Canada's Governor General Michaëlle Jean - in bad taste?

Governor General Michaëlle Jean … a whole lotta’ heart
Beware! Oscar the Cat is on the prowl!
By Terrance Seamus O’Gavan
There’s blood on her lips.
There’s blood on the ice.
A Hannibal slurp.
And it’s gone in a trice. (Inuit Ode to Governor General Michaëlle Jean)
Our lovely Governor General Michaëlle Jean put Canada on front pages across the world last week when she delved into an “ethical” dish of raw seal heart in Rankin Inlet.
It was touted as a show of solidarity and support for an ancient Inuit rite.
Many more cynical pundits and backbench wailers viewed it as a photo op to gain support for Canada’s much maligned sealing industry, which has been taking some heavy handed cranks from the European Union, Bob Barker, and Brigitte Bardot of late.
Of course, Inuit sealing for sustenance, and the hard banging, head-denting annual seal cull are two entirely different entities. Is Michaëlle Jean that slick?
I’m thinking that she’s no naïve waif, and she had some idea that her delicate and tasty meal might serve as a superbly crafted photo op for People for the Ethical Treatment of Maritime Seal Bashers.
Whatever. The picture of Michaëlle Jean, hands and lips blurred red with seal’s blood created quite a stir.
Buddhists cringed. People for the ethical treatment of animals (PETA for short) barked, mooed, baahed, roared, and whined. Rex Murphy, our loopy goofy Newfie, stuttered, moaned and groaned about the fate of his poor seal thumping Newfie brethren and their god-given right to earn a living.
Four words Rex. “Better schools and Microsoft.”
My God, to hear him prune, preen, and pine, you would think that poor old Rex made his living bumping baby seals on the head before leaping from an ice floe in the North Atlantic to the greener less crimson pastures of the CBC mother ship. Rex held a CBC Cross Country Check Up show about “Bloody Queen Jean” on Sunday.
People phoned in and applauded Michaëlle Jean’s intestinal fortitude. Rex corrected them. “Ma’am t’anks youse’ for calling, but it was da’ heart, not the entrails. T’anks fer’ da’ call. I’se da bay dat builds da boat. Next caller please.”
Rex, that adopted son of a Newfie cod-kisser, makes no bones about his own views on everything seal.
“Pussy-walloped, cod-duffers and ham-handed politicians … is killin’ dis’ here livliehood, my lovelies. Good on ol’ Michaëlle Jean. Chewin’ on dat bloody heart, fer’ da’ good of dem’ sealers from Dildo and Come By Chance! Arrrgh!”
Rex knows Newfoundland. He knows, unlike many of those unenlightened politicos and businessmen - who are attempting to drag Newfoundland into the 19th century - that Newfoundland’s future rests not with technology, call centers, universities, and offshore oil, but rather with the lovely, free-flow of the annual seal slaughter.
“It was delicious,” said Jean.
I’m no Buddhist. But I’m thinking we may have to punch a hole in the paradigm.
The animals are not dumb. And I’ve read Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Just last week an article in the Globe and Mail entitled, “Amateur researchers seek Spot’s sixth sense,” caught my eye.
It contained the story of Oscar the cat. Oscar was adopted by a Providence R.I. nursing home’s Advanced Dementia Unit. Oscar made headlines when it was revealed that he seemed to sense when a patient was about to die.
In more than 25 documented and recent cases, Oscar, normally very aloof, snuggled with an elderly patient, who invariably died within an hour of the cuddle.
Doctors blame it on some extrasensory biochemical reaction. “Oscar just seems to know,” said Dr. Hunter Kevorkian, (no relation) a staff doctor at the Providence Institution.
I’m thinking that their cause and effect exemplar might be a little skewed. Does Oscar know? Or does Oscar, nudge, nudge, and wink … KNOW?
Oscar might be an avid reader. Oscar may have seen Planet of the Apes. He might like to peruse the New York Times on occasion. He might have seen a picture of Michaëlle Jean, fingertips and lips smooshed crimson with the blood of a poor defenseless seal. Oscar might be getting a little tired of this feckless slaughter.
Oscar the Cat. Hospice healer? Or Serial Killer?
I reached 95-year-old Billy Bob Golightly, a Providence Dementia Unit patient, by phone last weekend.
“Oscar tried to snuggle up to me late one night, and I threw him off my bed,” said Billy Bob. “I know what that durn’ cat’s up to. Sixth sense my buttcheek! That cat’s the second comin’ of Hannibal the Cannibal!”
Billy Bob immediately took affirmative action.
“My nephew brought in my old Remington twelve gauge and my trusty blue heeler hound Baskerville,” laughed Golighlty. “Haven’t seen that cat in three nights.”
Oscar has left the building. Headed for god knows where. A serial killer on the prowl?
A wise whispered word to our crimson-tinged princess Michaëlle Jean.
Alert the staff at Governor General’s House on Sussex Drive in Ottawa. Do not, under any circumstances, feed any stray cats.
And Michaëlle. Do look under your four-poster Queen-size bed before closing your eyes for the night.
Oh, and … meeeeoooowww!