It seems that the NY Times struck a green nerve by suggesting that thinning out deer populations via hunting was a good thing. But check out some of the proposed solutions to the problem of deer overpopulation.

"But the human species is the big whiny baby in this equation," writes Stanley M. Renkas, a big whiny baby from Brooklyn, NY. "Why don't we give the deer more room to roam, why don't we drive slower on rural roads," writes the urbanite.

I guess we should also provide the deer with bags of food to keep them from starving to death. And driving slower still doesn't prevent deer from leaping through your passenger side window as you drive by. (Something that happened to a college buddy of mine.)

Stan goes on to offer some other, more realistic suggestions: "... why don't we eliminate some roads completely, why don't we cure our addiction to development and stop spoiling the natural world with our grotesque monuments to greed..."

Addiction to development? Grotesque monuments to greed? A guy from Brooklyn, the seventh largest city in America (according to Welcome Back Kotter), is bitching about over-development and grotesque monuments? And that elimination of the roads thing has promise. All those trees should certainly make people drive slower on the way home from work.

Stan still isn't finished. Next he suggests proper family planning: "and why don't we cull our own herd through social policies that reward smaller families?"

Just how are we to do that Stan? Are you suggesting we pay people not to have kids? If so, I'll be the first in line to pick up my check. Still, it is better than our current welfare situation of paying people to have more kids.

Perhaps a little genocide is what Stan had in mind. People with 4 or more kids can get a license for 'post-pubescent abortion'. Better yet, we could just open the season up to all hunters, to make it a little more sporting. We'll issue them two tags allowing them to take any kids after they hit puberty. It'll sure as hell make a challenge out of waiting for the school bus in the morning. The malls won't be so crowded on the weekends either.

Like a true Green, Stanley suggests we look at this rationally: "Why don't we at least have an intelligent debate about what would be the optimal human population level on earth, taking into consideration all living things and not just our own concerns?"

Just like Mother Nature does each year, when the lions and the antelope sit down together and figure out just the right balance of predator to prey. This will make for some excellent debate at the next Earth Summit. My guess is that Religious Funamentalists and Racial Supremecists will have a lot to add on the subject.

Don't these suggestions sound much more pleasant than simply shooting and eating a few thousand deer each year? Hunting down post-pubescent teens certainly sounds like a lot more fun than deer hunting.