Please don't nuke the whales.

About once a week at work I have an argument with this one dude about vegetarians. He tends to lapse into this exhausted Dennis Leary schtick about how vegetarians always want you to feel guilty for eating meat, and I patiently explain that I'm pretty sure no vegetarian over the age of 15 really does that, least of all in the middle of the middle Midwest.* The conversation inevitably spirals into him explaining how man has been given Dominion over the animals, who were put on earth to serve as tasty treats. He also has a weird grudge against trees and those who hug them, and spotted owls, even though I'm fairly certain the latter are not very tasty.

So the other night, when he started talking about this television program I've never actually seen where some "hippie types" try to keep Japanese whalers from whaling, I was pretty sure I could see where the conversation was going. To my surprise, however, he expressed this weird empathy for the whales. "They're big and strong and pretty and people should just leave them alone," he said, before expressing admiration for the "hippie types" who hassled the Japanese whalers.

His quirky affection for whales led to another aspect of his personality I find peculiar--he says he has never read any non-fiction book from start to finish. But he remembered that he was supposed to read Moby Dick once, and remarked "That captain wouldn't leave Moby Dick alone, and he got what was coming to him."

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* Added, semi-related fact, most airlines don't routinely serve peanuts anymore. They're more likely to give you those tiny little bags of pretzels, instead, so comedians ought to update their material accordingly.