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Jan

18

Mike Huckabee: Next spokesperson for SquirrelStopper.net?


Have you read about or seen the video that involves Mike Huckabee, a popcorn popper and a squirrel?

If his bid for the presidency fails, he might want to check out spokesperson opportunities at SquirrelStopper.net.

But, you know, in my prior field of employment, people who did things like slather animals and put them in electric appliances had big red flags for “is cruel to animals” slapped on their records or case files.  We didn’t care what culture you came from.  A college-age kid who is discovered to be popping animals in a popcorn popper is going to be considered having a few things to straighten out in his mind.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:40 pm January 18th, 2008 in Campaigning, Elections, Politics, WH2008 

Comments

16 Responses to “Mike Huckabee: Next spokesperson for SquirrelStopper.net?”

  1. 1 Mark McNally on January 18th, 2008 7:05 pm

    So you never cooked meat in your dorm room?

    I’m not understanding your objection.

    Are you a vegetarian or something?

  2. 2 Jill Miller Zimon on January 18th, 2008 7:44 pm

    That’s cute, Mark! :)

    Did you ask the folks at Townhall.com that question too – since they express disdain for Huckabee’s actions too?

  3. 3 Mark McNally on January 18th, 2008 9:34 pm

    Actually I agree with Michael Reagan that he’s pandering and made the story up.

    What drew a comment from me tonight was that you are (unless I’m misreading something) equating the cooking of small game with animal cruelty.

    Unless you picturing him popping live squirrels in a popper, now that would be cruel. Is that what you were thinking?

  4. 4 Jill Miller Zimon on January 18th, 2008 10:11 pm

    Thanks for that, Mark. I’m not seeing the act as cooking small game, no. I do see it as cruelty, yes. I think it’s the popping v. cooking that I’m stuck on. :)

  5. 5 Anon on January 18th, 2008 10:50 pm

    I have no idea whether Mike Huckabee did or did not cook squirrel in his dorm room, but he doesn’t seem to be the only one to make the claim. From a 2001 article:

    College kids have cooked everything from melted-cheese sandwiches to wild game in their dorm rooms.

    Yes, wild game.

    “In the mid-1970s, dorm students were pretty much limited to a hot plate, if allowed by the fire code,” wrote one anonymous e-mailer. “However, I once saw an outdoorsman undergraduate fry some squirrel in a popcorn popper.”

  6. 6 Jill Miller Zimon on January 18th, 2008 10:57 pm

    Thanks, Anon but…does that make it okay? Now, if you’re an Anon who has read WLST for a while, you know that I don’t buy the “because everyone else is doing it” argument very often-legalized gambling and casinos being the one that comes to my mind first. So I don’t really care how many people fry animals dead or a live in a popcorn popper, it’s not okay. I don’t care how many Jamie Lynn Spears-wannabees get pregnant at 16 now – I’m not okay with that.

    Got something else? :)

  7. 7 Carole Cohen on January 18th, 2008 11:07 pm

    I was sheltered, no dorms for me in college; eating squirrel if you need the food okay. cooking meat in a popcorn popper is way out of my league. lol I had a neighbor in maryland bring me a bunny wrapped in aluminum foil as a housewarming gift; yep, the DC area not south carolina! I had to take it to be polite but never ate it; it even looked like a rabbit in the foil!

    I do agree that it seems acceptable to pick on certain things…west virginians and incest for example, while other things are taboo. I vascilate between too much political correctness and not enough. Okay Im getting a headache.

  8. 8 Jill Miller Zimon on January 18th, 2008 11:12 pm

    Ooo – ooo – pick me on the rabbit thing! When I spent time with a relative in France who had a home in the country (like something like a huge majority of French do), he caught and made rabbit for a friend of mine and me. I think I pretended to eat it.

    I think you are almost always correct, Carole – politically or not. :)

  9. 9 Carole Cohen on January 18th, 2008 11:17 pm

    Oh no and you had to pretend to eat it in front of him, that’s much worse! :-0

  10. 10 Anon on January 19th, 2008 1:38 am

    Thanks, Anon but…does that make it okay? Now, if you’re an Anon who has read WLST for a while, you know that I don’t buy the “because everyone else is doing it” argument very often-legalized gambling and casinos being the one that comes to my mind first. So I don’t really care how many people fry animals dead or a live in a popcorn popper, it’s not okay.

    I’m not making an “everybody does it” argument to justify a wrong. I’m just observing that Mike Huckabee’s claim is not unprecedented.

    More generally, I’m not quite sure of the basis of your it’s-not-okay reaction. What if we were talking about frying chicken parts in a popcorn popper? Would you object to that? Assuming any chicken or squirrel fried in a popper was killed humanely, I don’t find any fundamental difference.

    Under the assumption that the squirrel was shot dead before cooking, what, exactly, is the problem? That eating squirrel is disgusting? That a popcorn popper is not a proper appliance for frying meat?

    I’ll agree that eating squirrel is disgusting and that a popcorn popper may be a suboptimal fryer. However, I’m not ready to label someone who hunts and cooks a squirrel as a budding sociopath, particularly if he (probably) comes from a culture in which hunting is the norm. (And no, I’ve never hunted or eaten game.)

  11. 11 Jill Miller Zimon on January 19th, 2008 8:25 am

    Thanks for the empathy, Carole. A worse scenario was forcing myself to eat gefiltefish, which I really can’t stomach, in Israel in the homes of very, very poor families who hosted me for Shabbat meals. THAT was tough. lol

    Of course, it is ALL relative.

  12. 12 Jill Miller Zimon on January 19th, 2008 8:42 am

    Anon – let’s get some things out:

    1. I haven’t seen anything that clarifies whether Huckabee was talking about a dead or alive animal and I haven’t read that he’s tried to clarify it. The way he stated it on MSNBC makes it sound to me as though it was alive.

    Maybe you and I can agree that there’s a difference in how to react to the incident depending on whether the animal was dead or alive.

    If it was dead, I still would find the treatment vile with the only exception being if he was Grizzly Adams with no other food to eat. I don’t think that was, however, the case. Huckabee presented this as a cute get to know me anecdote.

    2. No clinician would label anyone a sociopath based on one incident of ANYTHING. And neither would I. As I wrote, there are a few things to straighten out when someone tells you or you hear a story such as the one Huckabee told.

    3. Add Huckabee’s story to this story in Newsweek about how his son was fired from being a counselor for hanging a dog at Boy Scouts camp and stringing it up.

    Anon – you know that laws to protect animals came before laws to protect children?

    I don’t like mistreatment of either and I think there’s some ’splaining to do, if anyone really cares. He’s not my candidate to begin with so I’m not all that concerned as to whether he clears it up or not. But for people who are interested in him as a president, they should get the answers. IMO.

  13. 13 Anon on January 19th, 2008 10:16 am

    I haven’t seen anything that clarifies whether Huckabee was talking about a dead or alive animal and I haven’t read that he’s tried to clarify it. The way he stated it on MSNBC makes it sound to me as though it was alive.

    If Mike Huckabee had said, “We would fry chickens in a popcorn popper in the dorm room,” would you insist on a clarification of whether the chickens were dead or alive before frying? If so, I believe most people would think your insistence more than a little odd.

    To someone (such as Gov. Huckabee) who explicitly talked about eating fried squirrels, I’m assuming that the question “Were they dead or alive before cooking?” would be just as bizarre as a similar question about fried chickens. Perhaps that’s why a clarification has not been issued, or even perceived as needed?

    But for people who are interested in him as a president, they should get the answers. IMO.

    I’m not one of those people. I do NOT want Mike Huckabee to be president, but nothing to do with squirrels.

  14. 14 Jill Miller Zimon on January 19th, 2008 10:30 am

    Anon – I’m going to take all of this as a compliment that WLST usually is a pretty darn serious blog. This post represents a slight shift I’m making in terms of occassionally posting things that just befuddle and strike me.

    I wouldn’t have known Huckabee said any of this stuff or that his son did what he did if either of those stories hadn’t made it into the blogs or other sites that I follow with RSS – because I watch virtually no television except when I’m on the treadmill a few mornings a week.

    It’s crazy, silly stuff to me but I also find it to be something that no one I know would brag about or offer up as something that makes them have things in common with other people. It is odd to put squirrel in a popcorn popper. That’s my opinion. No one else may share it, but that doesn’t change it for me.

  15. 15 Anon on January 19th, 2008 11:35 pm

    It is odd to put squirrel in a popcorn popper. That’s my opinion. No one else may share it, but that doesn’t change it for me.

    I’ll agree that it’s rather odd to put squirrel in a popcorn popper. And tales (tails?) of fried squirrel certainly don’t endear Mike Huckabee to me either. It’s the leap to the suggestion of possible animal cruelty where we seem to differ. In any event, I’m certain this will be my last comment on the subject.

  16. 16 Squirrel Stopper Inc. on October 21st, 2008 9:35 pm

    I am the owner of the product seen on SquirrelStopper.net. Why are we on this blog? We have no affiliation with Mike Huckabee. The purpose of our product is to SAFELY AND HUMANELY deter squirrels from people’s bird feeders. We vehemently object to the shooting of squirrels, or to any abhorrent treatment of these, or any, animals. This is why we developed this product.

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