Saturday, September 1, 2012

Merchants of Death

We flew up to Boston recently to visit friends and participate in an annual canoe trip on the Kennebec river in Maine. On the drive up to Maine, we stopped at a retailer called Cabela’s, which I had never visited before. The place is enormous, and they are clearly trying to position themselves as the equivalent of Home Depot for outdoor sports and activities.

I suppose they were going for an exciting ambiance, but the place is creepy.

The first thing you notice upon entering is this guy:

firearms
He’s there to relieve you of any guns you might have brought in.

The next thing you notice is all of the dead animals that were killed by those guns, used to decorate the premises. They are everywhere – dozens of varieties of fish, fowl and mammals, some from New England, some from the American West, some from Africa.

moose_mountain
musk_ox
gnu
Some were endangered species. Call me crazy, but I think that sends the wrong message.

rhino
I was quite impressed with this display. An entire pontoon aircraft, suspended from the ceiling:

pontoon_plane
We wandered around for awhile until I saw this:

ghillie
Someone wiseass had “arranged” the fingers on the glove to send a very different kind of message. I only hope I never stumble across some heavily-armed maniac dressed like this in the middle of the woods, presenting me with this particular gesture.

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