Bullfights and Fishing

The two things have nothing in common other than I’ve discussed them both with people online in the past 24 hours.

Yesterday myself and Meg had a heated discussion with a fellow member of #foad (on Efnet IRC- Shameless plug for my wee little channel) about bullfighting. He was telling us how he’d gone to the bullfights the previous weekend and what a grand time he had. I couldn’t really contain my disgust and quickly blurted out a very heartfelt “EWWW!!”.

As the conversation went on both Meg and I pleaded our unified case about why bullfighting is cruel and unnecessary while he repeated the same half-baked argument. – That we don’t respect other cultures. I was sure he was going to come out with the classic response most men do when standing up for their torturous fun and games. “Well, you eat MEAT don’t you? How do you think those animals die?”, thankfully he didn’t. I think that would have been the point where I went completely off my rocker.

I argued that respecting other cultures doesn’t mean that I have to respect everything they do. Some things are cruel and inhumane and shouldn’t take place regardless of where. Some cultures stone women to death or throw acid in their faces when they “shame” their families by being raped. Other cultures slice off the clitoris of young girls and sew their labia shut with slivers of vines and thorns to await their future husband to brutally rip open before he ravages her. Which is usually around the age of 12 or 13 years old. Should I respect what these people do simply because it’s their culture? *Boggles*

When I gave this argument I was told it’s different because the examples I gave take place with humans, not animals. At that point I gave up and just stopped responding. I’m not sure if I considered myself defeated or just having exhausted all avenues to make him understand where I was coming from. I still believe that bullfights and bull runs are inhumane, cruel and sadistic events. My opinion on that will NOT be changing anytime soon.

Today I was playing WoW and spent an absurd amount of time fishing for Oily Blackmouths which were needed for my Alchemy. While I was fishing I was chatting with people in the same zone as me, voicing my fishing boredom, when one of the men started talking about how he was fishing in real life this past weekend. I silently wondered what it is with men and killing animals for sport, but I admit I wasn’t all that fussed about fishing. Maybe because I don’t imagine fish having feelings.. I mean take the goldfish for example, they only have a memory of a few seconds. So every trip around the bowl is undiscovered territory for them, how much emotion can they really have?

Then I got to thinking about when I was a kid and my dad used to take me fishing. I LOVED IT! He used to take me down to the warf where the men were fishing and set me up with a rod. I felt like the coolest kid in town down there fishing with my dad.. I always caught tons of fish as well, and was totally chuffed with myself that I was catching more fish than the men were. What I didn’t know was that the fish I was catching were these nastyass little fish that swim right up by the warf called Perch. My father would drop the line down over the side of the warf and I’d have about fifty Perch biting at my line. So I just pulled them in one after the other, as happy as if I was in my right mind.

The best part was that I’d demand we take them home and cook them, even though I didn’t eat fish, mom and dad had to. My mother had to send my father to the supermarket to buy cod or haddock to put in the pan so I’d think they were cooking my fish. I’d watch every bite going into their mouths and gleam proudly as I ate my chicken.

I want to be a kid again… Although, this is Rotterdam! The biggest seaport in the world… that must make for millions of Perch. Maybe Xander will take me fishing someday! Then again, this is Rotterdam, I suspect any fish we pull out of the harbours here will come out with 3 eyes and 2 tails.