I was once hassled in one of Toronto's larger downtown parks, for taking photos NEAR children (not of them, just close to them.) - The Parksworker kept telling me there was a law against it, and I kept ignoring him.

Here's hoping the CRTC just hangs them out to dry.

#52 - No, but someone with 20+ years doing fieldwork in the far north, before he became a professor, might. And it's far from the only animal skinned alive - ever heard of the practice of shucking bunnies? It was depicted in Roger & Me, and is far from uncommon "down south."

Takuan's got it right on the nose - the cultural association between white and purity + shocking red blood = everyone freaking out.

At least the Inuit and other groups use the *whole seal*, unlike other animals that just get skinned for their fur.

Seriously? We're back on the clubbing seals thing? According to my anthropology professors, that's by far the most humane way to do it - a bullet just poisons them, and ruins the hide to boot. They're still used quite well for native communities as well.

I remember at age eleven being mildly freaked out by my parents' request that I leave a school group at the ROM, take toronto's subway system downtown, and meet them for dinner (before going to a taping of the royal canadian air farce). The only thing that caused this was the fact that the subway shut down, and in an age before cell phones, I had no way to tell them I'd be late.

They spent the better part of my teenage years leaving my brother and I alone on weekends, running off to business conferences - I think my parents' friends nearly called family services. Now I'm 26, completely self reliant, and have had some pretty amazing experiences. I wouldn't trade it for the world - unlike my friends whose parents gave them silly things like curfews, keeping them from seeing dawn over Niagara Falls :)

I live in an apartment building in ontario, canada, that has a bat infestation - significantly unfun. And here's the thing - as much as i like the vacuum idea, you can't kill bats around here. They're a protected species.

And now my cats have taken out two of them. Yes, really. They sleep in an enclosed area in my apartment building, which apparently still had an open access to a pipe (hole in drywall) and they were flying in there.

There is nothing, NOTHING like waking up to find a dead bat lying face down, wings spread, in between you and the loo.