now thinking that most of the problems we're having now with Islam or Muslims come not so much from Islam itself but from the fusion of Islam with modern Western Political Correctness. You didn't hear Saladin whining to Richard Coeur de Leon: "Sob! Sob! You're oppressing me, you imperialist! You should feel guilty!" Instead, Saladin, worthy foe that he was, fought like a man.
It is absolute, laughable nonsense, and it deserves the soundest ridicule possible. I fear that if we don't laugh now -- and loudly -- we may find ourselves unable to laugh later.
This capitalization issue reminds me of the time when Ralph de Toledano, a conservative and Catholic writer, saw that his editor had lower-cased "Heaven" and "Hell". De Toledano replied: "Heaven and Hell are places -- you know, like Scarsdale?"
Indeed. And -- his style!
Which reminds me of another story. When Hillaire Belloc (a friend of G. K. Chesterton) was running for Parliament, a woman asked him indignantly if it was true that he was a "Papist".
He took out his Rosary and replied: "Do you see these BEADS? I say them every MORNING when I get UP and every EVENING when I go to BED. And, Madam, if you object to THAT, then I pray to GOD to spare me the IGNOMINY of representing YOU in Parliament."
His style! And I say that if more Catholics showed that spirit, they would save Western civilization.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Even squirrels know you don't eat freebase cocaine, you eat cocaine hydrochloride!
Squirrels are all very good chemists.