Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Shotgun Stupids

I have an opinion about everything. I just make it a point not to share my uninformed ones with others, and thereby avoid looking like an idiot more than I do normally. I'm a hunter, so I have an informed opinion to share regarding what is fast becoming known, by the most unoriginal generation in history, as Quail-gate.

I'll not defend Mr. Cheney here for his hunting accident. Nor will I join the great unwashed who have taken the opportunity to shoot at him in the wake of his unfortunate wounding of a fellow hunter. There, but by the grace of God, go I. But, I will take the opportunity to offer an observation regarding the hyperventilation and uninformed postulation of the fourth estate concerning an activity about which they, nearly to a man, show absolutely no clue.

I am offended by those whose first reaction was to summon and display down-the-nose visaged revulsion at the mere suggestion of anyone hunting to begin with. It galls me no end for anyone who has never experienced the solemnity of an ethical hunt to disdainfully comment on the activity. And for the television news pretty boys (Spiro Agnew's "effete intellectual snobs" descriptor fits well here) to try to "report" on the technical aspects of firearms and ammunition without even the basics of understanding drives me straight up the nearest vertical surface. Of course, I shouldn't be at all suprised by this glaring lack of understanding by the press--I have a long-running frustration with people in general, and news broadcasters in particular, who demonstrate a lack of even the most basic understanding of anything to do with the self-sacrificing military guarantors of their press freedoms. Seems that anything to do with a weapon of any sort is just not worthy of study by civilized intellectuals. Tell that to Leonardo da Vinci.

If a microphone-waving newsy accidentally knocks out an interviewee's tooth someday, I'm gonna be all over him like pokes on a porcupine.

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