News Item: Brit Guards' Bearskin Hats May Be Banned

[Tesseract]

"A British lawmaker is gathering support for his call to ban the towering bearskin hats worn for almost 200 years by the red-coated soldiers who guard the country's royal palaces.

The motion, introduced by Labour party lawmaker Chris Mullin in March, declares the hats made from the fur of Canadian black bears "have no military significance and involve unnecessary cruelty."

Conservative lawmaker Ann Widdecombe has now urged her party to support the motion aimed at replacing the bearskins with artificial substitutes."

Full text:
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20060620/D8IC8C9G3.html

[Katt Fink]

Neat! I never knew the hats were bearskin. I mean, I guess I figured it must be *someone's* skin but I never really gave it much thought before.

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the look of faux fur, especially the really long, crazy looking monster fur that comes in all sorts of neon colors and patterns and I also enjoy fake fuzzy animal patterns for purses, shoes, bedspreads etc. (please don't judge me, I am an 80s child). It's just that, in this day and age, real fur just seems so... Neanderthal....

I especially enjoyed the picture of the guard with the planes in the background, creating trails of smoke in the traditional national colors of the noble country of Great Britain: cyan, white and magenta!

[Marie]

I'm a dork. I was thinking this was going to be about body guards for Britney Spears. :p

[das_nut]

"The motion, introduced by Labour party lawmaker Chris Mullin in March, declares the hats made from the fur of Canadian black bears "have no military significance and involve unnecessary cruelty."

Guards eat factory farmed meat, eggs and cheese: No problem.

Shoot a few wild blackbears. Gov't ban.

[Seb_0810]

Guards eat factory farmed meat, eggs and cheese: No problem.

Shoot a few wild blackbears. Gov't ban.

That is because the goverment considers the hats to be totally unnecsassary while meat/eggs/milk are considered "necassary" by the government. Hopefully one day in the far future meat will be banned.

w00t, this is my 300th post! :vebo: :bobo: :pibo: :nana:

[Shantih]

Good to see something's being done, I found out about what they were made of when PETA started protesting, and when I was watching the parades for the Queen's birthday I couldn't stop thinking about what the guards had on their heads.

[Tesseract]

Guards eat factory farmed meat, eggs and cheese: No problem.

Shoot a few wild blackbears. Gov't ban.
Good point. Still, any step in the right direction is better than no step.

I find it kind of perplexing that they're working with faux fur, but are very dissatisfied with it because it's not as weather-worthy as real fur. Why do they need to wear fur or fur-like hats anyway? Because it's tradition?? I've never been a big believer in maintaining traditions for no good reason other than that "It's Tradition."

[janie]

Whoa... Some of the hats they're still wearing are 100+ years old.

Canada wears 'em, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearskin

ETA:

Looks like they've tried to do this more than once before.

http://www.cnn.com/EARTH/9708/13/britain.bearskin.ap/

[PersianLily]

Lets hope they get banned

[animallover7249]

Guards eat factory farmed meat, eggs and cheese: No problem.

Shoot a few wild blackbears. Gov't ban.
Its better then nothing. I would rather have them eat meat and not wear fur then do both.