It's seal hunt time again. Pamela Anderson just divorced her third husband after only five months. And I'm back in Canada after three weeks in Germany.

What do these things have in common? Well, despite having been a few cartoons ahead before leaving for vacation, I still need a week to get back on schedule. And the above cartoon, drawn two years ago, is still timely and funny enough to run again. Especially since Pam is still lending her mammaries to mammalian causes.

I know it's not good blogiquette to rehash old entries. But even cartoonists need breaks. Below, my entry from April 20, 2006:

This cartoon was inspired by a CBC Quirks and Quarks interview with conservationist Terry Glavin about his book, Waiting for the Macaws. In it, Glavin travels around the globe visiting cultures living sustainably on their local environment. He argues that in the relationship between humans and the rest of nature, nature doesn't always get the short end of the stick. In fact, we can find answers to our environmental predicament by looking at cultures that do live sustainably. The problem is, these cultures -- encapsulated by their languages -- are disappearing at the rate of one every two weeks.

He mentioned that in the face of this cultural and biological annihilation, it's not worthwhile to criticize the seal hunt. I agree. Looking at the globe as a whole -- and, indeed the future of the harp seal as a whole -- there are more important issues to grapple with than the fact that poor Newfoundlanders are making a living as they always have, sustainably, on the sea. (The fish were wiped out by big companies and government idiocy, not the fishers themselves.) Plus, it's a little nauseating to see rich celebs club poor fishermen.

The interview is worth listening to. Go to the April 8 Quirks and Quarks site and scroll to the bottom of the page.