The Very Last Word on This Puffin Business
Okay, I wasn’t going to this. But seeing as how no less a luminary than recently-disgraced Werner Patel has weighed in on the subject, I figure the cosmos can entertain at least ONE more comment.
Much has been made of Michael Ignatieff’s quite funny suggestion that the Liberal Party adopt the Puffin as its official bird. The general reaction among Liberalphobes has been to pretend Mr. Ignatieff has as little sense of humour as they, and then reveal that the Puffin “conceals its excrement”.
Now, taking this suggestion at face value, I can’t for the life of me understand why concealing one’s excrement is a bad thing. I do it all the time, usually through the stratagem of flushing it away through the Mod Con available in many homes and offices since the early twentieth century, and I insist that friends and visitors do the same. Presumably those who find feces-concealing behaviour objectionable in the Puffin proudly leave their own feces on display: be warned, they are not welcome in my house.
Leaving that aside however, I must point out that very few of our brothers and sisters in the Animal Kingdom are completely devoid of habits that would seem at first blush to render them unsuitable as symbols. Here’s a quick whip through some of the better known emblematic animals.
The Bald Eagle : feeds on carcasses and carrion, scrounges garbage dumps. An inept hunter, has been known to drown while attempting to fish. Steals food from smaller raptors when it can. Cowardly: as noted disapprovingly by Benjamin Franklin, it is frequently frightened away from its nest by the much smaller kingbird. Communicates in squeeks and grunts (that dramatic “scream” you hear in movies is incorrect, dubbed in for effect).
The Unicorn: doesn’t exist. Sort of like the British “Empire”, I suppose.
The Lion: unbelievably lazy – they are inactive for 20 hrs. per day, and actually spend more time defecating than hunting. Hunting is done by the females: the males sit back and applaud. And if that doesn’t make you pity the females, bear in mind that the male has a penis lined with backward-pointing spikes. New males usually slaughter all the cubs in a pride they are taking over.
The Stag: No gall bladder. Responsible for approximately 150 deaths per year in motor vehicle collisions.
The Dragon: (see “Unicorn”, above.)
The Tiger: of all species, the most willing to shameless allow its image to be commercially exploited by cereal companies, gasoline vendors, children’s authors, Disney animators, sports franchises, and Tamil terrorists.
Honestly, doesn’t all that actually leave the fastidious and sanitary puffin looking pretty good?
Sorry, balbulican — I’ve read Susan Delacourt, but I still don’t get it. She (and you, apparently) thinks that Iggy’s repeated exclamations were funny. Really? I mean, they don’t shock me or bother me — I’m a pro where excrement is concerned — but I just don’t get the joke. That was witty? How?
The association between Iggy and laying an egg, though — that amused moi.
Every try to explain a joke to someone, skdadl? It usually doesn’t work very well. But I’ll take your question at face value. The hiding feces reference was a self-mocking reference to the Liberal party’s recent attempts to dodge the fallout from Adscam. As a scripted piece of humour, not great…as a slight, amusing, off the cuff response to journalists, not bad.
“doesn’t all that actually leave the fastidious and sanitary puffin looking pretty good?”
Now that you mention it, yes, it does. I happen to LIKE puffins, so object to them becoming the symbol for the Liberal party on that basis alone. However, the Liberals could probably learn from them on the poop-hiding side of things, but I doubt that would serve Canadians very well.
Re: Male lions
unbelievably lazy – they are inactive for 20 hrs. per day, and actually spend more time defecating than hunting. Hunting is done by the females: the males sit back and applaud.
Typical lefty revisionist slander against a proud masculine role model. While female lions hunt smaller prey, males take down larger animals such as hippos and water buffalo. They are also the main line of defence for the pride against hyenas and such.
They’re inactive 20 hours a day because Africa is STUPID HOT!!!
Haven’t you seen Lion King?
I actually think the Beaver is the perfect symbol of Canada. It works half the year, hybernates where it’s warm in the winter, and the riskiest thing it ever does in the face of danger, is slap its tail in the water to warn it’s friends before it runs away.