March 10th, 2004

Letter #1
Kayleigh A. writes:

im sorry, but that is the worst thing i have ever heard anyone say about harp seal...even if it was a joke, it is wrong. its not like i go around accusing all bunnies of being carnivorous fiends, but i do call humans such. humans are the worst species of this earth, for they are taking on a totalitarianistic reign of everything on this planet and off it. i am not saying all humans are such as this, but it seems to me that you are one of them.

If anyone can decipher what she's saying here, I'd love to hear it. My approximate translation: Not all bunnies are carnivorous fiends, but humans are. In addition, humans are the worst species and totalitarianistic. But not all humans are. But I am. My head hurts just reading this. On to a more literate response.

Letter #2
Adela writes (with my new friend Eva and someone named Rita CC'ed):

Hi Eva and Rita:
I couldn't resist telling this bozo what I think of his "joke":

Mr. Paul Kafasis:

I read your answer to my colleague, Eva. You wrote:
"Do you not realize that this entire article is a joke? How did you even stumble onto it? Read the whole page, the satire is pretty glaring....As for vicious, no, not really, considering I don't even eat meat or wear leather. Can you say the same? If so, great, but try to open your eyes, don't be such a pedant, and laugh a little. If not, then take your hypocrisy elsewhere."

Mr. Kafasis, making "jokes" at the expense of other species who have no voice to express whether the "joke" is acceptable to them or not, is a sign of cowardice and ignorance since you are hurting the animals by promoting hatred towards them which can promptly be picked up by children and psychopaths who see your infamous "joke".

Just because you don't eat meat and don't wear leather (good for you!) doesn't mean you can take license to expose animals to yet MORE sadistic treatments as, sadly, the media have been reporting frequently.

No, my colleague hasn't realized and neither many others, who felt astonished that a person could fall this low as to hurt an entire species with his "jokes'.

My question to you is: haven't you more valuable and dignified interests and hobbies (AND THE TIME FOR IT) than posting an idiotic "joke" which hurts animals???????? It's YOUR loss...

Don't bother to answer as I don't intend to read your msg. This is all the time I'm willing to waste.

Adela

She's right, you know - I've been about as fair and balanced in my coverage of harp seals as the Fox News Channel, and I haven't given the seals a chance to air their grievances. How truly cowardly of me. Well, I'm stopping that right now - I invite any and all seals to present their side of the issue. Do you find this joke offensive? I invite you to email me, and I will post your rebuttal in full.

Apparently, I need to be careful with what I say, for fear that "children and psychopaths" may stumble on it. Ignoring the bizarre lumping of those two groups into one, let's hypothesize that a child reads this. What next? He goes into his fathers gun closet, pulls out the Mac-10, and heads off to the aquarium? Honest to god, is this what people are fearful of? How many psychopaths are reading pbones.com right now? Stand up and be counted.

In answer to your question, Adela, yes, I have many interests and hobbies, as well as school and a job. But about once a year, I like to devote about 30 minutes to really brutalizing animals. By writing words which make at least some people laugh, due to the ludicrous imagery of a baby harp seal being anything but cute.

Seriously people, am I hurting animals? Let's test.

A) Hug a seal
B) Gun a seal down

If you answered B, there's something seriously wrong with you, and reading my website didn't cause it.

Are people like this hurting the cause of animals, by wasting their time coming after me? Probably a lot more than I'm hurting the cause, really. And finally, can someone explain to me why each and every response I've gotten on this has been from a woman? I'm not drawing any conclusions or taking any cheap shots with that one, I just want to know if anyone has any reasonable theories. That's all for now.