I loved the video and don’t mind the “art” of using sketchy “facts” to spoof our belief in statistics and imaginary studies. (The collapse of public discourse into the corrupted dialog of marketing and persuasion is a whole topic in itself–which I won’t touch here.)

A few years ago I wrote an article for a writing class based on the assumption that during periods of majority rule in Parliamentary democracies it is cheaper to keep trained seals than to bother with paying legislators to all agree with each other.

We were living in British Columbia at the time and since the Provincial Legislature Building is located at almost sea level across from the inner harbor in Victoria the necessary flooding of the building for the seals was confirmed by the Legislative Building engineering department as quite “doable” though some electrical outlets would need to be moved up. The Sargent at Arms himself had no problem with trained seals and thought they may actually be better behaved than the humans he normally dealt with.

Unfortunately, when I called the Vancouver Aquarium about diet and care of seals (they had a number of “working seals” in their noon shows for school kids) it turns out that seals cost more than humans to keep. First, the rules on living conditions and food quality for captive animals are absurdly complex–even higher than captive humans in the prison system which is higher than Legislators actually make in pay and benefits. Second there are many, many animal rights advocates in the Province. They outnumber human rights advocates 10 to 1, so each seal would need to be accompanied by a keeper as advocate. Plus someone to represent the keeper’s lawyer and probably a seal psychologist should the seal fall into a fit of stress-induced barking, ball-passing and rude flipper gestures.

So sadly, the price of accuracy was the collapse of my story’s contention that seals were economically and behaviorally an advantageous substitute for humans. That can spoil a writers career you know?

As for being a Mom, my Mother worked, read lots (and lots more) of murder mysteries, had a pottery studio in the basement, took Japanese brush painting courses and often left us at the library for hours. We didn’t really notice. One time I (age 5) was digging in a gopher tunnel and the gopher bit into my index finger and wouldn’t let go. I ran home crying and my Mom immediately lit a match and set its ass on fire. The gopher immediately let go, dropped to the floor and ran away. All those skills and interests in one person seemed cool to me.