Did maclean's Magazine go to far?

[DesertRat]

OK, I found this in a Maclean's magazine today. This lesbian starts off by saying she is not against hunting but then spends her entire article insulting hunters. She actually says that she giggled when Cheney shot his partner. Am I reading this correctly or am I too sensitive? Personally, I take offence and have a good notion to send a well worded nasty gram to Macleans. Could you imagine if I (a white male huunter) posted something in a magazine saying I thought it was funny when a gang member shot another? There would be an outrage!!!

Here is the article.


February 27, 2006

Silly old rich white men

The Dick Cheney fiasco: why do they engage in such silly pastimes anyway?

BARBARA AMIEL

Why do rich, old, white males who are not quite dead but approaching the happy hunting ground, feel this urge to shoot frightened birds? Last week, Harry Whittington, 78, was hunting quail with Vice-President Richard Cheney, 65 plus four heart attacks, at the deluxe ranch of the Armstrong family in Texas. Whittington had left the hunting party to retrieve a shot bird -- God knows why, I thought they had dogs to do that -- and joined up with Cheney just as his buddy swung to shoot.

Cheney's shotgun followed the bird and the discharge caught Whittington. He now carries his Republican credentials inside him, one of which wandered into his heart last week, causing what is said to be a minor heart attack. The city of Austin, Texas, has been unsuccessfully trying to see Harry Whittington off for the last six years, but it took VP Cheney but a nanosecond to send the elderly lawyer to an intensive care unit. Richard Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson eat your hearts out.





The man Cheney felled belongs to a family who owns a block of Austin. The city seized it to make it a refuge, not for birds, but parked cars. Whittington fought back. Austin has lost two court cases against Whittington, plus an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court. Photos of Whittington show a classic Texan look: lean, fit (before he got pellets shotgunned inside him), silver-haired and breathing money.

You'd think he'd be sailing in the Caribbean or jogging in Nepal. But shooting parties in Texas? The entire notion is puzzling. Hunters hide behind blinds or line up next to the long grass where birds nest and eat. When they or their beaters find a covey happily resting or wandering around to get a drink of water, they scare them toward the sky so the rich old men can look up and shoot them -- and anything else around.

The one shoot I saw close-up didn't help explain this mystery. Most of the people were half-deaf from years of shooting and the birds so passive that before the shoot they were wandering in from the fields to look at their would-be executioners having lunch. I've nothing against hunting, you understand, or against shotguns -- nor indeed rich old white men -- but there is something intrinsically ludicrous about powerful people engaging in silly sports like hitting birds on the wing.

Perhaps it is the disparity between the power of the shooter and that of the game. Teddy Roosevelt hunting bull elephants in Uganda, okay. Dick Cheney, decked out in flame orange like a street sanitation worker, shooting birds at a Texas zillionaire's ranch, well, come off it. And when he hits a similarly orange-outfitted friend instead of a feathered little friend, one can't help giggling. One might even point to family values. California quails and some bobwhites, after all, are monogamous. Shoot one of a pair and you have lonely quails over America.

Cheney is not the first powerful man to chase after relatively tame prey. Napoleon's chief of staff, Louis-Alexander Berthier, tasked with organizing a hunt for his boss, got a thousand rabbits to the Tuileries. Unfortunately, he bought tame rabbits instead of wild ones. According to historian A.G. Macdonell, when the emperor took his gun and advanced into the park, the bunnies, "all thousand of them, mistook him for the man who provided their daily lettuce and leapt to their feet and charged towards him." Napoleon's marshals beat them off with whips, but some rabbits, being skilled in Napoleonic warfare, wheeled around on both flanks and reached the carriage of the escaping Bonaparte. Perhaps one was the progenitor of the large swimming rabbit that attacked President Jimmy Carter.

The emperor's associates also ran a risk now familiar to friends of Dick. At one grand shooting party, the great man managed to accidentally shoot Marshal Masséna, one of his best generals, in the eye. Masséna was philosophical: he missed the eye less than the three million francs he'd looted -- till Napoleon found out and ordered it returned.

Media response to the Cheney events was inevitable. Late-night television hosts were in rapture and Democrats awash in piety. News of the accident came first from Katherine Armstrong, host of the hunting trip, who normally inhabits a journo-free society Mount Parnassus. "We're used to getting peppered," she said matter-of-factly and suggested that it happened when Whittington did not "announce" his return. "Blame the victim," responded the Democratic party's blog. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi emerged from a breakfast meeting with Cheney and President Bush to tell the press of her demand "that the vice-president come clean with what happened," after not coming clean with Cheney to his face during coffee and orange juice.

Cheney's subsequent "come clean" on Fox News was unsatisfactory to some. "Now that he feels forced to talk," Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg said, "he wants to restrict the discussion to a friendly news outlet." "Talk about a safe haven," moaned Jack Cafferty on CNN. One felt only al-Jazeera could satisfy the blood lust. Thankfully, for once, Senator Edward Kennedy did not comment.

As for the quails, they must be as puzzled as anyone. Harry Whittington is even more unnecessary than they are for food or clothing. Shooting him, they must feel, at best satisfies some atavistic human need for hunting, but more likely is all part of a curious social ritual. I suppose, like their unfortunate vice-presidential namesake, all quails resign themselves to "be ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur," and rather wish everyone would just play golf.

To comment, email [email protected]

[Moreland]

I think she has gone too far... if someone wrote something about her "lifestyle" she'd be up in arms. So how about she doesn't write about something she knows nothing about... and giggling because someone was shot?!?!?

[pphoenix]

stupid b***h

[curmudgeon]

She sound like a "BUSH HAWG" to me.

[Daniele]

She has been around a long time and writing pretty well anything she wants in publications owned by her husband, " SIR CONRAD BLACK ".
anyone remember him?

[DesertRat]

OH you h ave got to be kidding me? I wrote Macleans' a big nasty last night. KNowing who this unnder cover dyke is, I suspect it will fall upon deaf ears. Maybe I should take it to City TV next. MUHAHAHHAHAHAH If I am not mistaken, her husband is in a little bit of trouble isn't he?

[fudster]

i tried golf spent so much time looking for my ball in the bush i thought damn might as well be hunting!!!