THE ULTIMATE PREDATOR

A lot of noise has been made lately by Animal Rights groups supporting leaving wild areas of the U.S. to natural predation, meaning that they want wolves and mountain lions as the top predators. The theory that the Animal Rights Activists have is this: If we bring back the high end predators, there will be no more need for the barbaric (in their eyes), practice of hunting. I guess on the surface that would seem to make sense. But by looking a little more into it, we begin to realize what we would be giving away. Hunting by humans is a far more specialized method of controlling populations, and I will argue here in this piece why I think you should support your local hunter as the primary force of controlling animal habitat and populations.

Hunting is as old as the earliest forms of man, in fact even before. All animals hunt in some way, either for vegetables, grasses, or meat. No matter what, something dies. We like to play God sometimes and value some life over another based mostly on how big it's eyes are, but to the thing that dies, there is no difference. All life should be treated with reverence, and we are naturally more protective of the lives we know, but I've come to accept that our place in nature is as a carnivore. I've often wondered what would happen if the future showed us that plants have a worse suffering being pan-fried than any animal does being shot.... wouldn't that freak a few vegans into starvation. I've always viewed Vegetarianism as the first step to anorexia anyway. First meat's gross, then crunchy things, then slimy things, and then soon.....you're not eating anything. If that's your path, then more power to you, but for me, I'm not chancing it.

Hunting isn't what it was 100 years ago, or 50 years ago, or for that matter, even 20 years ago. Hunting has evolved into a money machine for government, a specialized tool for game management and a retail business.

Huge stores have opened around hunting, supplying tons of jobs. In fact, in the town of Dundee here in Michigan, they have a Cabala's Hunting Supplies that is now the number 1 tourist attraction in our state. In addition to that public revenue, hunting licenses supply a big part of the cost of running a Department of Natural Resources which maintains our parks, and state forests not to mention buying up tracks of land and supplying access to lakes and rivers. I think it's safe to say, without a functioning DNR, any state would be a far less attractive state both to people and to animals.

So what about the efforts to return areas to "Natural Predation"? Over all, they have been a complete flop. Most often the efforts end up costing lots of money with bad results. A good example of this would be the Isle Royal State park here in Michigan. Isle Royale is a beautiful island and a great research station for Predator/Prey relationships, particularly between moose and wolves. Unfortunately the top predator, man, is missing from all this research. Lately an interesting thing has been happening on Isle Royale. Ticks have been exploding in population, possibly due to global warming. The ticks are impacting the moose health to a point where not only are they dying, but so are the wolves that feed on them. The irony here is: even in their effort to isolate the situation on an island, man has found a way to impact them.

I like to think of hunting as more of an effort to live with our brothers; the mountain lion and the wolf, than an effort to replace them. We assume our role as the Alpha Hunter, and in that role we control the populations of not just the rabbit or deer, but also the wolf and the mountain lion. If you think about it, that's the way it has been since we first stood upright and discovered our thumbs. Frankly, I view the idea of removing us from the predatory hierarchy as upsetting the system and throwing everything out of balance. Why is it we view ourselves as somehow "outside" the order of things when we are so obviously the driving force? We affect things around us in ways that impact everything. From our homes, to our cars, to our roads, we decide how the landscape shall be arranged. Instead of being a pushing force or a caretaker of captive animals shouldn't we be learning to live with nature and not separate from it? There are ways for us to be more responsible, to pollute less, to have less children and to impact the environment less. But what may be our most important role in maintaining a healthy environment is assuming our role as the driving force behind sensible animal control, as the Ultimate Predator. H.C.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HYPOCRISY

An interesting thought has been reoccurring in the "free zone" of my tattered brain. "Why is it we seem to forgive those that are complete fuck ups as long as they have never claimed to be anything else, but we crucify anyone that claims to be good and has a failing?" It seems we humans have a natural aversion to hypocrisy. As a father, I know that any teenager worth their piercings is going to call you a hypocrite at one time or another. But what is a hypocrite? Should we wear it as a badge of honor, or hide our face in shame? Can the very idea shape the way we look at crimes? should it? When is it O.K. to be a hypocrite? Let's take a look at what I've come up with while pondering the philosophy of hypocrisy.

I guess the first question we should ask ourselves is: "What is hypocrisy and when are we guilty of it?" Well, the clearest definition I could find is,"Insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or beliefs that you do not really have." That seems simple enough for me. Practice what you preach. But what is it exactly that someone who's trying to be good believes in? I think that's where it falls apart. We like to think that someone who holds themselves to a higher standard is somehow saying that they're perfect. So, when they show themselves not to be, we attack them as hypocrites, pretending to be something they're not. I think the crucial word here is "pretending". If your intent is trying to be a better person, then I don't see any hypocrisy. If your intent is to deceive people about your character, and you have no intention of trying to change your behavior, then you are indeed a hypocrite.

All that doesn't fit most people's definition of what a hypocrite is. An example of what most people think of when they think of a hypocrite is; Someone who had a child out of wedlock, or who did drugs as a young adult, now trying to give advice on how someone else should live. If you think about it, that doesn't fit the definition. Certainly, learning from your past mistakes and then using that knowledge doesn't mean you have two separate beliefs. It simply means you've learned.

Now, if I were to decide that I can't judge my kids behavior because mine was every bit as bad, I've just given my kids a free pass on some of the behavior that I thought was the most destructive on my life. If every generation keeps doing that and adding any transgressions of their own, my logic tells me you'll have a society that makes more and more mistakes. I want my kids to know I think smoking cigarettes is bad for you, even if I smoked them myself. I want my kids to make less mistakes than I did. I see no hypocrisy.

Finally, if we don't judge someone's behavior just because they'll tell you right off, "I'm a Jerk", "I'm a bit of a Player", or "I can be an asshole sometimes." We give them permission to act that way. Think about it, if the behavior is bad, what does it matter that you admit it? If someone says, "Yeah, I'm a racist." Does that make the behavior acceptable? NO. We need to be a little less forgiving of the people who act badly with no apologies and more forgiving of the people who try but fall. If we suspect that someone may be putting up a front for personal gain, by all means call them out. However, when you see someone who has done a lot of good in their life but had a moment of failing, we need to be a little forgiving. If there is no incentive for people to try to be good and total forgiveness for people who don't even care, we shouldn't be surprised that most people would rather simply give in to their temptations and admit it.... than take a chance at being crucified if they fail once. H.C.

P.S. I'll be out of town on vacation for the next week. I promise I'll answer any comments as soon as I get back.

THE DEVIL IN THE LAKE

"If anyone asks, we've been asleep all afternoon." My oldest brother half-whispered at me. Then in a flash, he and my second oldest brother disappeared into their bedroom. I noticed there was a slight hint of burning something or another in the air. The statement by itself was enough to make me wonder, but giving that it was only 5:00 in the afternoon and my brothers rarely took afternoon naps, I was getting very curious as to what was going on. Suddenly I heard a firetruck wailing in the distance. Slowly it grew louder and louder until it became obvious that it could only be going to one place. All the pieces fell together in one fleeting second. "Devil's Lake is on fire!" I raced to the screen door window and peered out at the people running down Bent Drive to Devil's Lake. Great plumes of smoke billowed out over the string of houses that rimmed the swamp that would eventually lead to the lake itself. The swamp was all cattails, and when summer would get dry, all it would take is a dropped match to set it off. And it would go up in a fury.

Devil's Lake was.....I mean is....located in the heart of the north end of Flint, Michigan and can be seen by driving down Pierson Road. It's now a shadow of it's former self. The swamps have been filled in along with the bogs. But there was a time when it was my backyard where I built forts and hunted frogs with my BB gun. Most any summer afternoon you could find me down by "The Drain" with my Zebco 33 fishing for bluegills and bullheads. We weren't really allowed to be down to the lake but since the "Soaps" were on from from noon till 3:00 it was easy to slip away.

Devil's Lake is what the people of Flint call the lake, but don't look for it on any maps. It's real name is Flint Park Lake, named after the Park that was once located on the east side of the lake. It was a nice little park, they tell me. It had a beach on the lake and a Coney Island style park complete with a Roller Coaster. But the Devil lurked down below it. It's form was that of an underground river that was eating up the soft ground on the bottom of the lake until one day it finally broke through. From then on it flowed in one side and out the other. That created buoyancy on one side, but on the other side it created suction and people who had fallen in said you could feel the Devil pulling you down.

The first sign of trouble for the Park was that people started drowning at the beach. Soon rumors of the "Devil in the Lake" started spreading and shortly thereafter, the Park was shut down.

Little by little the river pulled down pete (loose black organic dirt) from the one end of the lake, until trees stared to fall in and a strange bog formed. The roots of cattails and small trees formed enough of a mat to let vegetation grow even though the dirt beneath it was gone. If you weren't careful, you could fall through up to your armpits. Pallets were thrown down to reach the end where all the best fishing was. Looking back.....damn we were crazy. During the course of my youth I saw several kids pulled out of that lake. Each time we would huddle as close to the divers from the rescue squads as we could. We were fascinated by their stories of what it was like down there. Giant carp and catfish, stolen cars, water thick with black pete that seems to just hang in the water. Once one of them was nearly sucked in, and now they were all tied together with rope. Finally, the crowd would become quite and they would float the body up with balloons as we all would stare, horrified. The sound of a mother crying for her child is something that is hard to forget and it always came right as they lifted the body away from The Devil. I could easily live the rest of my life without ever hearing it again.

It seems that would have been enough to keep us away, but in the cattails we had a network of paths carved out, several cool lean-to forts, stashed BB guns, and a constant war going on with the kids on the other side of the lake. To just leave would be to surrender everything, especially our BB guns. None of us were even supposed to have them after Curt got shot in the eye. And a good stash fort, well defended, was our best hope to keep them. Our main fort was the coolest part. It had a roof built of old shed steel, and sticks shoved into the ground for walls. it had secret stash spots for our BB guns, cigarettes, and our prize possession, a playboy book we had successfully stolen from the drug store. In fact, it was so cool, it was it's downfall. My brothers and their friends discovered it and took to skipping school there and hanging out.

Apparently, my brother's friend, Dan, decided to start a "small" fire. My brothers said they were in the fort when they heard Dan start yelling, "IT'S OUT OF CONTROL! IT'S OUT OF CONTROL! They said they stepped out to find Dan waving his coat at the fire screaming RUN! RUN!

It was a pretty cool fire actually. No one got hurt and it burned mostly stuff the people around there wanted filled in anyway. But I remember that next day, sneaking out to look at the burnt remnants of our fort. I picked up a piece of the BB guns we weren't supposed to have and angrily threw it into the blacked forest. The next summer they began filling in the swamp for good. I guess somebody finally had enough of living next to a death trap, a mini-Vietnam, and a dumping ground. I remember them plowing over the fields where the park was and pushing the chunks of concrete into the bogs. Times change. Every once in a while I still drive by Devil's Lake and I wonder if the Devil still lives there. If he still grabs a hold of little boys stupid enough to wade on his slippery rocks. This story doesn't have a moral or really even a solid point. It's just that every once in a while I love to reminisce, to sit back and imagine myself a young boy again, standing on the edge of a pallet, catching my fiftieth bluegill of the day and defying the Devil that lives in the Lake. H.C.

THE TRUTH BEHIND CONSPIRACY THEORIES

What are they hiding in Area 51? Who really killed John F. Kennedy? Was Humpty Dumpty pushed? And most recently; Did George W. Bush's Administration stage 9/11?. Conspiracy Theories abound and have been with us as long as there has been gossip. I guess it proves that we are naturally suspicious of our Government and that's a good thing. But sometimes I think we take it well beyond the realm of reality.

The reason I bring this up is because someone gave me a copy of the Second Edition of the....hmmm, what's a good adjective?..... "educational" film "Loose Change". First off, it's amazing that there are legions of people who feel they have to evangelize this film as if it were the bible. For those people; take a moment and realize how similar you are to the people you refer to as "Christian Fanatics". Aren't you both just propagating a "Truth" you feel is critically important for people to know? Just a thought.

Anyway, I thought it would be a good research project into understanding conspiracy theories and the people who follow them. So, pen in hand, I set the disk a spinnin', and began taking notes on the most recent "the government did it" conspiracy theory; That George W. Bush and his pack of shady cohorts, planned and executed the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and even the bringing down of flight 93.

This is the point where I feel I have to make my little disclaimer;

"I don't generally believe in conspiracy theories."

At different points in my life I've worked for the Government on the City, State, and Federal levels. I find Government in general to be disorganized, clumsy, wasteful, and incapable of pulling off most anything effectively. I would point to FEMA, the CIA, Foreign Intelligence, The State Department, and frankly, damn near all government on almost any level as proof. Oddly enough, the people who most ardently believe in Conspiracy Theories agree with me. That seems like a conflict of thought to me, to believe that the Bush Administration is both stupid and incapable at the same time that they're brilliant and capable of preforming the damn near impossible. You know what I think? I believe that Clinton couldn't even get a B.J. without everyone finding out (And there were only two people involved). That Nixon couldn't preform a simple burglary. And that the Bush Administration can't even effectively whisper profanity without getting caught. On occassion, the military can keep somethings under their hat, but usually that's because everyone agrees it's the best thing for the country. Certainly blowing up skyscrapers and killing thousands is not something everyone would agree on.

Now, to go point by point on everything brought up in "Loose Change" would take a huge post. So, here are some sites that do it for me. Loose Change Debunked. Popular Mechanics. Journal of Debunking 9/11. I suggest watching the movie, then reading the debunks and then watching the movie again.

The real truth behind conspiracy theories is simply this; they sell books, they get made into movies, they're relatively easy to produce, and they can generate a ton of money. They can also preform a valuable service to people with political agendas. The Kennedy assassination theories, for example, have made J.F.K. a martyr, who died trying to set things right in a corrupt and prejudice government that would not let him get away with it. I'm sure the Democrats support that on some level. I've even heard that the government likes conspiracy theories on UFO's because it provides cover for sightings of their prototype aircraft. Certainly that would make sense from their standpoint. As for the movie; I found a ton of inconsistancies in "Loose Change". For example; They question why glass wasn't blown out of windows in the Pentagon by the plane's wings, and then, later in the film, they ask why the plane hit the only side of the Pentagon with fortified with high-impact glass. Doesn't that answer the question of why the glass wasn't blown out? I believe if you look at most conspiracy theories there is always an element of truth to them, but usually far more things that just don't make sense. I actually enjoy a few them myself and can be caught watching an "Alien Bodies at Area 51" show on some Sci-Fi channel. But I don't take them seriously. The real truth behind 9/11 is that terrorists attacked us. They tried to bring the Towers down in 1993 and this time they succeeded. Bush used the crisis to further his agenda, that's what politicians do. People made money and people lost money, that's what happens in any situation. You can read more into it if you want to, but I wouldn't recommend it. A good rule of thumb to remember is this; whatever truth you seek, you'll find. Whether it is the real truth or not. H.C.