[Leica] OT - Why do snakes bring out the worst in people?

[Ruralmopics@aol.com]

I can see it coming now. I predict this rattlesnake thread will take a 
serious turn for the worse in record time. Among other things, I edit the 
letters to the editor for Rural Missouri. We once ran an innocuous news brief 
item about ridding your basement from snakes when cleaning up after the flood 
of '93. We immediately got letters about snakes,  how they are vermin, and 
how some jerk redneck was proud of killing them whenever he saw them. That 
naturally led to letters in defense of snakes which, of course, veered off 
into letters about snakes in the garden of Eden. In time, that prompted a 
letter saying that God created snakes and SHE didn't intend . . . well 
whatever. The whole discourse took up more than a year of our mail bag and 
covered everything from conservation to atheism. I say talk about politics 
and religion all you want but never, I repeat NEVER, discuss snakes in polite 
company . . . (unless, of course, you're discussing a snakeskin Leica -- 
there's the OLC).

Bob (has been bit by snake talk before) McEowen