I’ve been thinking about it, this thing about the size of the eye, you know. There is just something about the size of the eye tat affects the behavior of people. You know people come in all sorts, like liquorices all sorts! You get the hunters: They are inherently not a bad bunch. But some hunters…… Then you get the indifferent ones. They simply do not know about the pleasures of hunting. And the antis. Ah. Them! The “not uses!†Yea, what a bunch. But let me get to the size of the eye thing.

A group of guys may be sitting on an open verandah, watching their favorite team loose an important match on TV. No matter what the shape of the ball is. Doesn’t even matter what the size of the ball is. This is about the size of the eye, not the size or shape of the ball. So a mosquito female alights on the arm of one of the guys. She does not hate him. She does not even love her children. She lays eggs! She does not care for her offspring at all! Just wants to take a meal of blood from the guy. No hate. No love. Just instinct of wanting to eat. So what next? SLAP! Dead mozzie! Any dead mozzie is a good mozzie! The only good mozzies are the dead ones.

But why does the guy not hesitate a moment before slapping the mozzie? Is he scared of the mozzie hurting him? Is he scared of itching? Does he really hate that individual insect? Then why kill it without any hesitation?

Ever thought of it? Why would a pretty normal guy kill a mozzie without any pause for thinking? He cannot see the mozzies’ eye! That is it! If you cannot see the eye there is no holding back on the instinct to kill the bugger. Now this mozzie-slapping guy may be an anti hunter. But does it make him think about the poor mozzie? No he just slaps it to a bloodspot and a few broken wings! Can’t see the eye, you know! [Wink] Do you think that a true ethical hunter would have reacted any differently?

Would a true sportsman hunter have given the mozzie a fair chance of escape? Sort of wave over it, and then try to slap it. All is fair in love and war. Use enough gun! Slap hard! But give it a head start in the true spirit of sportsmanship. You are all hunters here, so judge for yourself: A true hunter would slap the mozzie coming for a meal on his arm just the same as the anti hunter would. Well, maybe better somehow? Aren’t we people always trying to be better than the “other†guys? We as hunters are somehow ‘better’ than the anti hunters! In turn they, the antis, feel, and loudly say, that they are ‘better’ than the hunters. Amazing thing about human behavior this: Always wanting to be ‘better’ than the ‘others’. We split up any way that we can fall into the ‘better’ category. A whole bunch of guys would first split up into “hunters†and ‘antis’. One group would try it’s dam nest best to convince everyone, but mostly themselves, that they are better than the others! The argument would range on and on. Touching on religion, sport and fast cars. Every possible aspect of life would be brought into the argument to show that one group is better tan the other! Then some wise guy would remark that he actually has blue eyes! Oh, yea! So have I. And I too have blue eyes. No, you can have your blue eyes, mine are brown. Brown is better! No, blue is better. Brown! BLUE, man don’t you see that BLUE is better? The group is now split into two different “better’ groups: Those with blue eyes, and the brown eyed ones. No more arguments about hunting, bloodthirstiness, vegetable eating and all that crap about lots of fiber in a natural diet! It’s now only about the color of your eyes.

Man, by his very nature, wants to be in the better group. But this is not about the color of your eyes, it is about the size of an animals eyes and your ability to kill it.

Just a last remark about man wanting to be associated with the ‘better’ ones: At some time in the above mentioned argument some skinny guy with blue eyes [and incidentally formerly a hunter] may feel that the blue eyes are loosing ground. He then brigs up the argument of body shape: He argues that “Skinny is good!†For some time the argument sways between blue eyed hunters that are far overweight, brown eyed antis who are in good shape [for lack of proper nutrition] and a whole bunch of other meaningless arguments. Then we find that there is a truth about the statement: Round is a shape, isn’t it? Group split into two different ones again: Fat and Thin. Each argues that they can survive lean times better, will live longer, have better sex life and whatever helps to place any individual in the “better†group!

So how big must the eye of an animal be before a human thinks twice about killing it? A fly pestering round does not stand a chance against a good fast reflexes, blue eyed, overweight vegetarian! Why not? Because the guy cannot see its eye. Even though a fly has compound eyes, and there are many individual little eyes clustered together. Although the fly slapper may be able to see the blobs that are the collections of individual eyes, each single eye is to small to see. So, SLAP! A dead fly, well many times. A fly is quite good at escaping. Did you know that a fly starts it’s escape by a backwards summersault? If you start your slap from ‘behind’ the fly, so that his most effective escape, i.e. the backwards summersault, brings him right into the path of your coming hand, you have a better chance of getting him than if you were to start your slap from his head end? Don’t believe me? Try it. Or go to GOOGLE and search for “Fly escape technique†. Fact of the matter is, be the fly sitting on a hunter or an anti hunter, he’s gonna get slapped. Mostly hit by hunters, as they study their prey and know about the escape method and adapt their slapping technique accordingly. Yes, it is again a case of making sure that the writer of this is in the ‘winning’ or ‘better’ group: Those that know about how to slap a fly!

Why would an anti hunter slap a mozzie? Or a fly? And what about hunters slapping flies and mozzies? Hunters only kill what they eat? They eat what they kill? Then why kill a fly? To eat it? Waste not, want not! Teach the anti’s to eat what they kill. Tell the anti who has just slapped a fly how long that fly could have lived. How many time it could have mated. How many eggs it could have laid. What good in the rotting of carcasses left to rot by hunters who wounded the poor animal that one fly could have done. One single fly can change the outcome of the whole universe! Just do the arithmetic on one fly can lay so many eggs x in y days, the eggs take z days to hatch, and if there is a rotting dead animal, they grow to sexual maturity in k days. After k+1 days 0.5x – there is a 50% female assumption – start each laying x eggs again. Repeat it a few times and see how the fly-killer has changed to destiny of the universe! And he happens to have been a anti hunter? Man, that’s C-O-O-L! Just think of it: An anti hunter kills a fly and changes the outcome of the universe! But then, OTOH, it was the bloodthirsty hunters who wounded the animal that the fly used as food source for it’s larvae! So the hunters can claim th honour! Good. Three cheers for the hunters! Hip-hip, Oh, what did you say? The outcome of the universe changed for the worse? Oh. In that case it was the bloody anti hunter that killed the fly in the first instance! Just shows you: Can’t trust an anti hunter to do anything good! Never trust an anti hunter at all. Except when he takes out your teenage daughter on her first date! Then you’ve got to believe in the goodness of your upbringing. You also have to trust the fact that anti hunters simply do not have what it takes! Whatya mean? Oh, never mind your daughter and her first date, get back to the size of the eye!

Anti hunter, we have seen come in two basic types: Blue eyed and brown eyed individuals. But they also come in two other flavors. Speaking of flavors, makes me thing of quarks. Quarks also come in some flavors: My favorite is “Strangeâ€. But lets leave the lessons in quantum mechanics for the moment. Just by the way, and while we are on quantum mechanics and the nature of matter and breeding of flies: How accurate do you know the value of Pi, you know that number approximated by 22/7 and circles? Here is a little word string – cannot call it a sentence – that will let you remember the value of Pi to as many decimals as you are ever likely to need: “Now, I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after all these lessons in quantum mechanics.†If you now count the number of letters in each consecutive word and write down the number, you’ve got Pi to many decimals. Now=3, I=1, need=4, a=1,drink=5, and so on to give you Pi = 3,1415 and so on. Just work out where the decimal point must be from the bit of arithmetic of 22/7, and you can beat most PC’s!

The one flavor of anti hunters that I really like to argue with – that if there is no more cold beer and I’m passing the time waiting for the beer to get cold – it is the “quasi- vegetarianâ€. You start the argument by asking casually: “So you are a vegetarian?†Naturally the poor guy immediately warms to the bloodthirsty hunter who can ask the question in an obviously friendly manner. He confirms that he is indeed not an eater of meat. You then remark that he is really a “Quasi-vegetarianâ€. With hurt feelings the guy will ask you why you are so rude to say that he is just a “quasi-vegetarian?†Well you then tell him about the difference between red meat and white meat. Red meat is meat from animals that are good runners – they run away from predators to escape. To run they need hemoglobin, a red pigment that carries oxygen. A similar red pigment in the muscles accept the oxygen from the blood, hence the red colored meat in long-distance running animals like antelope. Chicken breast meat is very white, that is because the jungle fowl and pheasants, escape by a short fast flight. They cannot fly a long distance at all, hence white breast meat. Geese can fly long distances – hence red breast meat.

By my definition if you only don’t eat red meat, then you are a quasi-vegetarian. Hell the beer is still far from cold! I’ll have to really stretch this argument before I flatten the idiot! Don’t like being called names? Oh, you do not eat any meat whatsoever? Not even slightly red pork, or pure white chicken breast? Well you are still a quasi-vegetarian! How dare I say that? You eat fish! Although fish has pure white meat, fish still bleed when you kill it! Never mind that a fish is a cold blooded animal! It bleeds when you kill it, and you eat fish, therefore you are a quasi-vegetarian! Period! Oh, I see: You don’t eat any meat, red or white, you don’t eat fish at all, you must be a quasi-vegetarian, eating nothing that bleeds when you kill it! How do you mean, “I’m being nasty?†I’m just stating what I regard as a fact: You are a quasi-vegetarian.

Speaking of vegetarians the dreamer youngster known as ELAND Slayer has a very good saying at the end of his posts about the origin of the word “vegetarianâ€. A quasi-vegetarian is someone who claims to not like killing animals for food! Be the animals long distance runners with red meat, short distance escapers with white meat or indifferent cold blooded fish, they bleed and they die=Not good for eating. Yes, quasi-vegetarians do not eat animals that bleed when they are killed to be eaten. That, my good friend, makes you a quasi-vegetarian! Why? Because you eat eggs, you know, like white meat breasted chicken, that lie eggs? You do eat eggs, or don’t you?

Do you even know here eggs come from? No I don’t mean where they come out, but where they come from? Today most people eat eggs from egg factories! Egg factories? Yes, big sheds with lots of little cages in which a hen is placed in each cage. There are some variations where the hens are socially grouped in multiples, but they are still kept in cages and fed a good balanced meal. They are looked after very well, you know? Disease and malnutrition is not for them, it’s a business man. A business must make money! No poor quality food. Good clean drinking water. No loud noises outside – the chickens may skip an egg if a guinea fowl shooter sees a snake near the cages and wants to kill the bugger with his shotgun outside. Do you know how many eggs will be lost if a single shot is fired here? There are x many hens in each cage, times y cages in a row, times z rows high, times p rows in a shed and if only 10% of the hens get a fright that translated to many $$! So don’t even think of shooting that snake with your shotgun! These eggs are of course all infertile! Can afford the luxury of normal sexual relations with these hens: They are there to lay eggs! Not have sex with roosters. Besides, roosters eat food, and food costs money!

On the other hand the eggs that I eat are all fertile. Well mostly. I have a rooster running around my yard with some hens. They seem to go about their life pretty much like jungle fowl, from which chicken is supposed to be derived, lives their lives. So the eggs that I boil are really proto-chickens: Take a fresh egg, add enough heat, some humidity, turn sometimes, keep up the good work for a few weeks, and you have a new crop of skunk-food. Yes, that seems to happen to most of my chicks: They become skunk food. But lately my GSP, Scout, has taken to killing skunks whenever he finds them. They screech like daemons when Scout goes for them. But he quickly dispatches them. Hope this being allowed to actually kill things does not affect his normally soft-mouthed retrieve of even wounded birds. Now my dog often smells like, well, like a skunk, but Cecilia has higher hopes of actually raising some chickens to adulthood! But I don’t mind throwing a poor living proto-chicken into boiling water, mind you, only for three minutes: I like my eggs soft-boiled! You like hard-boiled eggs? No? You mean that you don’t kill the poor living proto-chicken inside the egg by boiling it? Do you eat scrambled eggs? No eggs whatsoever? You must be a quasi-vegetarian!

It makes no difference if the egg was fertile or not: An egg is an egg! An egg ‘could’ be fertile, how would you know it? With all the modern talk of ‘organically reared’ it means that eggs should be of the farmyard type, where there is a t least a few [one on 8 or so – lucky guy!] roosters running around with the free-ranging hens.

Quasi vegetarians just love killing lots of things to eat. How can I say such a terrible thing? Well, if I as a hunter kill one beautiful majestic kudu bull – the grey ghost of the bush – I have food for myself and my family for many days. Even months! But you have to kill a large number of chickens, or more correctly proto-chickens (eggs) every day to feed your family. So, what is better: To kill one thing and live off it for many days, or to kill many thins every day just to live? Oh, it is about the size of the eye! Well a kudu has large eyes, but possibly a red hartebeest have relatively bigger eyes! So let’s compare one hartebeest with how many proto-chickens? How big is the eye of a chicken – in relation to it’s body mass, when compared to the eye of a red hartebeest, in relation to it’s body mass. But, in all honesty I’ve noted that you don’t eat eggs at all, so you must be a real Class-A Quasi-Vegetarian! You not only care for the poor animals that bleed when they die, you even care for their eggs. You are such a super-“Aâ€-grade quasi-vegetarian that you don’t even eat eggs that are known to be infertile! You really care! Good for you!

It is a wonderful thing to care! Even though some caring may be miss-directed! Caring is good! I care not to kill too much, and therefore I kill a single red hartebeest to feed my family for a long time. Sure, red hartebeest have red meat – they are fast and long distance runners – and they bleed when they die. Some, like you, care so much that they like to kill many animals every day just to survive! You care about the big thins in life: Like a big living red hartebeest. You don’t care about the big things in life, like the big number of small individual animals that you need to kill every day to survive. You care so much that you don’t even eat eggs – but I’ve said that before! It is however so important to show how much you care that it may be repeated again: You care so much that you don’t even eat the proto-chicken – one that does not yet bleed when being killed, and does not have a heart that stops beating when it dies – let alone real live animals that bleed when you kill them and that have hearts that stop beating when they die. Do you know that an embryo in an egg does not have any recognizable eye at all? So, as far as I’m concerned: It’s got no visible eye, you can kill it like you swat a fly!

Have I said that fish also bleed when you kill them? Fish also have a heart that stops beating when they die! That is why you don’t eat fish? Right? Right! You know what is really at the heart of it all? A fish fry is just about all eyes! Have you ever watched National Geographic or some other nature channel where they show the small fish fry? All eyes and very little substance besides the two big eyes. That is at the heart of your not wanting to eat fish! It is all about the size of the eye!

Let us for a moment leave the quasi-vegetarian and look at eye size in the animal kingdom. What has the largest eye? A gaint squid? A blue whale? An elephant? How about relative size of the eye? Fish fry are just about all eyes, how do they compare with a fur-seal cub on the Artic ice? A fur seal cub consists of two big, limped, innocent, soft, trusting, brown eyes with l-o-n-g lashes and a good quality fur surrounding the machine (body) that keeps these eyes warm and alive. What about killing a fur seal cub with a club? You won’t? Not even to provide meat for your child? You will let your child starve rather than kill a fur seal cub to provide a meal? Do you think that makes you a good parent – one that teaches his child that it is bad to kill? Or does it make you a good parent, one that allows his child to die for his “principles� Or is that a bad parent? I get confused with all these good/bad things. You like killing so much that you prefer killing a lot of things every day to just stay alive. I have no particular dislike in killing, yet I kill as few thins as required for me to survive. The bigger the animal I hunt and kill, the less I need to kill to survive. Does that make sense? Big animal killed, need a few killings. Eat small animals, you need to kill a lot to survive. Simple and logical. But it is about the size of the eyes, isn’t it?

How would you like to hunt a whale? Let us say just a small whale, not a blue one. Just by the way, do you know that the blue whale is the biggest animal that ever lived on this planet? It is bigger that the biggest dinosaur that ever lived! But to hunt a whale? Goody! A whale has a big eye, and a big body. How long could your family live off the meat of a single whale? Just think how few whales you would need to kill to stay alive!

I’m glad that I’m a hunter. I don’t need to kill many small things to live. You say as a vegetarian you don’t kill things to live. What is the difference between a plant and an animal. Blood? Yes. But what about plant sap? Breeding and reproduction? No, both do that. In different ways, but both plants and animals bred and reproduce. Reaction to external stimuli? Both do that. Grow bigger from a small beginning? Both do that. Both need to take in some form of nutrition in order to grow. Plants “eat†sunlight, animals eat plants or other animals. Where doe you separate plants from animals? At some molecular level? Both are quite equally ALIVE and both are capable of DYING! As far as being alive and being thus able to die, there is really no difference between plants and animals. Then why do the quasi-vegetarians make some artificial distinction? Because their designation is preceded by the word “quasi-“ they need some distinction just to be different!

What is the difference between taking a proto-chicken – a fertile egg – and boiling it, or taking a proto-plant – a peanut – and roasting it in an oven? The one feels? No, an egg has no nervous system and does not “feelâ€. Neither does a peanut feel. But they both DIE quite equally. Then what is the difference? Roast a peanut or boil an egg, which is more cruel. I’ll tell you which is less cruel: To shoot a red hartebeest. One good shot, one instant kill = food for a month. One boiled egg = food for one hour? One roasted dead peanut = food for one minute. How many minutes in a month? How many peanuts doe you kill for each red hartebeest that I kill? Who is the bigger killer?

How about cheese and milk? You don’t kill the cow to give these products to the world? Yes, and the old dairy cows retire to an old age home, where they live rich and happy lives. Until eventually they become to frail, and have to be moved to medical care facilities. Then to intensive care and eventually they die peacefully in their sleep. Do we use the body to make pet food? NO! we give them a decent burial, and a tomb stone: “Here rests Mary. She gave milk and cheese to the family for many years. RIPâ€

Exactly how hollow can an anti-hunter become?

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

Andrew,
You hit the nail right on the head. If you run a tumble drier for one hour, the energy could have fed an African family for a day. Come on, just hang the washing outside.

Good one!

I thought it was the size of the feet, not the size of the eye.

Waitaminnit, that was something else....