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March 2006

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March 31 2006 -- The Maui News (Edited for Paul content)

Elvis Costello forever versatile, always new

When Paul McCartney was asked which partnership worked best of all the songwriters he'd collaborated with since the break-up of the Beatles, he responded, "Elvis Costello. He and I sat down with two acoustic guitars and threw ideas at each other, and when we were happy with the result we made a quick demo to capture the feel."

"I have always just done things as they have appealed to me," Costello told Elton John in 2004 in Interview magazine. "It's been about taking advantage of the opportunities as they've come along. I was in the Beatles fan club when I was 9 years old and never had one thought that I would ever sit opposite Paul McCartney and write a song with him.

Born Declan MacManus in London in 1955, Costello grew up in a home filled with music. His father, Ross MacManus, was a big band singer and solo cabaret performer, and his mum managed a record store and often took her son to jazz and classical concerts.

In 1987, when McCartney decided he needed a songwriting collaborator, he called up Costello. The duo wrote a dozen songs for a planned Costello-McCartney album that was never recorded, and most of the songs ended up on various other albums by the artists.

March 31, 2006 -- Apple CorpsMarch 31, 2006 -- Apple Corps

New Beatles Electronic Press Kit viewable online

Dialup

DSL/Broadband


Real Player (CLICK for download page if you don't have Real Player - Windows and Mac) CLICK for Mac OS X

Dialup

Broadband/DSL

QuickTime Player (for Windows CLICK - for Mac CLICK)

Dialup

Broadband/DSL

Hello my friends,

It looks like spring has sprung and it's time to come out of our winter caves. I hope you all are well out there.

Cool new things to announce here in the new season! I have signed a digital distribution deal with Universal UMe for Mondo Magneto, my first solo CD. Just yesterday it was added to iTunes [on the front page, no less!] Now you can get Mondo Magneto and 'Tears of a Clown' too!! Click here to visit iTunes and download it.

Also, Not Lame Records, an online purveyor of fine music has chosen to feature it on it's site. Oh, and it is on Napster, Rhapsody and others as well. So, if you feel like hearing some new music, be my guest.

I heard about a new networking site, called Tagworld and I've just joined there as well, so join me if you like:

http://www.tagworld.com/brian-ray

Other news for spring... I'll be doing a private show playing with Rod Stewart in Austin, late in April. Yess.. rockin' with Rod the Mod. I'll let you all know if it turns into more dates.

Also Fiona has updated my site with a new look and fresh features and pics! Thanks FI!!! Come and visit me there, ok?

I send my best vibes to you as the sun warms our backs.

Love,
Brian

Brian's new CD "Mondo Magneto"
is available now from:
www.brian-ray.com
www.amazon.com
www.cdbaby.com
Download from iTunes [US store}

The single "Tears of a Clown" is available exclusively from iTunes US store - click here to buy

Read Goin' Down Swingin' - an interview with Brian by Robert Silverstein, introduction by Jorie B. Gracen (of the Macca Report) on www.mwe3.com

Sir Paul on Beatle search at Grant MacEwan

Paul McCartney's music school is searching for musical talent at Edmonton's Grant MacEwan College.

Representatives from the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts are at MacEwan this week looking for students to attend the institute's renowned pop-music program.

Twelve students majoring in vocals, keyboards, wind, percussion or guitar are auditioning today and tomorrow for one of the coveted spots at in the institute's music program.

The successful applicant may not become the next biggest thing since the Beatles, but will get a chance to study in the prestigious music program founded by the former Beatle.

They will get "advance standing", meaning they can transfer directly from Grant MacEwan, but they will still be responsible for their own yearly tuition of £8,250 ($14,437 US - about $17,000 CDN) and living expenses of £6,000 ($10,500 US - about $12,300 Cdn).

Located in Sir Paul's former grammar school, the Liverpool Institute was created with a financial help from McCartney, who remains its main patron.

It was opened in 1996 by Queen Elizabeth II.

MacEwan is the only Canadian institution where the Liverpool school's talent scouts visit to hold auditions and is the only college in the world that has a transfer agreement allowing MacEwan grads to finish up their degrees there. The agreement was signed in 2000.

"We are very fortunate to have a relationship with a prestigious school like Liverpool Institute that gives our students an opportunity to continue their studies in an interdisciplinary environment and gain exposure to the European music scene," said Bob Gilligan, chair of MacEwan's music program.

He said MacEwan and the Liverpool Institute value contemporary music education in all its forms.

Both schools share the belief that students should be flexible in terms of their playing and range of skills if they are to enjoy sustained careers in the music industry, he said.

In their auditions, students perform two contrasting pieces of music followed by a portfolio of work of their performances, songs, compositions and productions. An interview follows their performance. They will find out if they are successful within a few weeks.

The Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts averages 650 applications a year for 45 spots in its two music degree programs. Auditions are also held in Norway, Japan, Spain and the United States.

If accepted into the Liverpool Institute, graduates of MacEwan's two-year music diploma program can get an honours bachelor of arts degree in music after two years of study.

Culture writer Graham Andrews will have a full report on the auditions at MacEwan in Thursday's Journal.

For more information on the Liverpool Institute of the Performing Arts click here.

After a 35 year hiatus, Peter & Gordon - once called the "Everly Brothers of the British Invasion" - will perform in Secaucus at the annual Festival for Beatles Fans over the weekend of March 31 through April 2.

The duo first hit number one in 1964 with "A World Without Love," a song written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and followed up with nine more top-40 hits, including two others written by the Beatles.

Although not as well remembered by the general public as other British invasion bands, Peter & Gordon were in the forefront of English groups that helped change the sound of music in the 1960s.

The duo was the first English group of that period besides the Beatles to score a number one hit in the United States.

Gordon Waller and Peter Asher met at Westminister School for Boys in London where they began to play music together. Asher was into jazz and folk music. Gordon was into rock & roll, and above all, Elvis.

"I listened to Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson, Elvis, Fats Domino and others," Waller said last week.

The duo started singing for their own entertainment, but soon found they were asked to do parties and later hired for lunchtime gigs at a local pub. They eventually became a regular act at the Pickwick Club, a supper club that industry people frequented, where they were approached by EMI Records - the company that had also signed The Beatles.

While the duo did pen some of their own songs, they scored hits with Lennon and McCartney songs such as "Nobody I Know," and "I Don't Want to See You Again," and a McCartney tune "Woman" penned under another name. Del Shannon also supplied one of the Duo's hits with "I Go to Pieces," although the duo's melodic folk rock sound also produced hits from music hall standards such as "Lady Godiva" and remakes of a Buddy Holy tune "True Love Ways" and Phil Spector's "To Know You Is to Love You."

Their records frequently also featured performances by some of the legends of 1960s rock & roll such John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin and the later Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones.

Although Gordon Waller, when interviewed by telephone, did not considered his duo part of "The Beatles family," he and Peter Asher played a huge role in Beatles' mythology, more than merely recording Beatles tunes.

Peter Asher's sister, Jane, was Paul McCartney's steady girlfriend for most of the 1960s. Peter was also partly responsible for John Lennon's meeting of Yoko Ono in that he was co-owner of the Indica Bookstore and Gallery where John and Yoko first met.

Parted ways

Waller and Asher parted ways in 1968 to pursue other interests.

"We didn't break up," he said. "The truth of the matter is that we had a pretty poor management setup. We did a lot of performances, but didn't get a lot of money. After a while, we got fed up with it."

Waller started a solo career in 1969, released a solo album called "... & Gordon" but it was poorly received by the critics. But he did launch a successful stage career in the early 1970s in England and later in Australia in the role of the Pharaoh in the musical "Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."

Since then, Waller has toured as a solo musical act.

After the parting of Peter and Gordon, Asher continued his association with the Beatles, becoming the A&R (artist and repertoire) director for Beatles-owned Apple Records which produced the most artistically successful James Taylor album.

Leaving Apple, Asher went on to produce a host of pop artists including Linda Ronstadt, 10,000 Maniacs, Cher, Billy Joel and a host of others, resulting in 31 gold albums, 19 platinum albums, and eight Grammy awards.

He was named Producer of the Year in 1977 and again in 1989, and in 1997 became vice president in charge of talent and scouting for Sony Records.

Back together for charity

Perhaps Peter & Gordon would have remained a part of music's glorious past if not for a recent tragic accident that injured another icon of the 1960s: Mike Smith of the Dave Clark Five. Asher and Waller agreed to join other musical legends of the area last August, including The Zombies, Peter J. Kramer and the Fab Faux for a benefit concert in New York City.

There, they encountered another local legend, Mark Lapidos, the one time record store manager and founder of the 32-year-old Festival for Beatles Fans.

Lapidos, whose daring allowed him to approach John Lennon in the 1970s to receive the former Beatle's blessing in starting the festival, was attending the benefit concert last year. He saw Peter & Gordon and figured they would make a great act for a festival that has brought many strands of the extended Beatles family together, culminating in last year's appearance of Donovan Leitch at the Secaucus shows.

"I waited until the show was over and I approached Gordon," Lapidos said, recalling how he worked his magic in getting the duo to consent to what will be the first official appearance of the Peter & Gordon act in the United States since 1968.

"I called him a few months later, and he credits me with convincing them to do this," Lapidos said. "I told him that the fans would love to see them and they would have a great time."

American nostalgia

Waller said the Peter & Gordon performance will feature about 12 songs, and noted that people in the United States are much more nostalgic for acts like theirs than fans in England.

"It is great feeling," he said. "I moved to America I was surprised to find out how popular performers from the 1960s still are."

Fans, of course, will be able to purchase CDs at the festival, including one called "The Ultimate Peter & Gordon" with all their hits.

Yet Peter & Gordon are only the tip of a great lineup of musicians slated for play at this year's festival. "This is the best lineup of musical guest that we have ever had," Lapidos said.

Pete Best, Laurence Juber, and the rest

The Festival will also feature The Peter Best Band - featuring the drummer who Ringo Starr replaced in The Beatles lineup in 1963, as well as Mark Hudson, Gary Burr, Tony Barrow, Larry Kane and others who musicians who have performed with one or all of the Beatles in the past. Perhaps one of the most amazing performers is Laurence Juber, whose is considered by many critics to be among the world's best acoustic guitarists.

The three day festival has an assortment of other activities from the market place where fans can find almost any Beatles collectibles, sing-alongs, trivia contests, movies, and other events will also be featured during the weekend.

For ticket prices, multi-day discount packages and other information, call (866) THE FEST from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The event is being held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at 2 Harmon Plaza just off Meadowlands Parkway in Secaucus.

"They use poor old people like McCartney and Pamela Anderson and Brigitte Bardot," Hearn said yesterday outside a government caucus meeting.

"Some of them haven't got a clue what they're doing. They think this is a great cause and they are just being used. I pity them."

Anderson is leading a petition against the Atlantic seal hunt for PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and requested a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper earlier this week to urge an end to the East Coast practice.

The Canadian ex-pat joined a line of celebrities speaking out against the seal hunt, including McCartney, Bardot and musician Morrissey.

"As a proud Canadian who frequently travels abroad, I am alarmed that people are starting to see Canada as a country more beholden to a pack of greedy hunters and to the seal-skin 'fashion' whims of a few countries than to the massive international outcry against the hunt," Anderson wrote in her letter to the PM.

Hearn said he used to watch Anderson on the television show that propelled her to stardom.

"It's been a long time since she looked good on Baywatch," he said.

As for McCartney, Hearn offered this advice: "Get back to where you once belonged, because you're doing no good to anybody and you're totally embarrassing yourself."

Email Loyola Hearn
HearnL@parl.gc.ca
mp@loyolahearn.nf.net

Texas brings to mind mythical cattle drives across dusty plains, where a chef named Cookie serves hunks of meat to guys who talk like Sam Elliott in those "Beef, it's what's for dinner" commercials.

In this imagined landscape, vegetarians blend in about as well as animal-rights activists.

So it might seem strange that a Texas firehouse won People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' (PETA) Animal-Friendly Firehouse of the Year Award. Besides, aren't firehouses, even those outside Texas, supposed to smell like a simmering pot of chili?

Not Austin's Engine House 2. During certain shifts, one is more likely to pick up the scent of tofu than beef wafting out of the kitchen.

That's because some Engine House 2 firefighters decided to make all firehouse meals vegan after one of them got back alarming blood-test results. (A vegan diet excludes all animal products and by-products, including meat, poultry, fish, dairy products and eggs. By definition, a vegetarian diet is not as strict about by-products.)

To reach the public, Team C has a Web site - www.engine2.org - with goofy pictures of the men posing with fruits and vegetables, campy biographies, health links, and recipes like Paul McCartney's enchiladas, tortilla pie and Station 2's award-winning wraps.

PAUL MCCARTNEY ENCHILADA RECIPE

Ingredients (use vegan versions):

* 1 pound cramine or portabella mushroom
* 1/2 red onion
* 1 or more clove of garlic
* 1 cup dry textured soy protein
* 1 cup veggie broth 1 package Taco seasoning
* 1 large can or 2 cups of enchilada sauce 8 to 10 corn tortillas shredded vegan cheese alternative of choice, if desired

Directions:

Heat oven to 375F

Mince mushroom to fine consistency Chop onion to desired size Mince garlic
In medium sauce pan on low, heat enchilada sauce till warm. Remove from heat. In large skillet on medium high add mushrooms, saute till tender. Add onions and garlic, saute till desired doneness. Add textured soy protein (if skillet is dry add a spray of a non stick fat-free spray to the pan then add textured soy protein) and mix well.

Add taco seasoning and mix till completely coated.

Add veggie broth and mix well (I like my textured soy protein soft, so if needed add extra veggie broth 1 tablespoon at a time).

Pull skillet off heat and let sit for a couple minuets mixing a couple times till textured soy protein is well hydrated.

Coat both sides of tortilla by dipping in the warm sauce. Place desired amount of filling in a line in the middle of tortilla. (3 or 4 tablespoons). Take left edge of tortilla and tuck under right edge so your tortilla rolls up and place seam side down in pan. Repeat till all filling is used.

Top enchiladas with left over sauce

Top with your favorite vegan cheese alternative if desired

Place pan in oven for 15 to 20 min

The warm sauce helps soften the tortilla so you can roll them with out breaking. If tortilla is really dry have a pan of hot water near that you can dip tortilla in to soften, then dip in sauce.

I build my enchiladas in the pan I am going to bake them in so all I have to do is roll the tortilla over seam side down and slide into place.

Texas brings to mind mythical cattle drives across dusty plains, where a chef named Cookie serves hunks of meat to guys who talk like Sam Elliott in those "Beef, it's what's for dinner" commercials.

In this imagined landscape, vegetarians blend in about as well as animal-rights activists.

So it might seem strange that a Texas firehouse won People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' (PETA) Animal-Friendly Firehouse of the Year Award. Besides, aren't firehouses, even those outside Texas, supposed to smell like a simmering pot of chili?

Not Austin's Engine House 2. During certain shifts, one is more likely to pick up the scent of tofu than beef wafting out of the kitchen.

That's because some Engine House 2 firefighters decided to make all firehouse meals vegan after one of them got back alarming blood-test results. (A vegan diet excludes all animal products and by-products, including meat, poultry, fish, dairy products and eggs. By definition, a vegetarian diet is not as strict about by-products.)

To reach the public, Team C has a Web site - www.engine2.org - with goofy pictures of the men posing with fruits and vegetables, campy biographies, health links, and recipes like Paul McCartney's enchiladas, tortilla pie and Station 2's award-winning wraps.

PAUL MCCARTNEY ENCHILADA RECIPE

Ingredients (use vegan versions):

* 1 pound cramine or portabella mushroom
* 1/2 red onion
* 1 or more clove of garlic
* 1 cup dry textured soy protein
* 1 cup veggie broth 1 package Taco seasoning
* 1 large can or 2 cups of enchilada sauce 8 to 10 corn tortillas shredded vegan cheese alternative of choice, if desired

Directions:

Heat oven to 375F

Mince mushroom to fine consistency Chop onion to desired size Mince garlic
In medium sauce pan on low, heat enchilada sauce till warm. Remove from heat. In large skillet on medium high add mushrooms, saute till tender. Add onions and garlic, saute till desired doneness. Add textured soy protein (if skillet is dry add a spray of a non stick fat-free spray to the pan then add textured soy protein) and mix well.

Add taco seasoning and mix till completely coated.

Add veggie broth and mix well (I like my textured soy protein soft, so if needed add extra veggie broth 1 tablespoon at a time).

Pull skillet off heat and let sit for a couple minuets mixing a couple times till textured soy protein is well hydrated.

Coat both sides of tortilla by dipping in the warm sauce. Place desired amount of filling in a line in the middle of tortilla. (3 or 4 tablespoons). Take left edge of tortilla and tuck under right edge so your tortilla rolls up and place seam side down in pan. Repeat till all filling is used.

Top enchiladas with left over sauce

Top with your favorite vegan cheese alternative if desired

Place pan in oven for 15 to 20 min

The warm sauce helps soften the tortilla so you can roll them with out breaking. If tortilla is really dry have a pan of hot water near that you can dip tortilla in to soften, then dip in sauce.

I build my enchiladas in the pan I am going to bake them in so all I have to do is roll the tortilla over seam side down and slide into place.

But now she's messing with our farmers with her most outrageous message yet: Milk kills. We never expected we'd say this, but she's starting to make Brigitte Bardot sound sensible.

Sir Paul McCartney's left shoe has gone on sale on internet auction website eBay.

The Beatles legend's slipper has so far attracted a bid of £802 ($1,403) from a Fab Four fanatic trying to land some precious memorabilia.

The highly unfashionable, rubber-soled (no pun intended) slip-on monstrosity has been the subject of fierce competition on the site.

The black size nine-and-a-half Merrell slipper has a bright red lining.

And although it has been worn by Macca, it is advertised as being "in excellent condition."

Fair play to the star for donating the shoe to MAG, the landmines charity.

The slipper is part of the charity's "Give Mines the Boot" auction of celebrity footwear to raise money to help clear the deadly devices from 13 countries around the world.

For anybody in the market for one left slipper, the auction finishes at midnight on Sunday.

SIR PAUL AND HEATHER MCCARTNEY'S 2006 CADILLAC CTS TO ROCK BARRETT-J ACKSON PALM BEACH EVENT

The Barrett-Jackson Auction Company will help celebrated recording artist Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills McCartney auction their personal 2006 Cadillac CTS for charity during the fourth annual Palm Beach Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Event. Proceeds from the sale of the special edition Cadillac will benefit Adopt-A-Minefield. The Palm Beach automotive lifestyle event will include three days of "no reserve" auction excitement from Thursday, March 30 through Saturday, April 1, 2006.

"This is a rare opportunity to enjoy a very special car owned by one of the most celebrated individuals of our time," said Craig Jackson, president and CEO of the Barrett-Jackson Auction Company. "Paul McCartney has touched the lives of so many with his music and we're proud to share in his important charitable work. With the proceeds from the sale of his personal 2006 Cadillac going to Adopt-A-Minefield, someone will help this former Beatle make the world safer for all people around the globe."

The car is a one-only version of Cadillac's new CTS sport sedan. The CTS Sport Performance Package is designed to fit between the base CTS and ultra high-performance CTS-V. To support Sir McCartney's personal philosophy, GM designers eliminated any animal products, such as leather, from the silver CTS. The car is fully documented and will include a copy of the original title in the McCartneys' names and a letter authenticating the Cadillac.

The sale of the car at the 2006 Barrett-Jackson Palm Beach event will benefit Adopt-A-Minefield, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the charity. Heather Mills McCartney has been an active supporter of the charity, which raises money for minefield clearance and survivor assistance by raising awareness about the landmine problem around the globe. More information about this cause is available at www.landmines.org.

The Barrett-Jackson Palm Beach Auction is scheduled for March 30 - April 1, 2006, at the South Florida Expo Center. This year's event will include over 500 quality collector cars all, selling at no reserve. Television coverage will be provided by the SPEED Channel.

"We will not include any Canadian dates on our world tour to promote our new album. This is in protest against the barbaric slaughter of over 325,000 baby seals which is now underway.

I fully realise that the absence of any Morrissey concerts in Canada is unlikely to bring the Canadian economy to its knees, but it is our small protest against this horrific slaughter - which is the largest slaughter of marine animal species found anywhere on the planet.

The Canadian Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) says the so-called "cull" is economically and environmentally justified, but this is untrue.

The seal population has looked after itself for thousand of years without human intervention, and, as the world knows, this slaughter is about one thing only: making money. The Canadian government will stream all of the pelts into the fashion industry and this is the reason why the baby seals are killed with spiked clubs that crush their skulls - any damage to their pelts is avoided. The Canadian Prime Minister also states that the slaughter is necessary because it provides jobs for local communities, but this is an ignorant reason for allowing such barbaric and cruel slaughter of beings that are denied life simply because somebody somewhere might want to wear their skin.

Construction of German gas chambers also provided work for someone - this is not a moral or sound reason for allowing suffering.

If you can, please boycott Canadian goods. It WILL make a difference. As things stand, Canada has placed itself alongside China as the cruelest and most self-serving nation."

"White Lies"

A public talk by Heather Mills McCartney Patron of Viva!

On Wednesday, May 24, 2006, the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation is launching a groundbreaking campaign called White Lies. It exposes the enormous health consequences of consuming dairy products.  On the same day, the VVF is holding a public talk ­ Why You Don't Need Dairy ­ with fantastic guest speakers.

You are invited!

Speakers:

Heather Mills McCartney: patron of Viva! and ardent campaigner for animal and human rights.

Professor T. Colin Campbell: For more than 40 years Colin has been at the forefront of nutrition research. His legacy, the China Study, is the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted. He is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University and Project Director of the China-Oxford-Cornell Diet and Health Project.

Juliet Gellatley: founder and director of the largest vegetarian and vegan organisation in Europe, Viva!, and of the health charity, the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation.

Dr Justine Butler: health campaigner of the Vegetarian & Vegan Foundation and author of the White Lies report.

Professor Jane Plant CBE: top scientist and author of best sellers'Your Life in Your Hands - Understanding, Preventing and Overcoming Breast Cancer' and 'Prostate Cancer'

Venue: Lecture Theatre 1, New Hunt's House, Guy's Campus, off Great Maze Pond and Newcomen Street, London SE1. See Map

Nearest tube and mainline station: London Bridge 5 mins walk.

Wednesday, 24 May 2006 at 6.45pm for 7.15pm start

Entry: £5 per ticket.

There will also be VVF and Viva! Stalls

Booking advisable. To guarantee your place, book now! Or send your name, address and number of tickets required, with a cheque payable to 'VVF' to: VVF Talk, 8 York Court, Wilder St, Bristol BS2 8QH. Or by phone on 0117 970 5190 (Mon-Fri 9am-6pm). A map will be sent with tickets.

The campaign: for details of the White Lies report and campaign materials, see www.vegetarian.org.uk from May 24; or contact the VVF at the address above.

Hot topics covered by the talks:

Is it natural to consume milk after weaning? Is it safe to consume cow's milk at all? Latest research on dairy's linked with cancers? How do growth hormones in milk affect us? What are the dangers of milk protein and saturated fats? How dairy causes heart disease, diabetes and obesity. What did the China Study reveal? Plus the calcium myth - do we and our children need milk? If not, where do we get it?

BOOK TICKETS ONLINE

Q: In ''High in the Clouds'' your first children's book, are any of the characters based on people you know?

PAUL: Not really. Wirral was in ''Tropic Island Hum'' (one of three animated films McCartney helped create), and I did his voice as if he was a guy where I grew up in Liverpool, England. He's not really based on anyone that I know because I don't know any talking squirrels.

Q: Why is Wirral a squirrel and how did you come up with its name?

PAUL: There's a place near Liverpool, where I grew up, called Wirral. When I was older and got some money with the Beatles, I bought my dad a house in Wirral, so I was familiar with the name. Then I had an idea of calling the squirrel William, but his friends called him Wirral; they shortened it.

Q: Why is he a squirrel?

PAUL: Well, there's Mickey Mouse, so he couldn't be a mouse, there's Donald Duck, so he couldn't be a duck. I couldn't think of any characters that were squirrels.

Q: If ''High in the Clouds'' becomes an animated movie, would you like to do the voice of Wirral?

PAUL: Well, any movie we've done, I did his voice, but if we did a proper full-length film, I'd like Bruce Willis. Or Robin Williams.

Q: Is writing a children's book more enjoyable for you than writing a song?

PAUL: No, what it is for me is a nice change. I'm used to writing songs and have done that a lot. Originally, Geoff (Dunbar, the book's illustrator) and I thought about making the story into an animated film, but someone suggested making it into a book, and it was so much fun. It's different from writing a song, it's a nice change, but I still like writing songs.

Q: We think Geoff Dunbar's illustrations are so cool. What is your favorite in the book?

PAUL: I like a few of them. I like the big factory, where all the poor animals have to work. I also like the little one of when Wirral's mom has died. (Dunbar's) a really good artist, so I like a lot of the illustrations and think they are good.

Q: Since you've done voices for your animated films, did you like to mimic people when you were a kid?

PAUL: We made the films before we did the book, and (as I told the story) I would say it like in the character's voice. The guy who was making the film said I should do the voices. I do like to mimic people. (Here Paul began using accents.) Sometimes I like to talk like an American like real New York, sometimes I like to talk Scottish, sometimes I like to talk like a German, sometimes I like to talk like I'm from Jamaica, mon. I'm not very good at it, but I do like to mimic people. It's a good laugh.

Q: Do you have any plans to make any of your famous songs into children's books?

PAUL: No. But one of the songs I wrote was ''Yellow Submarine,'' and that was made into a film. When I write a song, I don't think if this could be a book, I'm just writing for a CD. But you never know.

Q: If you could only own three albums, what would you want them to be?

PAUL: They would be mine, mine and mine! No, that's a very difficult question; there are too many I like. But to give you three, I'll say The Beach Boys' ''Pet Sounds.'' The Beatles had a lot of good ones, but to choose just one, ''Rubber Soul.'' And Luther Vandross' ''Dance With My Father''; it's cool.

MACCA SACKED ME FOR COCAINE BINGES

EXCLUSIVE PAL TALKS FOR FIRST TIME ABOUT SPLIT FROM THE BEATLES LEGEND

Sir Paul McCartney's former right-hand man has revealed he was sacked by the pop legend for his wild cocaine binges.

And Geoff Baker admitted selling personal gifts from the Beatles legend to pay his mortgage.

Baker said he still respected Sir Paul but refused to extend an olive branch to his wife, Heather Mills- McCartney. She was widely rumoured to have disliked him.

The only previous explanation for the split was given by the singer who said Baker had become "more and more unstable", culminating in a bizarre row as they went to see magician David Blaine suspended over the Thames.

Baker reveals today how:

He deserved to be sacked and fears he would be dead if it hadn't happened.

He is alarmed at Heather's attempts to control her husband's dope smoking.

He turned down an offer of £150,000 ($262,500) to spill the beans about Sir Paul and his marriage.

Baker, who was with Sir Paul for 15 years, has not spoken to him since they parted 18 months ago.

He needed cash so much he sold two books - including one called Blackbird Singing - and a letter signed by Sir Paul to an English collector. They turned up on eBay.

The winning bid for the letter - a thank you to people who had worked on a tour - was £1100 ($1,925).

Baker is now editing a golf magazine and hopes he will not have to sell other gifts. He admitted: "I deserved to be fired. I was reckless, risk-taking and maverick. Those are not qualities needed in today's music business.

"Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll are no longer three things that go together.

"Paul was more concerned about my mental and physical health than I was at the time.

"Had I continued in that '60s rock'n'roll spirit I could have quite easily pegged out.

"Paul firing me kept me alive. It was not just dope and booze - every rock'n'roll narcotic was being embraced by myself. I was doing cocaine, everything, except smack.

"I was leading more of a rock'n'roll life than Paul. I was leading more of a rock 'n' roll life than Keith Richards, never mind Paul.

"Most people behave like that for a tour but I made it a permanent recreation.

"I did four world tours with Paul but it was not just the touring. It was the general pressure of the job. One thing for sure, it was not Paul's fault."

Baker still refuses to say how much of his drug-taking was done in Sir Paul's company.

And he claims he will never lift the lid on the final rows which earned him the sack.

He said: "I like the bloke. I must admit there were times when I was unemployed I did feel resentful and bad about things but understand why he did it.

"Since I left Paul I have not touched anything. My weight ballooned but I have lost two stones now and I have not drank alcohol since April. I still smoke dope but that's good for my health."

Just after the split, Sir Paul appeared to launch an attack on Baker in his song Riding to Vanity Fair.

It contained the lines:

"The definition of friendship, apparently ought to be

Showing support for the one that you love

And I was open to friendship

But you didn't seem to have any to spare while you were riding to Vanity Fair."

Heather's sister has claimed that Baker tore up photos of the couple and one of Russian Premier Vladimir Putin.

They were supposed to have been used for Heather's anti-landmine charity.

Heather's statement that she had banned Sir Paul from smoking dope was seen as a dig at Baker.

He said: "I have no idea what she thinks of me and if she wanted me out. But I did read her comments about marijuana with some alarm. I will say no more."

Baker has delayed the proposed May launch of his book "Rock Bottom," believed to be a thinly-disguised tell-all of his days with Sir Paul.

He said: "It is about a PR and a rock star but it is not about Paul.

"If Paul ever needed help I would be there in a second and I am sure he knows that.

"These days I am a teetotal, golf - playing vegan.

"You cannot get more healthy lifestyle than that."

At an event organised by the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation, the wife of Sir Paul McCartney, the former Beatle, will call for milk to be dropped from the nation's diet.

Mills McCartney, 38, who credits a dairy-free, vegan diet with helping her to overcome a post-operative infection following the amputation of a leg, will share a platform with academics who claim that dairy products can cause cancer.

The experts will include Prof. Jane Plant, a geochemist, who fought breast cancer three times and went into remission after giving up dairy produce, and the nutritionist Prof Colin T Campbell, who has carried out research into the effect of diet on health in China.

Other nutritionists and the National Osteoporosis Society say that dairy produce is a crucial source of calcium and many doctors already worry about a lack of calcium in teenagers, citing the popularity of celebrity "fad" diets where dairy produce is eschewed.

There are concerns that cutting out milk will deprive people of the nutrients required to build healthy bones. Trevor Reid, of the society, said: "Anything that is encouraging teenagers to take calcium out of their diet is a concern. We know that eating dairy products is one of the best ways of getting calcium into your body."

Mills McCartney will appear at the event entitled Why You Don't Need Dairy, on Wednesday, May 24. Dr Justine Butler, of the foundation, said: "The hormone content of cows' milk is not what it was 100 years ago. Perhaps this is why breast cancer has risen 80 per cent since 1971."

Dr. Lesley Walker, of Cancer Research UK, said: "Several studies have tried to find out if drinking milk affects cancer risk, but these have been inconclusive. We recommend a balanced diet, high in fibre, with plenty of fruit and vegetables."

"We chose to come out to the ice floes before the hunt began because it would break our hearts to have to see the cruelty of the hunt.

"But we are absolutely committed to making sure this is the last slaughter of baby seals in Canada anyone will ever have to witness. An important strategy to ending the hunt is closing down the global markets for seal products. Countries such as Greenland, Mexico, and Italy have taken steps to ban the import of sealskins.

"When countries stop buying sealskins, there will be no reason for sealers to kill the seals. We are asking every single country to please, please stop buying seal products so this hunt will stop. We're proposing a fair solution to all of this - a sealing licence buy-back plan.

"This is a win-win solution: fishermen would be compensated for any lost revenue when the hunt is closed, and Canada would have a graceful way to put an end to a cruel and needless practice that should have been stopped many years ago."

TO register your support for the IF AW campaign against seal hunting, visit their website at www.stopthesealhunt.co.uk

At the stroke of 6am yesterday - right on schedule - Canada's annual slaughter of the seal pups got under way.

It's the biggest and the most barbaric cull anywhere on Earth.

By the time you read this 70,000 pups will have been killed. A total of 325,000 will die - either clubbed to death or shot - within the next three weeks. But it might take just five days.

As dawn broke yesterday the bloodbath began, with men jumping from their fleet of boats, running across the ice, swinging their spiked clubs as they went.

The impassioned pleas of Paul and Heather McCartney and Brigitte Bardot - and worldwide condemnation - count for nothing out here. Thirty-eight years to the day after our sister paper the Daily Mirror's iconic front page revealed the horror of the cull to the nation, nothing has changed.

Just 24 hours earlier, when we flew into this remote wilderness, it was still untouched, a natural nursery for thousands of month-old pups, basking on the ice in the thin sunshine, their proud mothers beside them.

Today, the pups' freshly-skinned carcasses, still steaming from their body heat, litter the ice. Their mothers lie beside them, pining for their dead babies, their mournful bleating carried in the cold air.

Nothing prepares you for such a sickening spectacle.

They call it a hunt, of course, to make it sound like a noble challenge between man and beast. But a harp seal can't run like a fox, it has nowhere to hide like a deer in a forest, it can't fight back like a grizzly. It just lies there, helplessly waiting to be slaughtered.

It's only three weeks since the McCartneys came here, to make their emotional and - out here - controversial plea for the slaughter to be abandoned.

Canada's response? It promptly increased the quota hunters are allowed to kill by another 5,000. "When so-called celebrities come across here making their pronouncements - wealthy people telling folks how they should earn their living - well, we're outraged," government official Phil Jenkins, told me. "We don't feel we need to justify the hunt to anyone."

I paid £12 ($21) my "observer's" permit allowing me to watch the slaughter. The "hunters" have paid just £2.50 ($4.50)each for their licences to kill. A top hunter will bag around 1,000 pups a week - and earn over £3,000 ($5,250).

This year, the Canadian government has decreed, 325,000 seal pups can be culled on their journey out of the St Lawrence, from the breeding ground where they were born to the open sea.

Most will die before they have even taken their first swim.

There is simply no logic in the old argument that seals have to be culled to keep their population down and protect fish stocks. Nature has its own ways.

The waters in the Gulf are warming, the ice is thinner than it has ever been in living memory.

For hundreds of square miles it is broken and cracked like a vast crazy paving. Amazingly, our helicopter pilot managed to put down photographer Roland Leon and myself on a pan of ice that was barely any bigger than the chopper, while the floe pitched and rolled all around us in a raging gale.

In these treacherous conditions, . countless new-iborn seals, would have I fallen into the sea and ' drowned anyway.

In fact, as the Canadian government now admit, the impetus for the hunt is commercial. It makes money.

Yesterday I watched in horror as the hunters swarmed on to the ice with knives dangling from their belts and their traditional "hakapik" clubs slung over their shoulders.

The hakapik is a multipurpose killing tool - a heavy wooden club, with a hammer head on one side to crush a seal pup's skull, and on the other a hook to drag away the carcass to be skinned.

THE first two days of the hunt are always the busiest, I am told. There must be 50 men swarming over the ice - and thousands of pups waiting to be slaughtered. So many to kill, so little time.

The hunters are supposed to club them three times over the head, then touch their eyeball to make sure they are dead before being skinned.

A moment ago one baby seal was a living creature, looking up towards its executioner, fear etched on its face. Its last gesture is to open its mouth wide. A silent cry for mercy.

Now it's a battered heap, waiting for the skinners who follow the hunters. Blood runs from its wounds and its mouth.

The force of the blows has forced its eyes from its sockets. I turn away only to catch out of the corner of my eye the sudden movement of a bloody shape.

A seasoned hunter will you tell this is just a death spasm. Some vets, however, think differently.

According to one report, as many as 40 per cent of seal pups could still be alive when they are skinned.

This one is wriggling and writhing in agony, as it is dragged along, leaving a crimson trail. The hunters lift it, still thrashing, aboard their boat to skin out of sight of our camera.

Earlier I met Robbie Marsland in the offices of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

He showed me a collection of seal products - tins of seal meat, hats and gloves made from seal fur, even a seal's penis, a delicacy in the Far East where they powder it down and drink it with wine as an aphrodisiac.

Discreetly, the Canadians are now hoping to push seal oil onto the market too, in Omega 3 capsules.

But the main prize is the skin. This year's price is around £30 ($52) a pelt, boosted by a sudden demand from the big fashion houses.

Last season, for example, you could have bought a Gucci sealskin coat.

That's why the hunters prefer to club the pups' skulls rather than shoot them and risk hitting the hide. Nothing ruins a £1,000 ($1,750) Gucci coat more than an unsightly bullet-hole.

In the isolated fishing communities around Newfoundland and Labrador, they will tell you that the seal hunt is vital to their way of life, and has been for generations.

"A man has to feed his family, that's the stark truth out here," says Mark Small, 59, a hunter for more than 40 years, like his father and his grandfather before him. "A guy can earn 6,000 dollars in a week. That's one quarter of his annual income. How do you take that away?

"The world thinks we're barbarians, but we're not. Our ancestors settled here to work the oceans, and we have respect for the animals that live here. Seals too. But what do you do with pests in other countries? You get rid of them.

"We don't need you folks to tell us how to run our lives."

Email premier@gov.nl.ca Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams and tell him what you think of the seal hunt.

Email Stephen Harper the Prime Minister of Canada

pm@pm.gc.ca (note the Prime Minister has shut down his email!)

Send a fax

Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa
K1A 0A2

Fax: 613-941-6900

Email Loyola Hearn who is allowing the hunt!!!
HearnL@parl.gc.ca
mp@loyolahearn.nf.net

At daylight this morning, the first baby seal was killed for her fur on Canadian ice. It was heartbreaking to watch, but bearing witness to this cruelty -- and exposing it to the world -- is essential if we are finally to end this slaughter.

I am now in Canada, leading a skilled team of experts from The Humane Society of United States to the ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We are here once again to document the horrifying abuses inflicted by sealers, abuses that violate Canada's own laws.

We are also here to bear witness to the brutality that is perfectly legal and acceptable in the eyes of the Canadian government: the bludgeoning, shooting, and skinning of hundreds of thousands of baby seals. Just two weeks ago, I was on the ice with Heather and Paul McCartney, watching these same seals nursing and playing with their mothers. Heather and Paul were so moved by their beauty and innocence that they made a public plea to the Canadian government to ban the hunt forever.

Take action today.

Help save the baby seals by contacting Canada's Prime Minister and urging him to put an end to the hunt. Your simple act could help end the seal hunt forever. Even if you've previously written to him, please email him again today.

We can make the Canadian government stop this hunt. But it will require unrelenting pressure from people like you and me, who constantly tell Canada that we will not stand idly by while hunters kill these baby seals. On this tragic day, I urge you to join me in stopping the seal hunt forever. Take action now.

Step 1) Tell Prime Minister Harper to stop the seal hunt. Say that you will not buy Canadian seafood. Click here.
With the recent election of Prime Minister Harper we have a new chance to convince the Canadian government that the price of continuing the seal hunt is too high to pay. Your message to the Prime Minister, urging him to stop the hunt and letting him know that your dollars will not support the slaughter of baby seals, is critical to the success of our fight to protect seals. Even if you've previously written to him, I ask you to write him again today.

Step 2) Make a gift to end the hunt for good. We wouldn't be in Canada right now without your support. Today, if you're able, I urge you to make a gift for the seals-every donation will help us go head to head with the fishing industry and the Canadian government as we create a public outcry so loud ­ and an international boycott so effectve ­ that Canada will no longer be able to ignore it. Simply click here to make a donation to our ProtectSeals campaign today.

Remember that you can stay in touch with the campaign with up-to-the-minute news, videos, and actions throughout the hunt at www.ProtectSeals.org.

Your action and donation today truly makes a difference in our ongoing efforts to end the seal hunt.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Aldworth
Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues
The Humane Society of the United States

By Anthony DeCurtis - Photo by Chris Floyd

You Say It's My Birthday?

What could Paul McCartney possibly have known about being 60 when, as a teenager, he wrote one of his most famous songs, "When I'm Sixty-Four"? The Beatles later recorded the tune when McCartney was 24, and, from that youthful vantage, 64 could only seem a time of cute, dithering romance as a hedge against loneliness ("You'll be older too/And if you say the word/I could stay with you"), dead-end domesticity ("Doing the garden, digging the weeds,/Who could ask for more"), and a steady descent into mortality ("Yours sincerely, wasting away")-all with a wink and a nudge. London was swinging, and the Beatles were the avatars of a seismic youthquake. Come on-who was ever going to get old?

As it turns out, all of us. If not old, we have-the lucky ones-at least gotten older. Nearly 40 years after the release of "When I'm Sixty-Four," which appears on the Beatles' 1967 masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, many of us are only a stone's throw from that number-as is the eternally cherubic Sir Paul, who turns 64 on June 18.

Understandably, there was much about the future that McCartney could not foresee back in the halcyon days of peace and love. For one thing, he would have had a hard time imagining that he would still be playing rock 'n' roll in his 60s. In an interview I conducted with him in London in 1987 for Rolling Stone, McCartney looked back on the Beatles' early days and noted, "You see old interviews with us now, and Ringo says, 'Well, you know, I might get lucky and have a string of hairdressing salons.' That was the apex of his vision at the time. And John and I are talking nervously: 'There might be 10 years in this.' Remember, we were 18, 20, maybe, saying this. We couldn't see playing rock 'n' roll beyond 30. Of course, by the time we were 30, it was still all happening."

And today McCartney rocks on. Last year he released Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, a solo album that found him near the height of his creative powers. Many critics-including me, in a lead review for Rolling Stone-compared it favorably to McCartney, the album he put out in 1970 that essentially marked the end of the Beatles. More personally, he's in a new marriage, and less than three years ago he became a father again. So, as he approaches 64, Sir Paul is hardly "wasting away," as his song so pessimistically predicted. If anything, he's experiencing vital reinvention and growth-but not without having been served his share of sorrow and doubt along the way.

When I interviewed Paul McCartney a second time, in 2001, once again for Rolling Stone, he described the emotional devastation he suffered when his first wife, Linda, died of breast cancer in 1998. Their union was enviable by any standard, but for a celebrity marriage it was an extreme rarity, and not only because of its longevity. During their 29 years together, the couple rarely spent time apart-to the point that Paul enlisted his wife to play keyboards and sing background in his band Wings, even though she was a photographer by trade, not a musician. Linda was roundly mocked, but Paul shook off the barbs. Having Linda in Wings just made the band more fun for him.

Their greatest performance, though, was as parents. Paul and Linda had three children together, and he also adopted Heather, Linda's daughter from a previous marriage. All four children have gone on to lead stable, productive lives, a tribute to the grounded, unpretentious way in which they were raised. Heather is a renowned potter whose work is sold and exhibited around the world; Mary, like Linda herself, has become a well-known photographer; Stella has made a prominent name for herself as a fashion designer; and James is a guitarist who has played on his father's albums. "I must say that is one of the things that Linda and I always said: 'Our greatest achievement is our kids,' "McCartney once told singer Chrissie Hynde for a story in USA Today Weekend. "People say that they are really good people."

Beyond that, Paul and Linda shared a passion for vegetarianism. They determined to give up meat one day after making the emotional connection between the leg of lamb sitting on their meal plates and the lambs they were watching gambol on their farm in Scotland. Along with establishing a successful line of frozen vegetarian meals, Linda became an ardent animal rights activist, a commitment that Paul shares and continues to honor.

Fame, wealth, and accomplishment did not shield McCartney from the wracking pain brought about by the death of a spouse. "I thought, 'How the hell do I deal with this?' " he told me. "For about a year, I found myself crying-in all situations, anyone I met. Anyone who came over, the minute we talked about Linda, I'd say, 'I'm sorry about this. I've got to cry.' "

But McCartney, the man who famously advised "Take a sad song and make it better," slowly began to rebuild his life. He resumed his work as a musician and songwriter, and he explored other aspects of his creativity, as well. He published Blackbird Singing (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001), a collection of his poems and lyrics, and Paintings (Bulfinch, 2000), a portfolio of the work he had done privately as a visual artist for nearly two decades.

Most important, however, he fell in love again. He first spotted Heather Mills, a model and anti-land mines activist, about a year after Linda's death at a charity event where they were both presenters. He initially contacted her about her work, but their relationship soon grew personal. McCartney then went on the sort of complex emotional journey that will be familiar to anyone who has once again sought romance after a beloved husband or wife has died. In his conversation with me in 2001, he called it "the married guilt."

"I beat myself up about that," he said about finding himself attracted to Mills. Eventually, though, he came to understand that Linda would have wanted him to be happy. "So I started going out with Heather," he recalled. "Started having a laugh, feeling good. 'Oh, my God. Am I dating? I don't believe it. I haven't done this for 30 years! Can I do it?' And it was 'Yes, you can.' I started to fall for Heather. And that was it. That reawakening brought back a lot of energy."

McCartney's new romance did not sit entirely well with his children, at least if you believe the tabloids, which have, in particular, gleefully reported feuds between Mills and Stella. Keep in mind, too, that Mills was 31 when she and McCartney met, barely older than McCartney's biological children and younger than the daughter he had adopted. Given Mills's age, the couple's engagement also raised the prospect of a new family, something that is often hard even for adult children to accept. Publicly, at least, all the principals vigorously deny any rifts, and the press seems to have let up a bit. McCartney and Mills married in Ireland on June 11, 2002, in front of 300 family and friends. And, on October 28, 2003, Mills gave birth to their daughter, Beatrice Milly-just the thing to keep McCartney young.

Indeed, McCartney has sought youthful influences in all areas of his life. In an admirable attempt to freshen up his approach to record making on Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, he collaborated with producer Nigel Godrich, who is 30 years his junior.

Godrich, who was personally recommended to McCartney by the Beatles' producer, George Martin, had earned his own reputation working with bands such as Radiohead and Travis. He proved anything but a yes man. McCartney recalled walking out of a session because Godrich dismissed one of his songs as "crap"-a word that McCartney had probably not heard spoken to his face since the breakup of the Beatles. But he checked his ego and wound up making an album that is both mature and bracingly contemporary. Chaos and Creation garnered McCartney three Grammy nominations, and Godrich was nominated for Producer of the Year.

In addition, the Beatle who most enjoyed performing live enthusiastically hit the road last year, once again to rapturous reviews. McCartney was backed by a small group of mostly younger musicians who played as if they were in sweaty clubs rather than sold-out sports arenas. He toured for 10 weeks and sold $83.2 million worth of tickets, making him one of the top-ten live performers of that year. And he had started off 2005 earning nearly $3.5 million for performing just four songs during the Super Bowl halftime show-that is more than $800,000 per song, a handsome rate even for a billionaire like Sir Paul.

Given all that, you'd be forgiven if you thought that, having overcome some setbacks, Paul McCartney is now living a perfectly untroubled life. But no one's life is a fairy tale, and even rich, happily married knights struggle with insecurities-or at least McCartney does. He has begun to think about posterity, about the legacy he will leave behind. He has been shaken by unflattering comparisons made between him and John Lennon since Lennon's murder in 1980. And it's true-after Lennon died, some people foolishly seemed to believe that in order to praise him, they had to denigrate McCartney.

"The minute John died, there started to be a revisionism," McCartney explained to me in 2001. "There were some strange quotes, like 'John was the only one in the Beatles.' Or 'Paul booked the studio.' I don't want to get into who said what, but that was attributed to someone who very much knew better." It rankled McCartney, who recalled all the slights: " 'John was the Mozart; Paul was the Salieri.' Like John was the real genius, and I was just the guy who sang 'Yesterday'-and I got lucky to do that."

"I tried to ignore it, but it built into an insecurity," he continued. "People would say, 'Paul, people know.' I said, 'Yeah, but what about 50 years in the future?' If this revisionism gets around, a lot of kids will be like, 'Did he have a group before Wings?' "

McCartney's proposed solution to this problem was far worse than the problem itself. Over the past 10 years he has engaged in a protracted and often public battle with Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, to have the writing credits on a number of Beatles songs changed in various ways from the traditional Lennon-McCartney citation to reflect that McCartney was either the primary or the sole writer. To support his case, McCartney would point out, for example, that he wrote "Yesterday," one of the most popular songs of all time, entirely on his own, and none of the other Beatles even played on it.

But the Lennon-McCartney credit represents something far greater than either of the two men individually. While it might be interesting, and even important, for scholars and experts to determine the precise nature of each Beatle's contribution to their songs, making too much of it diminishes the magic of the Beatles' unrivaled collaborative achievements. For the moment, thankfully, McCartney seems content to leave the credits as they are.

So, if age brings experience, satisfaction, and at least a modicum of wisdom, it does not, alas, deliver ideal happiness. But that's precisely what makes an artist with the drive and ambition of Paul McCartney strive for more. And more will certainly come-more milestones, more awards, more honors-all in recognition of a body of work seldom equaled. And so best wishes on your 64th birthday, Sir Paul. It's been a long and winding road for all of us, one made all the richer by the music you've provided to light us on our way.

Anthony DeCurtis is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and the author, most recently, of In Other Words: Artists Talk About Life and Work (Hal Leonard, 2005). A Grammy Award winner, he teaches in the writing program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Paul McCartney Timeline
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Despite a growing international outcry, Canada's government will once again bow to its powerful fishing industry and allow the world's largest commercial slaughter of marine mammals to go forward.

Tomorrow morning the ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence will transform into blood-soaked killing fields when hunters descend upon the baby seals, clubbing as many as they can find.

The HSUS's ProtectSeals team will brave frigid waters, wind, and ice to witness and document the slaughter. Despite the dark days that loom ahead, we work with the faith that the evidence-and the support of people like you-will bring about a permanent end to the seal hunt.

Watch Video (Warning! graphic footage)

Heather and Paul McCartney recently visited the harp seal nursery.

Now they're raising their voices to Canada and the world, calling for the seal hunt to end, and proposing cruelty-free economic alternatives for Canadian sealers.

For more ways to help, follow the links below:

Sign the pledge to boycott Canadian seafood.

Download your own How-to-Boycott Canadian Seafood wallet card

Visit our "What You Can Do" page.

Tell a friend about the campaign.

Get your own special Protect Seals U.S. postage stamps.

If you've already signed the pledge, consider doing 12 more things to fight the hunt.

Ask these fashion designers to STOP using seal fur!

Rock star Paul McCartney and his wife, Heather, have issued another appeal for Canada to end the East Coat seal hunt.

The plea came as hunters and protesters prepare to head out onto the ice for the start of the annual slaughter Saturday.

The McCartneys say in a video message from London that it's time for the Canadian government to consider a licence buy-back program to compensate sealers while ending a hunt that is facing mounting international condemnation.

The McCartneys say a buy-back program would give Canada a graceful way to exit from what the animal rights community considers a needless and cruel practice.

The star couple visited the seal nursery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence earlier this month.

They say it would break their hearts to see such beautiful animals clubbed and skinned.

At least 325,000 seals, most of them between two weeks and three months old, will be harvested in this year's hunt.

Canadian officials defend the hunt as an economic benefit for coastal communities in Atlantic Canada and Quebec.

The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced Thursday morning that the annual seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence will begin Saturday morning, whether the two media stars like it or not.

Fisheries spokesman Phil Jenkins gave the go-ahead to take 91,000 harp seals in the Gulf this spring. The larger Newfoundland hunt will take place next month, with a quota of 234,000 pelts.

The total kill of 325,000 seals may sound like a lot to anti-hunt protesters, but fisheries officials say there are more than six million harp seals on the ice this year, and the number is growing.

Bardot, a 1960s French film siren and animal-rights activist, visited Canada this week in a last-ditch attempt to stop the hunt. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn refused to meet her.

Quebec Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette scoffed at Bardot's appearance in Canada, her first visit since she last protested the hunt 29 years ago.

"We are talking about a $20-million industry," said Hervieux-Payette. "[For] the people of Newfoundland, of the Magdeleine Islands and of the North, this is part of their livelihood and this is a tradition that has been there for hundreds of years."

Former Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife donned winter gear and marched out onto the ice near Prince Edward Island earlier this month where they posed for photographs with seals.

McCartney garnered a lot of newspaper headlines and debated the seal hunt on the late-night television program, Larry King Live.

---

Macca Report Blog!!! CLICK
Topic: Saving the Seals
Readers welcome to contribute!
Tell the world what you think of the baby seal slaughter!

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March 23, 2006 -- Daily News (NY)

TV ALERT!! (CABLE)

Paul on "Fuse" Saturday, March 25 at 9 pm ET

Saturday at 9 pm, "Fuse" airs a performance by Franz Ferdinand. During the taping, Paul McCartney cut his finger while breaking a bottle of scotch on the new Fuse Music Studios. He continued to perform...

Those eager to emulate the fashion sense of their favourite stars can now literally step into their shoes. Heather Mills McCartney helped launch a celebrity footwear auction in London on Wednesday (March 22) offering fans the opportunity to bid for items that once graced the feet of the rich and famous.

With the money raised due to go to a landmine charity Mines Advisory Group (MAG), Sir Paul's wife once again demonstrated her committment to humanitarian causes, not only standing in as the face of the auction but also donating a pair of her own black stiletto boots, designed by stepdaughter Stella McCartney.

Other celebrity footwear open to offers includes velvet ankle boots donated by Claudia Schiffer and a pair of dancer Darcey Bussell's silk ballet pumps. For the less fashion conscious, there's the chance to get hold of a pair of boots previously owned by footballing sensation Wayne Rooney.

Heather, who lost part of her left leg in a road accident in 1993, has long been a supporter of charity and is a founding patron of the fundraising organisation Adopt-A-Minefield.

The organisers hope to raise over £10,000 ($17,500) for the charity - but Heather doesn't want to stop there. "We have got 80 pairs of shoes at the moment and if any celebrities hear about this, please send some more in," she appealed. The auction "Give Mines the Boot" gets underway at 4pm on March 23 on internet site eBay and continues until April 2.

The groundbreaking partnership was launched with a spring/summer collection in February 2005, debuting in an exclusive distribution network of limited doors mainly in the US and Japan. Since then, the number of doors has risen to over 400 worldwide in 40 countries, supporting triple-digit growth in sales.

Hermann Deininger, Adidas Global Brand Creative Director, commenting about the decision to extend the contract, "The worldwide success of the collection continues to exceed our expectations. Adidas by Stella McCartney obviously met a need in the marketplace. We are very pleased to continue this inspirational partnership!"

Adidas by Stella McCartney is a unique concept for women that fuses real performance with style, by offering functional products in Running, Gym, Swim and, as of spring/summer 2006, a Tennis line.

In January, rising tennis star Maria Kirilenko was introduced as the first professional athlete to compete in the range. Overall, the line features cutting-edge technologies in both footwear and apparel, such as the lightest heel-to-toe cushioning system launched in this season's Flyride running shoe.

Adidas and Stella McCartney launched their new fall/winter '06 collection today in Aspen/Colorado, introducing Wintersports as a new category.

Danny Williams corrects himself after misleading statement on Larry King Live

Larry King Live - Transcript from March 3, 2006:

DANNY WILLIAMS: "I may start off by, I think, my concern here is that the McCartneys are not completely informed. I recognize that they're active. I recognize their zeal. I love animals myself. I have two of my three daughters all three daughters actually, but two are animal lovers in the biggest kind of a way.

"So for the record, I want to state that certainly myself and my people in Newfoundland and Labrador don't condone inhumane activity towards animals nor do we condone hunting or fishing that would lead to the extinction or endangerment of any species. I want to make that very clear for the record.

"Having said that, I want to start off with just a quote from the World Wildlife Federation. I actually had an e-mail from them this morning because they knew that I was going on with you this evening and had this opportunity.

"They e-mailed to let us know of their support that they felt that this was not a conservation issue. And I also want to read a quote from a group of veterinarians that were hired by the World Wildlife Fund. They said that the sea harvest is conducted in a humane way.

"And the veterinarians concluded that the Canadian harp seal hunt is professional, and highly regulated by comparison with seal hunts in Greenland and the North Atlantic. It has the potential to serve as a model to improve humane practice and reduce seal suffering with the other hunts.

"So I think it's important that we state the other side of the case. And I'm very concerned that the McCartneys are not getting all the information."

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams on Larry King Live: Correction

The following are excerpts from a letter from Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams to WWF-Canada regarding his comments on the Larry King Live debate with Sir Paul McCartney.

DANNY WILLIAMS: "It was not my intention for people watching the program to gain the impression that WWF actively supports the government of Newfoundland and Labrador or the seal hunt."

"It is, in fact, my understanding that WWF does not engage in the seal hunt debate because your organization is focused on conservation, and that at present the seal hunt is not a conservation issue. Further, I also appreciate the fact that WWF has left the issues associated with the humaneness of the hunt to other organizations..."

"While I am grateful for the fact that my government and WWF have a common vision in seeing the recovery of cod stocks off the Grand Banks, I am nonetheless resigned to the fact that we do not see eye to eye on all environmental issues in our region. Nor should we expect to."

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Photo Credit: Apple Corps Ltd.

APRIL 11, 2006 -- CAPITOL RECORDS TO RELEASE VOLUME 2

OF BEATLES U.S. RECORDINGS IN A BOX SET

FEATURING THE EARLY BEATLES, BEATLES VI, HELP! AND RUBBER SOUL

FIRST TIME EVER ON CD

On April 11, 2006, Capitol Records will release The Beatles Capitol Albums Volume 2, a collection of the four Capitol albums by The Beatles from 1965. The box set marks the CD debut of The Early Beatles, Beatles VI, the Help! soundtrack and the American version of Rubber Soul.

This is the much anticipated companion set to the Capitol Albums Volume 1 which brought together for the first time on CD the albums that began it all - Meet The Beatles, The Beatles Second Album, Something New and Beatles '65.

"It has been an ambition of mine to see the release of these CDs in the form we grew up with in the U.S.," says Andrew Slater, President and CEO, Capitol Records. "The remastering should ensure that the sound quality lives up to the expectations of our memories."

The Early Beatles marks the stereo debut on CD of nine early Beatles classics, including Please, Please Me and Twist And Shout.

Beatles VI marks the stereo debut on CD of five Beatles recordings, including cover versions of Kansas City and Words Of Love, as well as Lennon and McCartney's What You're Doing and Every Little Thing. The album also marks the CD debut of four Beatles songs in their original 1965 George Martin mono mixes.

The Help! soundtrack album contains five instrumental tracks from the film making their CD debut, including From Me To You Fantasy and Another Hard Day's Night. When the British Help! LP was issued on CD in 1987, it contained George Martin stereo remixes of the songs. The Capitol soundtrack album marks the CD debut of five songs in their original 1965 George Martin stereo mixes.

The Capitol version of Rubber Soul contains, for the first time on CD, the original 1965 George Martin stereo mixes. When these songs appeared on CD in 1987, they were stereo remixes of the songs prepared by George Martin.

The Capitol Albums Volumes 1 & 2 have been carefully mastered from the original master tapes, taken from the vaults of Capitol Records, to ensure that they sound as they did when first released in 1964 and 1965. Each disc in the box sets presents each album in stereo and then in mono.

In the Sixties, American record labels often chose to reformat British records to suit the needs of the U.S. market. In America, singles were generally included on current albums, where as in the UK, albums and singles were most often separate releases. Higher music publishing costs in the U.S. also made it impractical to include as many songs on American albums. In addition, in the case of The Beatles, some of the recordings on the American albums were given more echo than the British versions, to 'Americanize' their sound.

In Volume 2, all but four of the tracks on the stereo albums are actual stereo mixes, with two being unique Capitol duophonic mixes. Capitol's engineers created duophonic mixes from mono masters by emphasizing the treble in one channel, boosting the bass in the other, and running the two channels slightly out-of-sync to simulate a stereo sound. In addition, five of the mono tracks are unique Capitol stereo-to-mono mixdowns with added echo and reverb.

Because the 46 songs included in Volume 2 are presented in both stereo and mono mixes, there are 92 tracks in the box set. Out of this number, 82 tracks appear in versions not previously available on CD.

When The Beatles catalog appeared on CD for the first time in 1987, releases were standardized on a worldwide basis. A short time later, the U.S. albums, which had last appeared on vinyl and cassette, were deleted from the Capitol catalog.

Since that time there has been increasing demand for these original U.S. albums to make their CD debut, which they now do as part of this specially priced and uniquely packaged 4 CD boxed set.

The Capitol Albums Volume 2 includes all 4 of the group's 1965 Capitol album releases. Each of the discs is housed in a miniature replica of the original album cover. The box set contains a colorful 56-page booklet featuring a scrap book effect of rare photos and clippings from that amazing year.

Track Listings: (Stereo Recordings / Original Mono Recordings)

THE EARLY BEATLES (Released March 22, 1965)

Love Me Do $

Twist And Shout *¦

Anna *¦

Chains *¦

Boys *¦

Ask Me Why *¦

Please Please Me *¦

P.S. I Love You $

Baby It's You *¦

A Taste Of Honey *¦

Do You Want To Know A Secret *¦

* Stereo debut on CD (9)

$ First CD appearance of 1963 simulated stereo mix from first U.K. LP (2)

¦ First CD appearance of unique Capitol stereo-to-mono mixdown (9)

BEATLES VI (Released June 14, 1965)

Kansas City *@

Eight Days A Week

You Like Me Too Much Ý

Bad Boy Ý

I Don't Want To Spoil The Party *@

Words Of Love *@

What You're Doing *@

Yes It Is ¢¥

Dizzy Miss Lizzie Ý

Tell Me What You See Ý

Every Little Thing *@

* Stereo debut on CD (5)

Ý Mono debut on CD (4)

¢¥ First CD appearance of unique Capitol duophonic mix (1)

@ First CD appearance of unique Capitol remixes with echo and reverb (5)

HELP! (Released August 13, 1965)

Help! ·¦

The Night Before ݦ%

From Me To You Fantasy (Instrumental)·¦

You've Got To Hide Your Love Away ݦ%

I Need You ݦ%

In The Tyrol (Instrumental)·¦

Another Girl ݦ%

Another Hard Day's Night (Instrumental)·¦

Ticket To Ride ¢¥

The Bitter End/You Can't Do That (Instrumental)·¦

You're Gonna Lose That Girl ݦ%

The Chase (Instrumental)·¦

First CD appearance in any version (6)

Ý Mono debut on CD (5)

% First CD appearance of original 1965 George Martin stereo mix (5)

¢¥ First CD appearance of unique Capitol duophonic mix (1)

¦ First CD appearance of unique Capitol stereo-to-mono mixdown (11)

RUBBER SOUL (Released December 6, 1965)

I've Just Seen A Face %Ý

Norwegian Wood %Ý

You Won't See Me %Ý

Think For Yourself %Ý

The Word %Ý

Michelle %Ý

It's Only Love %Ý

Girl %Ý

I'm Looking Through You %Ý

In My Life %Ý

Wait %Ý

Run For Your Life %Ý

% First CD appearance of original 1965 George Martin stereo mix (12)

Ý Mono debut on CD (12)

APRIL 11, 2006 -- CAPITOL RECORDS TO RELEASE VOLUME 2

OF BEATLES U.S. RECORDINGS IN A BOX SET

FEATURING THE EARLY BEATLES, BEATLES VI, HELP! AND RUBBER SOUL

FIRST TIME EVER ON CD

APRIL 4, 1964 ­ BEATLES HOLD TOP 5 SLOTS

ON BILLBOARDS HOT 100

APRIL 11, 1964 -- BEATLES HAVE 14 SONGS

IN THE BILLBOARD HOT 100

The Beatles Capitol Albums Volume 2 release is being timed to celebrate the unprecedented and unmatched April1964 Billboard chart domination by the Beatles, a time most remembered for The Beatles holding down the top five slots in The Hot 100. Four of those recordings are featured in these two collections.

No other recording artist has ever held down the top five, four or even three spots on the Billboard Hot 100. Only four acts besides the Beatles have ever had simultaneous number one and two hits. During early 1964, the Beatles had at least two songs at the top of the charts for twelve straight weeks. On April 4, 1964, in addition to the Top Five slots, The Beatles had seven more songs in the Hot 100, for a total of 12, including two singles imported from Canada. And if that wasn't enough, the group held down the top two spots on the album chart with their first two American albums.

On April 11, 1964, The Beatles broke their own record by placing 14 songs in the Billboard Hot 100.

The Beatles chart domination was made possible by their talent, and the excitement generated by their three "Ed Sullivan Show" appearances. These two box sets celebrate this music by faithfully reproducing how the Beatles recordings were presented to Americans in 1964 and 1965.

Billboard Hot 100 chart dated April 4, 1964

1. Can't Buy Me Love (Capitol)

2. Twist And Shout (Tollie)

3. She Loves You (Swan)

4. I Want To Hold Your Hand (Capitol)

5. Please Please Me (Vee-Jay)

31. I Saw Her Standing There(Capitol)

41. From Me To You (Vee-Jay)

46. Do You Want To Know A Secret (Vee-Jay)

58. All My Loving (Capitol of Canada)

65. You Can't Do That (Capitol)

68. Roll Over Beethoven (Capitol of Canada)

79. Thank You Girl (Vee-Jay).

Billboard Top LPs chart dated April 4, 1964

1. Meet The Beatles! (Capitol)

2. Introducing The Beatles (Vee-Jay)

Billboard Hot 100 chart dated April 11, 1964

1. Can't Buy Me Love (Capitol)

2. Twist And Shout (Tollie)

4. She Loves You (Swan)

7. I Want To Hold Your Hand (Capitol)

9. Please Please Me (Vee-Jay)

14. Do You Want To Know A Secret (Vee-Jay)

38. I Saw Her Standing There (Capitol)

48. You Can't Do That (Capitol)

50. All My Loving (Capitol of Canada)

52. From Me To You (Vee-Jay)

61. Thank You Girl (Vee-Jay)

74. There's A Place (Tollie)

78. Roll Over Beethoven (Capitol of Canada)

81. Love Me Do (Capitol of Canada)

Billboard Top LPs chart dated April 11, 1964

1. Meet The Beatles! (Capitol)

2. Introducing The Beatles (Vee-Jay)

Canada's bloody annual slaughter - the most controversial for decades - takes place as calls mount for a boycott of the country's products. But the long-term future of the cull and the seals themselves looks increasingly likely to be dictated by climate change.

Hunters and protesters are heading for the Gulf of St Lawrence and the north-east coast of Newfoundland, waiting for the Canadian government to give the go-ahead for the cul. It could start as early as tomorrow.

Ministers have already authorised the slaughter of 325,000 baby harp seals, the second highest number ever. It will be the third successive year in which more than 300,000 of the cubs have been clubbed and shot; by the end of the cull, the death toll since 2004 will top a million.

But the cull faces the most determined opposition for decades. Attempts to launch a global boycott against Canadian exports start in Britain this week. Major supermarkets will tomorrow receive letters urging them to stop stocking Canadian produce, and vigils will start outside travel agencies in 20 cities, trying to persuade Britons not to holiday in the country.

The supermarket campaign is being led by Lady (Sally) Stratford, widow of the former Labour minister Tony Banks, who was an ardent opponent of the cull. The former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe has also written to retailers to urge a boycott, and 188 MPs have signed an early day motion to support it.

The campaign has been boosted by the decision of Sir Paul McCartney and his wife, Heather, to travel to the floes this month to call for the cull to be called off. His daughter, the designer Stella McCartney, will give some of the proceeds from sales of a special T-shirt to the campaign. (Stella, in partnership with the international clothing retailer H&M, is donating a portion of proceeds from sales of a special t-shirt, to the ProtectSeals campaign.)

The boycott began last year in the United States, supported by more than 400 restaurants, supermarkets and seafood wholesalers. This year it is expected to spread to France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Mexico, Japan and the Netherlands.

The protesters are hoping to repeat a boycott of the early 1980s, which pushed Canada into banning the killing of the youngest pups, called whitecoats. But the hunters now evade the ban by waiting a few days until the seals begin to moult and their coats turn grey.

Canada is vulnerable to a boycott. It exports fish and seafood worth £1.6 billion ($2.8 billion) to the United States every year, while its fish exports to Britain are worth £56 million ($98 million), far outweighing the £9 million ($15 million) value of seal skins and other hunt booty.

The Humane Society of the United States, the country's leading animal protection charity, claims that the value of Canadian snow crab exports have dropped by £85 million ($148 million) since the boycott began last year.

Many scientists, though, claim the real danger to the seals comes from climate change. Water temperatures off Newfoundland are 4.5C warmer than this time last year and the ice is already beginning to melt. Dr Kit Kovacs, who is to take over as chair of the main international scientific group monitoring seals in June, said: "Harp seals are a numerous Arctic species. But there is concern because of climate change and things don't look good in the long term."

The danger to the hunters will also increase as they venture out on ever-thinning ice. That could mean an end to one of the most chilling images deployed by the anti-cull campaigners, for the Canadian government says hunters will soon be unable to get close enough to many of the pups to club them. Instead, more will be shot.

THE CASE FOR A CULL ...

METHOD The majority of seals are already shot, not clubbed to death. In 2002, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association issued a "Special Report on Animal Welfare and the Harp Seal Hunt in Atlantic Canada", which concluded that virtually all harp seals are killed "humanely".

POPULATION Harp seals are not an endangered species. There are currently 5.8 million animals and the herd is three times the size it was in the 1970s. Culling quotas are set at levels designed to keep the herd sustainable and stable.

NECESSITY The seal hunt supports about 15,000 sealers and their families in eastern Canada, and also brings economic benefits to remote, coastal communities where there are only limited employment opportunities. Sealing has become an increasingly important economic activity , especially in Atlantic Canada, because overfishing has depleted fish stocks and there has been a moratorium on cod since 1992.

PUBLIC OPINION An opinion poll in February 2005 concluded that 60 per cent of Canadians are in favour of a responsible seal hunt.

... THE CASE AGAINST

METHOD Seal cubs are clubbed to death or shot, many while still conscious. A veterinarian report in 2001 found that almost half of the seals it examined seemed to have been conscious when skinned, causing "considerable and unacceptable suffering". In the past three years 97 per cent of seals killed were less than three months old.

POPULATION More than 300,000 seal cubs are to be slaughtered this year. Almost one million pups have been killed in the past three years.

NECESSITY In Newfoundland, where more than 90 per cent of the sealers live, the cull accounts for less than 1 per cent of that province's GDP and amounts to only 2 per cent of the value of the province's fishery. Only 4,000 fishermen, out of a population of half a million, take part in the hunt.

PUBLIC OPINION Recent polling for the Humane Society International suggests that 48 per cent of the public would support their supermarket boycotting Canadian seafood in an effort to stop the annual cull.

You used to say 'live and let live'

But if this ever-changin' world in which we're living makes you give it a cry

Say live and let die/Live and let die."

- Live and Let Die, Paul McCartney and Wings

One aging British rocker clearly takes his own advice far too seriously.

Let it be, Paul. Let it be.

Paul McCartney and some animal-rights activists are worked up about Canada's annual seal hunt, which is about to start on the East Coast.

What's especially bothering animal rights folks during this year's hunt is that Ottawa has increased the catch limit to 325,000 seal pelts, up 5,000 from last year.

McCartney recently flew out to an ice floe with his wife Heather to pet some seal pups and call on Canada to stop its centuries-old hunt.

Cameras in tow, McCartney called the annual hunt a "stain" on our country and urged Prime Minister "Stevie" Harper to replace the annual practice with subsidies for the economically depressed areas that rely on income from the hunt.

Just as we did when U2 frontman Bono stuck his nose in the way our country's run, we'll say it again for Mr. McCartney: stick to your music.

We elect politicians to lead us, not rock stars. And judging by the misleading way you've presented your case against seal hunting in the media, you have a lot more to learn about its practices before you go denouncing a centuries-old tradition.

First of all, McCartney posed with a too-cute white seal, making it seem to the bleeding hearts who donate to animal-rights groups that the sweet little pup on the ice floe would get clubbed - conveniently ignoring the fact that Canada doesn't allow young seals that still have white coats to be killed.

Second, the whole concept of "seal clubbing" is a complete misnomer. Hunters don't whack little baby seals anymore; rather, they are shot. Apparently Mr. McCartney didn't know this either when he denounced the hunt on the CNN show Larry King Live.

(WEBMASTER'S COMMENT- Apparently the author of this article, who didn't post his name, was misinformed about his country's "humane?" seal hunt. Read....

How Are the Seals Killed?
The Canadian Marine Mammal Regulations, which govern the hunt, stipulate sealers may kill seals with wooden clubs, hakapiks (large ice-pick-like clubs) and guns. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, clubs and hakapiks are the killing implement of choice, and in the Front, guns are more widely used.

It is important to note that each killing method is demonstrably cruel. Because sealers shoot at seals from moving boats, the pups are often only wounded. The main sealskin processing plant in Canada deducts $2 from the price they pay for the skins for each bullet hole they find-therefore sealers are loath to shoot seals more than once. As a result, wounded seals are left to suffer in agony-many slip beneath the surface of the water where they die slowly and are never recovered.

Is the Seal Hunt Cruel?
Yes. In 2001, a report by an independent team of veterinarians who studied the hunt concluded that governmental regulations regarding humane killing were neither being respected nor enforced, and that the seal hunt failed to comply with Canada's basic animal welfare regulations. Shockingly, the veterinarians found that in 42% of the cases they studied, the seals had likely been skinned alive while conscious.

Parliamentarians, journalists, and scientists who observe Canada's commercial seal hunt each year continue to report unacceptable levels of cruelty, including sealers dragging conscious seals across the ice floes with boat hooks, shooting seals and leaving them to suffer in agony, stockpiling dead and dying animals, and even skinning seals alive. Humane Society of the United States)

Article continues from Brandon Sun...

Although you'll still see footage of sealers swinging sticks on the ice floes if you check out some animal-rights websites, Canada's fisheries minister alleges those 20-year-old pictures are designed to shock and mislead.

"Nothing is monitored as closely or done as humanely as the present seal hunt," Loyola Hearn told CTV.

The fact is that Canada's seal hunt, which brings an estimated $20 million and 10,000 jobs into one of the poorest parts of the country, is humane. (See photo of 'humanely killed" baby seals -- WARNING! graphic photo!)

Without it, the thriving harp seal population would explode and possibly cause the disease and starvation - problems that would lead to just as much or not more suffering for the cute little seals Mr. and Mrs. McCartney posed with a few weeks ago.

Some Inuit said it best when they told The Canadian Press that Mr. McCartney looked "silly" and misinformed when he frolicked on an ice floe the other day.

"Inuit hunt seals for food and clothing, and we market internationally the byproducts of our sustainable hunt. This is why attacking the commercial harvest on Canada's East Coast and attempting to destroy the market for seal products also affects the Inuit seal hunt in the Arctic," said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the elected Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference.

Ms. Watt-Cloutier invited the ex-Beatle to visit the high Arctic and learn more about the seal hunt. We'd urge him to either take her up on her offer or get back in his yellow submarine and find some other cause to harass people with.

Tell the Brandon Sun what you think of this article: opinion@brandonsun.com

The governors also shared some lighter moments: Kulongski compared the regional effort to bridge the Columbia River to the "hands across the water" lyrics in the Paul McCartney song, "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey," while Gregoire joked that Oregonians are already making fun of the new official Washington tourism slogan, "SayWA?"

With this year's annual seal hunt about to get underway off Canada's East Coast, Ottawa has enraged animal rights groups by announcing new higher quotas.

Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn announced Wednesday the catch limit for 2006 has been increased to 325,000, an additional 5,000 from last year.

Hearn said the harp seal population is healthy and thriving and the hunts will go ahead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and on the Front, off the north coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

A date for the Gulf hunt will be set in the next week, while the Front hunt does not typically open before April.

Hearn told Canada AM on Thursday that the Canadian hunt is humane and economically beneficial to Atlantic Canada.

"Nothing is monitored as closely or done as humanely as the present seal hunt," Hearn said.

According to recent figures, the industry is worth up to $20 million annually and employs up to 10,000 people, most of them in Newfoundland.

Hearn said animal rights groups are using 20-year-old images of inhumane seal hunts to sway the opinion of the Canadian public. He said that baby whitecoat pups, shown as victims on activist websites, are not part of the hunt.

"Look at the facts as they exist today and don't deal with the perceptions of yesterday which are still fleshed across the screen day after day to try to ramp up the protest movement."

Canada has not permitted a whitecoat hunt since 1987, but the pups can be killed once they lose their white fur, which can happen as soon as about 12 days after they are born.

"We're not saying whitecoats are hunted," Sheryl Fink, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, told Canada AM Thursday.

"The fact is that the seals that are being killed, 98 per cent of them, are between three weeks and three months of age."

She rebuffed governmental reasoning that the seal population was at one of its highest peaks ever.

"Just because harp seals may not be endangered right now, that's no excuse for bad management policies," Fink said.

The hunt has received high-profile criticism in the past, and most recently from former Beatle Paul McCartney, who visited ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence earlier this month.

He and his wife posed for photographers while petting whitecoat pups, which are illegal to target.

McCartney called the hunt "barbaric" and a "stain" on the country, and urged Ottawa to replace it with subsidies for fishermen and an eco-tourism industry.

Last spring marked the final season for a three-year federal plan that allowed sealers to take a total of 975,000 seals -- most of them harp seals between 12 days and three months old.

The Humane Society of the United States, which helped organize McCartney's publicity stunt, sponsored demonstrations Wednesday at Canadian embassies and consulates in Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C.

About 60 activists demonstrated outside the federal fisheries building in Vancouver, according to a website posting by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which labelled Wednesday the international day of protest against the hunt.

Dozens of protesters also held short demonstrations in Detroit, Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle and San Francisco.

The conservation organization said there were small demonstrations in Poland, Belgium, Australia, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Peru, Hungary, Croatia and Austria as well.

"Obviously this is something that divides Canada with the rest of the world and it's just time it ended," one protester said.

Two Inuit leaders say pop star Paul McCartney's recent campaign against the Canadian seal hunt is silly and disrespectful to wildlife.

The ex-Beatle visited the East Coast region this month to stage a high-profile photo-op on the ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, calling for the end of the centuries-old commercial hunt.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the elected Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, and Duane Smith, president of the conference, say in a news release issued Monday that Ottawa should reject McCartney's advice.

They are urging a federally funded campaign in Europe and the United States to counter his message.

Watt-Cloutier called McCartney "silly" for lying down on sea ice and playing with seal pups.

She says seals may look like cute pets, but should be viewed as wild animals that are hunted by humans.

"Inuit hunt seals for food and clothing, and we market internationally the by-products of our sustainable hunt. This is why attacking the commercial harvest on Canada's East Coast and attempting to destroy the market for seal products also affects the Inuit seal hunt in the Arctic," she said.

McCartney and his wife Heather were seen on their bellies close to newborn harp seals, insisting the annual East Coast seal hunt is a "stain on the character of the Canadian people."

They also appeared on CNN's Larry King Live from Charlottetown.

Watt-Cloutier noted that wildlife groups and Ottawa have established that seals are not endangered, and the World Trade Organization allows unrestricted trade in most seal products.

Smith added: "Our hunting is sustainable. It is the right of Inuit as an aboriginal people to continue hunting as we have always done."

Watt-Cloutier said if McCartney wants to save seals, he should help Inuit stop climate change which is destroying sea ice - the habitat of seals.

She invited the pop star to visit the Arctic to learn what seal hunting means to Inuit.

The hunt, which started in the 1700s, is expected to open later this month off Prince Edward Island and around the Magdalen Islands.

The main hunt typically begins in April off Newfoundland.

The most recent figures suggest the industry was worth between $15 million and $20 million annually and employed up to 10,000 people, most of them in Newfoundland.

United States secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is to visit Sir Paul McCartney's fame school during her trip to Merseyside.

Students at LIPA will meet the politician, who is a talented pianist, when she stops off at the academy with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

It is expected to be the first destination on her packed itinerary after disembarking from the presidential jet at Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

The 51-year-old's decision to come to Merseyside has already stirred up a wave of controversy.

On Wednesday, anti-war protesters gathered outside the town hall to call for the council to withdraw its co-operation for the visit, claiming Rice has "blood on her hands" as a result of her involvement with the war in Iraq.

Mark Featherstone-Witty, founding principal of LIPA, last night said: "I'm sure it will be an interesting visit. She is certainly incredibly high profile.

"It is a great opportunity to show the calibre of work the students here do and give her a glimpse of one of the city's cultural institutions.

"It would be fantastic if she would agree to demonstrate her musical talent to the students."

Rice is not the only well-known name LIPA has managed to secure as a guest over the coming weeks.

Thespian Sir Ian McKellen has agreed to make an appearance on April 21after a decade of approaches from Featherstone-Witty. He will hold a question and answer session with the students.

The 65-year-old is an acclaimed stage actor but has become most well known recently for his role as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy and his stint as a crooked novelist in Coronation Street.

He is in the city to star in a new play, The Cut, which is about an ordinary man with a shocking secret. It runs at Liverpool Playhouse between April 18-22.

Former Radio 1 DJ Mark Radcliffe has also been recruited to host a national talent show at the institute on April 8.

Featherstone-Witty said: "Sir Ian will be a fabulous inspiration to our students and I'm sure there will be plenty of topics they want to quiz him on.

"I have been chasing him since 1996 to come and visit so it is a great thrill to have finally succeeded.

"We aim to give our students as many great experiences as possible."

A spokeswoman for Sir Ian said: "He is very much looking forward to coming to Liverpool and performing The Cut as well as visiting institutions in the city."

What's that summer fragrance that evokes butterflies and hummingbirds? It has to be Sheer Stella.

With nature for inspiration, the fragrance encapsulates all that is sweet about summer ­ in a see-through bottle.

The butterfly and hummingbird are two of Stella McCartney's favorite creatures. And they are regulars in her accessories collections.

What's magical about this intoxicating summer cocktail?

Well, it has tangy and refreshing lemon zest, a crisp green apple note, delicate notes of rose absolute and celestial rose and a hint of sensual amber.

It's a feminine fragrance in a collectible bottle.

A fine balance.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

March 16, 2006 -- Macca Report

Baker sells off his McCartney momentos

Apparently, Geoff Baker, the ex-publicist of Paul McCartney, is selling off his McCartney autographed memorabilia on ebay. The winning bid for the above "letter" went for $1,525.00 US. More items will be listed soon.

Baker has written a book called "Rock Bottom" which is scheduled to hit stores in May. The novel is rumored to be a thinly disguised tell-all of his days with Paul McCartney.

Earlier this month, I escorted Paul and Heather McCartney to the ice floes to witness the spectacular harp seal nursery and draw attention to the seal hunt, set to begin just a few weeks later. Unfortunately, many of the media stories that appeared subsequently were slanted, and at times even absurd.

One national TV station reported that the seals hunted today are adults, and included an accusation that the McCartneys were misleading the public by being photographed with seal pups. They were utterly wrong.

Canadian government kill reports prove 99 per cent of the seals slaughtered last year were just two months of age or less. Over the past five years, the majority of the seals killed have been younger than 1 month old. At the time of slaughter, many of these pups had yet to eat their first solid meal or take their first swim - hardly "adult" seals by anyone's standards.

Then there was a national editorial accusing animal protection groups of trying to "slaughter the incomes of Newfoundlanders."

But even the Newfoundland government says there are only about 4,000 active sealers each year and if you do the math, they earn less than 5 per cent of their incomes from killing seals.

McCartney proposed a fair licence buy-back plan that would fairly compensate fishermen should the seal hunt close.

This is hardly an attempt to take money away from Newfoundlanders.

And it's not a bad solution when you consider that ongoing boycotts of Canadian seafood and tourism will continue until the seal hunt is ended for good, and those boycotts are costing this country far more than a buy-back plan could ever cost to implement.

Other media outlets sunk to new lows, comparing animal protection groups to terrorists, criticizing McCartney's musical abilities, and trying to insinuate (without basis) that the McCartneys were uninformed on the issues. The Telegram actually saw fit to print a comment from one reader who suggested the "little woman" (Heather McCartney) should just stay home.

Many stories regurgitated that tired old sealing industry line that animal protection groups campaign to end the seal hunt to raise funds. Of course, given the groups involved are non-profit, this is about as logical as saying the Canadian Cancer Society uses cancer as a fundraising tool.

The CBC chose not to document the McCartneys trip to the ice floes because "the hunt has not started yet so it's not news."

Incredibly, just days later, CBC decided it would be news to try to follow activists at work to get the inside story on their tactics to stop the hunt.

There were the inevitable citings of a report used by the fisheries department, which supposedly suggests up to 98 per cent of the seals are killed in an "acceptably humane way."

Of course, media outlets chose not to explain this "study" was performed on board sealing vessels in the presence of enforcement officers, when sealers knew they were being watched. As much as you would not speed while driving past a police car, sealers are unlikely to violate regulations in front of enforcement officers.

And there was no reference to another study conducted by a team of independent veterinarians in the same year .

It concluded in 42 per cent of cases studied, the seals had likely been skinned alive while conscious and that the hunt causes "considerable and unacceptable suffering."

There were the usual claims that the harp seal population has "tripled" over the past three decades. But reporters left out an important qualification: The population has simply been recovering from an all-time low in the 1970s (caused by over-hunting in the 1950s and '60s).

They also failed to report that today's kill levels actually exceed those of a half century ago, when the sealing industry almost wiped out the harp seal population.

In the end, the debate rages on. And what may be overlooked by much of the Canadian media is the 300,000 seal pups that will be clubbed and shot and maybe even skinned alive for fur coats in the next few weeks.

So I have a message for Canadian editors who think this hunt should go on. Portraying the assault and battery of 3-week-old seal pups as an acceptable Canadian activity is a betrayal of the facts and the overwhelming majority of Canadians who oppose this cruel and needless slaughter.

You don't have to witness the hunt yourselves; consider yourselves lucky. But I do, and this will be my eighth year observing this slaughter first-hand.

In those years, I've been forced by law not to intervene as seal pups are literally skinned alive in front of me, as wounded seals are left for more than an hour to choke on their own blood, as injured baby seals wake up in piles of dead pups, covered in blood, bewildered and in pain. These are images I'll never get out of my mind.

For the record, I grew up in Newfoundland, I know sealers, and I've spent 10 years researching the sealing industry. Something most people fail to understand is what this job actually means for the people involved.

Even sealers will tell you it's brutal, dehumanizing, and miserable work. It's why many fishermen never return after their first year at the hunt, and 99 per cent of Newfoundlanders are not involved in any aspect of the industry.

I'm leaving to witness yet another seal hunt and it's my hope Canadian media will try to provide a more balanced overview of the issues this year.

Because as McCartney said in his quiet and measured way, "When you consider all the facts of this issue, you can arrive at only one conclusion - it just has to stop."

Rebecca Aldworth is director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, for the Humane Society of the United States.

Whimsy emerged, too. Later that night Paul told Linda that he'd had "a vision" while praying, and that their band would be called Wings.

From the start, it was the consummate '70s act, with a regular Thursday night spot on TV's Top of the Pops and a taste for hip-hugging tartan flares. To Wings' many fans, the band was a continuation of the Beatles by other means; to critics, one of those curious phenomena of the time, like spandex.

The launch party, a fancy-dress affair held in London's Empire Ballroom on November 8, touched all the bases. There was a mirrorball on the ceiling, beaming a psychedelic light show of velvet-and-lace clad writhing figures that included the likes of Cliff Richard and Elton John.

Another journalist asked McCartney if he was putting the band together purely for the money. Paul assured her that nothing could be further from his mind. "It's for love, darlin'," he chortled.

That same week, Lennon's album Imagine hit No. 1 in Britain and nine other markets. The title track got all the airplay, but the one that stuck it to Paul was How Do You Sleep? In this tune, John's perspective on the '60s was revealed to moving effect. The freaks had been right when they said that McCartney was dead. All the latter had ever done was Yesterday. (The punchline "And you probably pinched that bitch anyway!" was deleted on legal advice.) John concluded by saying that the sound Paul now made was muzak to his ears.

These rebukes must have hurt, but McCartney was heroically restrained in his critique of Imagine, an album he insisted he liked. Of How Do You Sleep? he said merely: "It's silly. So what if I live with straights? I like straights. I have straight babies . . . he says the only thing I did was Yesterday and he knows that's wrong."

When prodded further about the song title, McCartney had the pat answer: "I sleep fine, thanks."

A month later, Melody Maker magazine splashed McCartney's mild remarks on Imagine under the headline "Why Lennon is uncool". John went nuts, firing off a letter which he insisted the paper publish on the grounds of "equal time". The lawyers removed nine lines for fear of libel, but what remained was plain enough.

Lennon's seven-part attack opened with the startling assertion that Paul's politics "are very similar to (morals campaigner) Mary Whitehouse's". Most of the rest was a partial account of the couple's falling-out over the Beatles' record label Apple and Maclen, the company which banked their songwriting dues.

Pelting McCartney with mere business differences wasn't enough. Lennon would go on to compare Paul to Engelbert Humperdinck (infuriating that singer). He put the boot in to Wings and, more pertinently, their keyboard player, Linda McCartney. John's distaste for Linda and her family was such that once, when invited to a meeting with the ex-Beatles and their lawyers, he said he'd go only if he received a letter stating that none of the "WASP Jews" would be present.

It was a street brawl McCartney had no desire to join. "I was there and I (know) what happened," he said. "That's enough. I'd never say the things he did."

The Beatles' civil war provoked widespread gossip and opinion, some of which wasn't so much aired as shouted, and nearly all of which deplored McCartney's 1970 lawsuit against his former bandmates.

Rock 'zines like Crawdaddy depicted Paul and Linda as bloated pigs, and wished Wings a "crash landing". Most insiders took a more practical view. McCartney's unabashed love of a "proper tune" obviously galled Lennon. "It's not just two billionaires engaged in a catfight," said (Linda's lawyer father) Lee Eastman, who knew something of songwriting and finance. "The real question ­ of whether an artist should please himself or his public ­ is probably the great musical-theatrical debate of the 20th century."

On December 6, 1971, the British High Court appointed a receiver for Maclen. This meant that the recording, publishing and licensing divisions of the Apple empire were all now under judicial control.

Just a week later, McCartney paid a call on Lennon at the latter's Greenwich Village, New York, apartment. Paul, according to most versions, was irked by John's response, which was to refer to Eastman as "a yid".

The mutual wrangling then became noticeably bitter. There was some hard talk about (Wings' debut album) Wild Life. Paul was further distressed, sources say, when the Lennons were then unavailable to take his phone calls. They were too busy, a flunkey allegedly told Linda, organising a benefit concert for victims of the Attica jail riot in New York and a street march on behalf of the IRA. On that note, Paul and Linda flew back to Scotland for Christmas.

"Looking at it purely bluntly," McCartney would reflect of the early '70s, "there was a sort of a dip for me and my writing. There were a couple of years when I had a sort of an illness."

Although Paul had a low opinion of his own creative powers at the time and focused more on performing, Wings would turn out three hit singles in 1972.

The first, Give Ireland Back to the Irish, was recorded on February 1, less than 48 hours after Bloody Sunday, when 13 Catholic protesters were shot dead during a riot in Londonderry.

McCartney followed it by releasing his full-length version of Mary Had a Little Lamb. Finally, just before Christmas, came a bouncy pop-rock carol Hi, Hi, Hi. This consisted mainly of the lyric "We're gonna get hi, hi, hi" . The first and last of these songs were promptly banned by the BBC.

Over the years, Paul's nursery rhyme began to acquire cult status as "one of the most unintentionally hilarious tunes of all time . . . uniquely appalling".

When Lennon (promoting his own new single, Woman is the Nigger of the World) was asked to comment, he replied: "Why should I? What could I possibly add? The fact that he put it out is comment enough."

McCartney would later rue the fact that "no one in the Wings family" had dared to confront him.

"None of them would say, 'No, Paul, that's a mistake'." On the other hand, McCartney made no bones about the fact that "I love singing songs for kids. There's no bull---- there".

Meanwhile, McCartney had put a lot of distance between himself and his former band. When pressed, Paul would at least speak fondly of John in interviews. John said that to the extent he considered Paul at all, it was as a sell-out. To him, Wings were self-styled "crowd-pleasers . . . about as underground as my granny".

Throughout the '70s, both men would continue to obsess about one another's marriages, keep abreast of one another's careers and snap up one another's records, then fussily deconstruct them. Of his own Sometime in New York City (a critical and commercial bomb), Lennon would say poignantly: "I'd like to hear what Paul thinks of the songs. He knows me and he might like them".

In fact, McCartney was a consistently good and often-generous friend to his peers. Everyone from Dylan to Des O'Connor would remember him having noted their latest releases ­ often, when he got the critical itch, with witty, detailed reviews.

One of David Bowie's band recalls Bowie, Elton John and McCartney "sitting on a sofa in the studio talking about each other's albums: this brotherhood of musicians. Try to imagine, you know, Kid Rock and Eminem sitting around, helping each other."

You could be a working journalist and have all the passes that one's heart could desire, but you still couldn't hope to interview McCartney and Wings. Not unless you signed the five-page agreement provided by the band's management which stipulated that "if anyone alludes to the Beatles, Apple Corp . . . . . . that person will be immediately removed".

Paul would remember this as a time when "I'd ring John and he'd say, 'Yeah, what d'you want?' 'I just thought we might meet?' 'Yeah, what the f--- d'you want, man?' "

Lennon concluded one such conversation by remarking, "You're all pizza and fairytales". (McCartney thought this a good album title.) After being treated to choice New York slang, Paul brought another exchange to a close by snarling, "F--- off, Kojak (a New York TV character)," and slamming the receiver down.

When the time came for the Lennons to move from their cramped apartment into New York's Dakota building, it took McCartney "three or four weeks" to track down the new number. Even then, a caller was apt to receive one of three responses, according to John's mood.

The first, with Lennon pretending to be his secretary: "Sorry, he isn't here right now." The second: "The Lennons are out of the country. Goodbye." The third, with John dropping the act: "Whaddaya want?"

McCartney caught him on a bad day. John answered in his own voice and promptly launched into another harangue about how Yoko had been treated as "some Jap freak with big tits" rather than a serious artist, before throwing in venomous remarks about Linda. Shaking with rage, McCartney hung up and rang Lee Eastman to recount the conversation.

"You'll never guess what that arsehole Lennon just said," he blurted out. A familiar nasal voice replied, "This is that arsehole Lennon." In his haste, he had redialled John's number.

From "McCartney" by Christopher Sandford.

By JOHN GLEESON

In the past week I've been called every name under the good day sunshine.

Of course I had it coming. Not only did I defend clubbing cute little baby seals in my last column (McCartney dishes up blubber soul) but I apparently did something even worse -- I called down the great Paul McCartney.

Yes, for every letter castigating me for defending the East Coast seal hunt -- and there were dozens, most of them wishing a similar fate on me -- there were four or five others attacking me with roughly equal venom for my assessment of Paul's late Beatles work as far inferior to John Lennon's.

"Failed paperback writer" was one of my favourite putdowns and more creative than "miserable excuse for a human being," "ignorant fool," "Lennon loving idiot," "hoser," "hater," "Yank" and all the rest, most of them unprintable in this medium.

Which proves that while cute seal pups are important to people in general, the reputation of their pop heroes is four or five times more so.

And why not? Humans before animals, I always say.

McCartney fans from as far away as Germany were aghast at my tactics. "I've never before read such a mean-spirited, personal attack on a celebrity that had nothing to do with the issue at hand," wrote Keltie MacNeill-Keller of Exeter, Ont. "There was no need to attack Sir Paul McCartney's contribution to music simply because you disagree with his opinion on the seal hunt. One has nothing to do with the other."

In fact, nothing could be more relevant than McCartney's credibility as an artist, because his art is his livelihood. His publicity stunt with the baby seals was a direct attack on the livelihoods of Canadian commercial fishermen, most of them from Newfoundland, most of them quite poor, for whom the "chump change" from the seal kill is the equivalent of the few millions from Beatles royalties that Paul "culls" on a regular basis.

This celebrity fop comes to our shores to paint a misleadingly ugly picture of what our fellow Canadians do to put food on their tables -- you bet he deserves to have the basis of his livelihood discredited in return.

My attack on McCartney's music, however, was not merely for effect -- although I did let loose with a certain careless abandon, I'll admit.

As I explained in response to the many long and winding essays I received on how great Paul the Beatle was, my real point was that he simply was not in the same league as Lennon, who at his best was a truly visionary artist in the English tradition of William Blake and D.H. Lawrence. McCartney's stature is more along the lines of Irving Berlin. Disagree all you like, call me ignorant as you have, but time will prove me correct.

Some devoted Lennon listeners got it -- like Craig Laurence of Knoxville, Tenn. -- and it was fun hearing from them. They were less stodgy than the Paul fans, not surprisingly.

The best missives, though, came from Newfoundlanders, many of whom read my column in the St. John's Telegram, which reprinted it last weekend and interviewed me for a story because, as reporter Barb Sweet put it, "It's rather rare we see mainland columns that actually defend the seal hunt."

R. Ritter, from a town called Paradise, even promised to mail me his entire Beatles collection (all right!).

Darrin Langdon thanked me for standing up "for common people who have such a small voice."

E. Penney almost made me cry. "I applaud you for becoming a voice for us across Canada," she wrote. "Your name won't be forgotten here any time soon. God bless you."

Bottom line to all you seal lovers out there -- if you care so much about those animals, tell your celebrity front men to respect the people whose livelihoods are at stake. They are good people and will hear you out if you treat them like people, not club-wielding monsters, which they are not.

The real joke is that Paul could have opened every door with his celebrity profile and actually effected positive change -- instead of posing for a pathetic cover album shot which only polarizes the debate and does nothing for the "poor" seals.

Nuts to him. Pass the flipper pie and where the hell are those Beatles CDs?

jgleeson@wpgsun.com

Taking on the world's largest animal-testing company, top musical icon Sir Paul McCartney has fired off an appeal to Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano asking that Covance, the company caught abusing monkeys during a PETA investigation, not be allowed to set up shop in Arizona.

Cruelty to Animals

What's Sir Paul's quarrel with Covance? It is the world's biggest breeder of dogs for use in experimentation and the largest importer of primates into the U.S. Damning video footage shot inside Covance's Vienna, Virginia, laboratory shows workers striking monkeys, throwing them against cage doors, shouting curses at the terrified animals, and psychologically tormenting them. Juvenile monkeys, desperate for physical contact, tugged at the gloves of PETA's investigator as-ironically-the Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friends" echoed out from the radio. Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" also reverberated through the desolate cinderblock-walled rooms in which the monkeys would live, suffer, and die as, crazed from their barren surroundings, they frantically rocked back and forth in their cages.

Covance Responsible for Ebola Outbreak

In 1989, when Covance was known as "Hazleton Research Products," the deadly Ebola virus was discovered in sick monkeys brought in by the company from the Philippines. A tactical medical military team outfitted in biohazard suits entered the lab, killed all the animals, and sealed the facility. After Hazleton vacated the premises, the facility, which had been built for $12 million, sat on the market for years; eventually, the building was demolished and the land was given away.

Even today, Covance continues to import primates-more than 12,000 in 2005, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-and continues to harbor sick monkeys. While breeding monkeys in the U.S. would reduce the public safety risk, importing monkeys from countries like China, the Philippines, and Vietnam saves Covance money-and at Covance, public safety and animal welfare take a back seat to profits.

Find out how you can join Paul McCartney to spread the word about Covance.

The Honorable Janet Napolitano
Governor of Arizona
1700 W. Washington
Phoenix, AZ 85007

Dear Governor Napolitano:

Arizona has a special place in my heart. It is where Linda loved to ride and its where she lived her last days on our ranch. Linda was a champion for animals so it is for her and for all of us who want o protect animals from harm that I am writing to ask you not to let Covance, an animal testing laboratory, to set up shop in Chandler.

There is growing citizen opposition to Covance for two reasons, cruelty to animals and public health concerns.

Covance operated under the name Hazelton Research Products when its laboratory in Vienna, Virginia imported hundreds of monkeys who were found to be infected with the deadly Ebola virus. The U.S. military had to enter Covance in full biohazard gear to kill all the monkeys. The value of the land surrounding Covance's laboratory was reduced from millions of dollars to worthless and Covance had to raze the building and give away the land under it.

During a recent undercover investigation into Covance's Vienna, Virginia laboratory where almost 1,000 primates are kept in tiny, barren metal cages, PETA videotaped Covance staff striking, choking, and tormenting the terrified animals (see covancecruelty.com). Primates in labs are in constant fear - they have no place to hide and studies have shown that their heart and pulse rates rise dramatically each time the door opens, before anyone toucheds them, because of their anticipation of what will happen next.

Two agencies of the U.S. government - both the FDA and the USDA - are now investigating Covance. In June, 2005, a British judge, ruling that PETA had the right to show videotaped abuse inside Covance facilities, characterized the video as "highly disturbing." He also commented on the "rough manner in which the animals [are] handled and the bleakness of the surroundings in which they are kept," matters which, he said, "cry out for explanation."

The community of Alameda, California successfully kept Covance from building there. I most respectfully request your assistance for the compassionate citizens of Chandler in their quest to do the same.

Yours truly,

Paul McCartney (signature)

Sir Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney, in a letter to the governor of Arizona, says he doesn't want drug developer Covance Inc. to open an animal testing lab in the state where he owns a ranch.

Covance submitted plans in October to build a 400,000-square-foot facility on a 38-acre parcel for clinical animal testing in Chandler, Ariz. The company says the testing is mandated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for new drugs.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), however, claims that an undercover video filmed last year shows abuse of monkeys in Covance's Vienna, Va., laboratory. That video is posted online at http://www.CovanceCruelty.com.

"Arizona has a special place in my heart," McCartney writes in the letter to Gov. Janet Napolitano. He explains that his Arizona ranch is where his wife Linda spent her last days before she died of breast cancer in 1998.

"It is for her and all of us who want to protect animals from harm that I am writing to ask you not to let Covance, an animal testing laboratory, set up shop in Chandler," the former Beatle writes in a letter dated March 3.

McCartney also cites a health concern. Covance operated under the name Hazelton Research Products in 1989 when several hundred primates at a Virginia lab were killed by the Ebola virus.

Laurene Isip, a spokeswoman for Covance, responded to McCartney's letter with a statement sent to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

"It is unfortunate that PETA is using Mr. McCartney to spread their false allegations against our company. Covance conducts government required medical research to find medicines for diseases like breast cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, and many others."

Jeanine L'Ecuyer, a spokeswoman for Gov. Napolitano, said the letter was received, but it was a matter for the city of Chandler. She added, "it's a situation that the governor's office will continue to monitor."

Barry Broome, president of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, said in October the council was "really excited" about Covance coming to Arizona.

But resident Kathy Urrea said, "As much as I love this community and am happy to be in Arizona, I do have to say if Covance does move to Chandler, I will consider leaving Chandler."

Although federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn is poised to make a formal announcement in the next few days, reports from Canadian Coast Guard ice specialists are anything but reassuring for sealers.

For ice to be safe for sealing, it needs to be at least 30 to 50 centimetres thick. As of now, they say there is only 20 to 30 per cent of the thicker material in the entire Gulf.

"There is a bit of that heavy ice ... but most of what's out there is what we call young ice, ranging from 10 to 30 centimetres," ice specialist Charlie Daigle said yesterday.

"That is not very thick. In fact, it is considerably thinner than we normally see at this time of year, and anything less than 30 centimetres and above would be questionable."

Making things even more unlikely for safe hunting conditions is the general forecast for the coming week, which is supposed to see warm and above-normal temperatures.

Yesterday, it was 4 C in Charlottetown, 6 C in Dartmouth, N.S., and zero in Iles de la Madeleine.

Said Mr. Daigle: "The days are longer and the sun is stronger now also, so there will probably not be a whole lot more ice made from now on. That means that what we have now is what the minister will be making his decision on."

The annual seal hunt was in the news again last week when former Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife travelled to the Gulf of St. Lawrence to protest the slaughter.

Sir Paul, his wife and Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams even squared off in a debate on CNN's Larry King Live.

By Tanya Mulford

In the halls of their hotel, walking from the taping of an interview on the Canadian seal hunt for the Larry King Live show to the taping of their next interview, Heather and Paul McCartney broke into song. "All we are saying is give seals a chance," they sang to the reporters intent on capturing their every move during a recent visit to Prince Edward Island. The trip had been planned to draw international attention to the plight of the seals who, only now being born on the ice in Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence, are doomed to be bludgeoned and shot to death in a few weeks. "Give seals a chance," the McCartneys sang, looking directly into the cameras.

Later, while Heather mapped out strategy with the ProtectSeals team, Paul took a few moments to talk about, among other things, their involvement with the campaign to end the seal hunt, what kind of reception they received in Canada, and how he thinks ending the seal hunt would benefit everyone, including sealers.

HSUS: How did you and Heather first become involved in the campaign to protect the seals?

Paul McCartney: Originally, many years ago, like a lot of people, we started seeing footage on the television of the seal hunt, and then in the 60s, people like Brigitte Bardot coming out to the ice brought a lot of attention to it for us over in Europeand so, really, I think it's just a 40-year knowledge of the fact that this happens is what drew me to it originally. And then we were invited over to come and see this year-2006-and come and see the pups firsthand, so we were very happy to accept the invitation.

HSUS: What was it like to travel to the ice?

PM: The most striking thing about being on the ice was the natural beauty, the fact that it is a really pristine wildlife spectacle. And as you fly in, as we did, in a helicopter, you start to see one or two seals on the ice, and then you see more, and then you see more and more-and then you can see that each one is accompanied by a white pup. And as you get in, you just realize the sheer magnificence of the wildlife spectacle. And it gives you an even stronger feeling that this has got to be preserved for future generations.

HSUS: Do you feel any desire to see the hunt?

PM: Not really. In truth, it may be chicken of me, but that's not something I would find very easy to do. Heather and I had said that if we were witness to that, we'd be very tempted to try to get in and stop them. So I don't think that would be a particularly good idea. We will no doubt see it on film, unless it's stopped-miraculously-in time. And, as I say, we have seen film in the past. It is a tragedy, and that's why we're here, trying to get people to consider alternate solutions, to move forward.

HSUS: If you could speak to the sealers, what would you say to them?

PM: I would say to them that this is a brutal practice and that they know it. I don't think for one second that they think that what they're doing is humane. From what we've heard, they will club a seal, it becomes their property, they move on; they'll club another seal, it becomes their property, they move on; and they'll move through hundreds of seals. Obviously, with one single blow-or a couple of blows with the club or the pick-they're not necessarily going to put these animals out of their misery.

I would say to them, "This is brutal. We are now in the 21st Century. Why don't you yourselves start talking to your government, why don't you, through your union and through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, start saying 'Look, how about a license buy-back program?'" It would mean that they would be compensated. It would mean that the stain on Canada's character as a nation would be cleared up. It would then also mean that sealers would have some compensation. They would then have a future in the same way as whale-watching has become a great success. [Canada banned commercial whaling in 1972; since that time the whale-watching industry has thrived and is worth more than the seal hunt.] This area could be one of the key locations that tourists from all over the world come to, to view this magnificent spectacle.

Heather and I would say to the sealers, "Consider the options-don't be frightened, and don't automatically set yourselves against ending the hunt. Just quietly, now, talk amongst yourselves, talk with the government about your options. And before making a decision, just look and see if there is anything that would provide a solution for everyone involved."

HSUS: What would you say if you were to speak to Prime Minister Harper? [The McCartneys attempted repeatedly to speak with recently elected Prime Minister Stephen Harper during their visit to Canada, but they were told that he was in meetings.]

PM: I would put the arguments to him. I would suggest the whale-watching argument because you have a clear success on your hands there. And the circumstances are pretty similar, where you've got a magnificent stock of wildlife right on your doorstep, and instead of taking this kind of advantage of it, by brutally clubbing them-or whatever methods used-to death, enhance the reputation of Canada. Because, other than this, Canada has a great reputation in the world. And the seal hunt is one huge stain on that reputation.

I would suggest that Prime Minster Harper try to take advantage, perhaps, of our visit, which will have focused attention on the issue. Instead of shirking the issue and saying "Well, it's humane, it's this, that, and the other, and we want to continue doing it," look at some radical solutions: Look at the solution offered by ecotourism and look at a license buy-back program, because then things like the boycott of Canadian seafood that's happening around the world would end. This would be one way to immediately end the boycott, which is losing Canada countless millions of dollars.

I would suggest to Harper that he and his team look at an overall program with which they can attack this problem and not feel bullied into it. The last thing we want to do is make the Canadians feel that we're telling them what to do. We are, though, asking them to consider an alternative to the hunt-for their own sake as much as for the sake of the world community and for the seals. There's something here that could be done that would be a win-win situation for everybody involved, including the animals.

HSUS: What kind of reception did you receive in Canada?

PM: I think we got as good a reception as we could have got. We didn't breeze in and breeze out and not look at the other side of the question. We listened to a lot of people, had a long conversation with a man from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans [the McCartneys were approached during their flight to Prince Edward Island by a representative of the DFO, who appears to have taken that flight in order to present the government's position on the seal hunt] who put his point of view quite well. He asked us to have an open mind, and we said, "We ask you to do the same thing."

We feel that amongst the people of Canada, we had a good reception. We hope that we haven't left any anger amongst the sealers, because we are basically trying to help them. It's just that our opinion is different: We do feel, along with millions of people in the world, who-well, you could say that: "Well, they don't live here, so they're interfering," but it's just not true. This is an international issue-it has to do with international morals-and everyone in the world is allowed to have an opinion about it.

HSUS: Do you have a message for all the people working to protect the seals?

PM: I'd like to say to all the people who are involved in this campaign, and have been, and will be in the future, "Thanks for your great efforts. Now that we've been out here and seen for ourselves first-hand the beautiful wildlife spectacle, it is even more important that people like yourselves are working day and night to try to bring some justice to the situation. I believe that with a concerted effort, we all can come together. This may be the beginning of the end for the seal hunt. We pray that that's so, and we thank you for every bit of help you've given-onward and upward!"

*The Canadian government has successfully implemented many license buy-back (also known as license retirement) programs in the wake of fisheries closures. In these programs, the government buys back fishing licenses from fishermen, compensating them for lost revenue resulting from fishery closures. A sealing license buy-back program would fairly compensate fishermen (who hunt seals in the off season) affected by the permanent closure of the commercial seal hunt.

We have just returned from a trip to the seal nursery on the ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. We walked on the ice among mother seals as they nursed their newborn babies.

There are no words to express how breathtaking the landscape is, with nothing but ice and ocean as far as the eye can see. The only sounds we heard were the wind and the cries of the baby seals, calling out to their mothers. But in just a few weeks, the boats will arrive, and the cries of the baby seals will be those of terror and agony as sealers clamber onto the ice with their clubs and guns. The pristine white of the ice will be stained with the blood of these baby seals, bludgeoned and shot to death so the sealers can sell their skins to the fur industry.

Today, we desperately need your help to stop this slaughter. We believe that if we all work together, we can convince the Canadian government that now is the time to end the hunt forever. That's why we are asking you to make as generous a gift as you can to help The Humane Society of the United States continue to fight to save Canada's baby seals.

The HSUS's ProtectSeals campaign is bringing all compassionate and humane-thinking citizens of the world together to pressure the Canadian government to end this hunt forever. Your donation will be used exclusively for the ProtectSeals campaign and will enable The HSUS to send a team of experts, journalists, and videographers to the ice so they can document the hunt, exposing the hideous cruelty that the Canadian government doesn't want the world to see.

We plan to make sure that the world knows what happens on those isolated ice floes in the middle of the sea, and we will not rest until the slaughter has ended forever. Please donate today.

Yours,

Heather and Paul McCartney

DONATE TO SAVE THE BABY SEALS

Stephanie Burmeister trembled with excitement as she tried to take a picture of Paul McCartney waving to fans and media gathered at Prince Edward Air on a brisk Thursday morning in Charlottetown.

"Oh my God, oh my God. I'm so excited, I can't even press the button on my camera," said Burmeister, who is originally from Hamburg, Germany, one of two cities in which the Beatles first played as a group in 1960.

Burmeister, armed with her camera and a book entitled "Paul McCartney: On Stage, Off Stage and Back Stage," was one of a handful of diehard fans who arrived around 8 a.m. Thursday in the hopes of catching a glimpse or an autograph from the ex-Beatle. Much of the morning was spent outside waiting for him to arrive.

McCartney and his wife, Heather, are on Prince Edward Island to protest Canada's seal hunt, which gets underway later this month in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Much to the disappointment of fans, McCartney showed up in a black Lincoln and was whisked inside the airport hangar. The celebrity couple arrived last Wednesday night by a regularly scheduled Air Canada Jazz flight after earlier flying through St. John's.

Cardigan, P.E.I., MP Lawrence MacAulay was also on the flight.

"I had a good discussion with him," said MacAulay. "I let him know that there is a fishing industry here and that, what happens with too many seals, they kill the cod. The other issue is that we certainly don't welcome what's going on with people coming in doing this type of protest] thing."

Williams was invited to appear on the cable network's talk show last Friday night to debate the Canadian seal hunt with the pop superstar and his wife, Heather Mills McCartney.

Williams said his office was deluged with e-mails and other correspondence in the wake of the program, in which the McCartneys called the hunt inhumane.

Williams said he was frustrated with both the format of the show - in which he was not invited to speak for almost all of the first half-hour - as well as with the information the McCartneys presented.

Williams said he also found it hard to debate the McCartneys, whom he said were misinformed about the facts of the seal hunt - as well as even basic geography.

Williams said Paul McCartney hurt his own credibility during his reply to Williams' invitation to visit Newfoundland, when the pop star said he and his wife were already there.

The McCartneys were at the moment in Charlottetown, P.E.I., which they used as a base last week to visit seal pups in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

"I basically had to sit there and bite my tongue for half an hour, which was probably one of the most excruciating half-hours I've ever had in my life," he said.

"Having said that, I think they did themselves a disservice," he said, referring especially to Heather Mills McCartney's performance. Among other things, Mills McCartney described as rubbish the fact that almost all of the seals killed off Newfoundland were shot, not clubbed.

Williams, who has been known to use fiery rhetoric, said he decided to use a cooler tone during the show.

"The last thing I wanted to be was a hothead on an international network that portrayed Newfoundlanders and Labradorians as being hotheads who inhumanely kill animals," he said.

Williams said about 80 per cent of the responses his office has received run in his favour.

"I was overwhemed by it," said Williams, who acknowledged that some of the e-mails he has received are on the other side of the spectrum.

"They are - some of them - very nasty, some of them very vulgar, some of them threatening. Over-the-top zealous is probably the best way I can put it," Williams said.

"They're basically saying that they don't agree with it and that they're totally opposed to it."

Williams said it is too early to say what impact the McCartney visit will have on the seal hunt, although he admitted "it can't help."

email Newfoundland's Preimier Danny Williams and tell him what you think of the seal hunt.

Federal fisheries officers have decided against charging former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and his wife even though their petting and poking of a seal pup off the Magdalen Islands on Thursday was technically illegal.

Canada's Marine Mammal Regulations state: "No person shall disturb a marine mammal except when fishing for marine mammals under the authority of these regulations."

Photographs show Sir Paul and his wife, Heather, patting a white-coated seal pup as they visited the ice floes to protest against the Canadian seal hunt. At one point, the pup took exception to Mrs. McCartney's caresses and snapped at her.

Roger Simon, area director for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in the Magdalen Islands, said the offence was so minor it does not warrant taking the couple to court.

"It's almost like saying you're going 51 kilometres in a 50-kilometre zone," Mr. Simon said.

"If a fishery officer had been present, something like a warning would have probably been issued, saying, 'Well, if these pups are still nursing, we suggest that you don't pet them -- just watch them.' "

A court would have to be shown that the seal had been harmed by the pop star and his wife, Mr. Simon said, and research has shown casual interaction with humans does no lasting damage to young seals.

"She may have bothered [the pup] but I don't think she harmed him," he said, adding that Canada has better uses of its tax dollars than a McCartney trial.

"When disturbance is of such a minor nature, you wouldn't bring someone to court on something like this," he said. "Somebody would say that the Canadian government and the Canadian taxpayers must have better things to do than haul Paul McCartney into court because he touched a seal."

Mr. Simon said Mrs. McCartney was fortunate it was a harp seal pup she stroked and not a grey seal. "The pup you saw yesterday that snapped doesn't even have any teeth," he said. "A grey seal would probably still be grabbing on to her nose. They're a bigger, more vicious animal."

After 20 years working with seals, Mr. Simon has seen a lot of celebrities come and go. "Last year we had MacGyver [televison actor Richard Dean Anderson], we had Loretta Swift [Hot Lips Houlihan from television's M*A*S*H*] one year. One year we had Bobby Kennedy, Jr.," he said. But he was particularly unimpressed with Sir Paul's understanding of the seal hunt. He expected the ex-Beatle would be out of his league in his televised debate with Danny Williams, the Newfoundland Premier.

"Poor Paul, in a debate, would be hard-pressed because he doesn't know very much about the subject," Mr. Simon said. As an example, he noted that Sir Paul suggested to local reporters that the seal hunt be replaced by whale-watching tours. "We're surrounded by ice, and this isn't a whale area. This is where whales pass but never stop, so it wasn't very well-documented or researched," Mr. Simon said.

He called Sir Paul's seal-hunt knowledge "a crash-course, HSUS brainwashing thing." The HSUS is the Humane Society of the United States, which organized the McCartneys' visit.

FISHERIES ACT

Prohibitions (7)

No person shall disturb a marine mammal except when fishing for marine mammals under the authority of these regulations

WEBMASTER'S COMMENT: Apparently in Canada it's a violation to "cuddle" a baby seal but it's OK to beat them over the head with clubs and skin them alive!

Mike McCartney's campaign to ensure anonymity for defendants in sex offence cases was last night backed by Wirral South MP Ben Chapman.

With increasing support from politicians, Sir Paul McCartney's brother last night vowed to take his protest all the way to the House of Commons.

After being cleared in court of sexual harassment, a case which the judge said should never have been brought, McCartney said he wants to change the law so defendants in sexual offence cases are not named publicly until conviction.

The former member of 1960s band Scaffold and cultural ambassador for Wirral stood accused of touching the bottom of a waitress.

He received hate mail to his home in Wirral but, when it came to court, he was cleared by a jury last week.

McCartney said last night: "I am a totally innocent man who has been put in something called 'The System' which takes away your life, makes you a prisoner in your own home and shatters your reputation.

"My family and I have been put through hell, going through a nightmare that became a day-mare.

"All I want is justice and fairness for all but, as it stands, you are guilty until proven innocent.

"I will fight to the highest court to get fairness back into our judicial system."

Chapman is urging people in Merseyside to pledge their support for the campaign via his website www.ben-chapman.org.

He said: "What happened to McCartney was appalling.

"We certainly need to look at the law as it stands to see if we can achieve equality in these sorts of cases.

"These are not, of course, easy issues and there are arguments made, for example, that justice should be seen to be done, and in relation to the anonymity issue being extended to all allegations and charges.

"But the original provision for anonymity for the accused, which was removed in 1988, had been inserted by a Labour government in 1976.

"It is time to look at these issues again.

"The media irresponsibility surrounding this and other cases means defendants can remain under a cloud even if they are acquitted of all charges.

"Apart from this important aspect, there are also serious questions about the trial to be answered.

"The Crown Prosecution Service seems to have brought the case when it should never have done so.

"There are issues about the substantial misuse of public money and the delay of nearly 18 months causing prolonged distress to Mike and his family which need to be addressed.

"I have put down questions, am seeking a debate in the House of Commons and will be writing to ministers."

Once they hoped to die before they got old, but no longer - sixtysomethings are back at the top of the charts. Tim de Lisle explains why the wrinklies just keep on rocking

Recently Paul McCartney met a woman who plays the piano in an old people's home. "I hope you don't mind," the pianist said, "but I play some of your songs and the most popular one is When I'm 64." Ah yes, the sugary music-hall ditty from Sergeant Pepper that people either love or hate. "But I have to change the title," the woman went on, "because 64 seems young to those people. They don't get it." So she sings When I'm 84 instead. McCartney sees his point: "If I were to write it now," he told the Los Angeles Times last month, "I'd probably call it When I'm 94."

McCartney will be 64 himself in June. He has a young band, a young producer, a young wife, a small child, and youngish hair; his age shows only in his jowls, the odd creak in his voice and an air of gathering urgency, which led him to open the proceedings at Live 8 as well as close them. He still needs us, and he is not alone. There were three new entries in last week's British album chart, all from McCartney's contemporaries: Neil Diamond, 65, Dolly Parton, just 60, and Ray Davies of the Kinks, 61. Welcome to sexagenarian rock'n'roll.

The music business still has its meteors - the Arctic Monkeys are all under 21, and the new star of British soul, Corinne Bailey Rae, is 26. But there is a flurry of activity from the elders of the tribe. David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, 60 today, is celebrating by releasing a rare solo album. Van Morrison, also 60, releases his umpteenth CD today. Joan Baez, 65, is touring this week.

The Rolling Stones, 246 between them, are in the middle of another world tour. Bob Dylan, 64, is forever on the road, though this may actually be an experiment to establish how badly he can maul his old songs before his fans walk out. Leonard Cohen, 71, is working on a new album. (This is the man who, when he took his songs to agents in New York, was asked, "Aren't you a little old for this game?" He was 32.) BB King, 80, will be here in April for his farewell tour. Not that farewell necessarily means adieu. Elton John, 58, will play Britain's sports grounds this summer, possibly forgetting that he announced his retirement from live performance in 1977.

Then there's the Who. Having somehow survived the death of half their line-up, decades of dormancy and Pete Townshend's encroaching deafness, they are still big enough to headline festivals this summer. The band that hoped they would die before they got old must increasingly find their own lyrics quoted back at them: "Why don't you all just f-fade away?"

This question has many answers. Bands play on because they love it, or they're addicted to the roar of the crowd, or because it's what they do. Rock is a hybrid form, drawing on blues, country, folk and gospel: cultures that attach no stigma to seniority. It's only the final ingredient in the recipe - youth culture - that makes us surprised to find a person of 60 singing rock songs.

The truth, however, is that music hasn't been ruled by the young for years now. More than half of all CDs are bought by people over 30; Mojo, the magazine for the greying fan, outsells NME; even big-selling young bands settle on a sound that is reactionary (Oasis), retro (the Kaiser Chiefs) or colossally reassuring (Coldplay).

It used to be assumed that rock was like football or chess, offering its best players a brief blazing heyday followed by an inevitable decline. Lately, it has looked more like golf, promising 40-year careers and only a slow fade. Now it may be shifting again, to become more like writing or painting. Some stars will burn out, others will flicker, and a few will shine brighter with age.

What is the formula for rock longevity? Asked how he had managed to keep going into his 50s, Iggy Pop replied: "I'm not bald, I'm not fat, and I'm not safe." Many stars manage to adhere to at least two of these criteria. Strangely few rock singers are bald (has toupee technology secretly moved on?), and those who are wear a hat, like Van Morrison, or divert attention with comedy braiding arrangements, like Keith Richards.

The template here is Johnny Cash, who released four albums of searing honesty in the decade before his death in 2003. Cash's producer was the hip-hop entrepreneur Rick Rubin, who also produced Diamond's new album. "They're both grown-ups, and there aren't many great albums by grown-ups," Rubin said recently. "There's no reason why great artists shouldn't make their best records when they're 50, 60, 70. In other disciplines, it would be expected." Disciplines! Rock really must have changed.

Between 2003 and 2005, an estimated 1 million seal pups were slaughtered according to the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The kill levels are twice as high as they were in the 1960s when international outrage succeeded in closing down several markets for seal pelts. The United States banned the import of seal products in 1972, and the European Union agreed to a partial ban. Canada eventually banned the killing of "whitecoats" (baby seals) in 1987. But those white coats are replaced by spotted gray coats in a matter of weeks--at which time the seals are eligible for the hunt.

Last year alone, more than 315,000 seals were killed. Some environmentalists report that some of the animals are skinned alive and are left to die in agony. Canada's claim that the hunt is regulated and monitored has been disputed every year by protesters who show up at the same time the sealers do and have witnessed what really goes on.

The hunt begins in March after females give birth to pups with soft plush fur. That fur is the reason that the ice floes turn red with blood. The defenseless pups, who have no way to escape the sealers' clubs and rifles, are prized only for their pelts. Only for fashion statements.

Some people have held out hope that with a new prime minister, the annual hunt can be stopped. Stephen Harper has replaced Paul Martin, who was an uncompromising supporter of the hunt. As yet, though, a regime change hasn't helped. There has been no indication that it will be canceled.

However, there is some good news. Italy has banned the import of seal products, and the British government is strongly considering doing the same. It's clear that if compassion will not end this mass slaughter, maybe economics can. If no one is buying seal pelts, the pups (less than three months old) will not be clubbed, shot and skinned. Many might actually fulfill their life expectancy of 30 years.

On Thursday (March 2), Paul and Heather McCartney visited the Gulf of St. Lawrence to bring worldwide attention to the pups whose fate is in the hands of the Canadian government. Working with the Humane Society of the United States, they have stated their commitment to make this a global issue.

Predictably, sealers don't appreciate the high-profile attention the McCartneys' visit will bring to this issue. The Canadian press quoted Jack Troake, a 70-year-old sealer, who said, "It's something we've done for 500 years. It's helped to sustain us. We go to bed with a full stomach, a tight roof over our heads. It's part of our culture, our history."

Are we to actually believe that there is no other way for thousands of people to make a living? That all they are equipped to do is kill seal pups and skin them? And as far as traditions dating back hundreds of years, there are plenty of old traditions that have been banished as countries have grown more civilized: town lynchings, slavery, bleeding people with leeches, stoning women to death to name a few.

In the end, supporters of the seal hunt may find that their worst enemy is global warming. Unseasonably warm temperatures have prevented the formation of many ice floes, which is where females go to give birth. There is extremely low ice cover in both the Gulf of St. Lawrence and waters northeast of Newfoundland, both primary breeding sites.

It would be nice if appealing to the hearts and compassion of human beings was enough. But some of earth's inhabitants sadly only listen to money. Countries that are banning imports of seal products will probably make the most difference. Perhaps the only way to save these beautiful creatures is to render them economically worthless. It's a strange world when the only way to save something valuable is by devaluing it.

Terry Andrews' life is now complete. At least that's what he's been saying since he met Sir Paul McCartney at St. John's International Airport Wednesday afternoon (March 1).

"There's not much in this world that could put a downer on my day today," Andrews said with a smile.

Andrews' first memory of McCartney and the rest of the Beatles is from about 1969, when he was 11 years old. His older brother, Tony, was already a Beatles fan.

One night, while the brothers were watching their father play darts, they put the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band record on the family's old phonograph.

"The bass playing on that album just blew me away," Andrews said.

He was so impressed with the music that he went out and bought a Rickenbacker bass for himself, and learned to play.

When he got his first job, as a stockroom clerk at Woolco, he used his hard-earned money to buy Beatles records.

"Every payday I would buy one or two albums," Andrews said.

"I don't think anyone will ever have all their albums, but I have every album they released, plus bootlegs and others."

Andrews got to see McCartney in concert in Toronto in 2002 - something he said cost him a small fortune but was worth every penny.

He admits his wife, Barbara, and daughters Stephanie, 18, and Jessica, 12, are more into other types of music, but said he is slowly turning them into Beatles fans.

On Wednesday, Andrews got to see his longtime idol close-up, when he bumped into him at the airport.

Andrews said he had heard from "a source" that McCartney and his wife, Heather, were going to be passing through St. John's Wednesday on their way to observe the seal hunt off P.E.I., and went to the airport with Tony to see if he could catch a glimpse.

He saw McCartney leaving the customs area - with no bodyguards, and pulling his own luggage - and quickly whipped out his digital camera and a piece of paper, in the hopes of getting an autograph.

"Tony was wearing a Beatles shirt and (McCartney) pointed to it and said, 'Nice shirt,'" Andrews said.

"I said, 'Sir Paul, I have a license plate just like that on the front of my car.' He shook my hand and said, 'Excellent, excellent.'

"He was very down-to-earth and nice - but he wasn't as tall as I thought he would be."

Andrews was able to get a quick signature from McCartney, as well as a few photos and a short video before the batteries in his camera died.

Special memento

A photo taken of him with McCartney will be displayed in a special place once a copy is made of it, Andrews said.

"I'm doing up my rec room, and I was thinking of having one wall made into a Beatles wall, so it will probably go there," he said.

March 5, 2006 -- Macca Report

Bill Bernstein's "Each One Believing" Photography Exhibit Opening in California

March 4th was the North American premiere of Bill Bernstein's Fine Art Music Photography exhibition at the Morrison Hotel Gallery. Bill picked a beautiful spot for his first show, an intimate gallery overlooking the ocean at La Jolla Cove, in southern California. The gallery specializes in musical artists and there were some great shots of the Beatles, John Lennon and many others. The highlight of course, were the 45 photographs of Paul's 2002 tour, consisting of many incredible concert photo shots as well as many behind-the-scene shots of Paul, Heather and the band. All photographs that were on exhibit were in the "Each One Believing" book.

The exhibit started at 6:00 pm and Bill spared no expense as host. The finger foods and drinks were plentiful and delicious. Bill was outgoing, engaging and busy autographing his book and posing for photographs.

I bought the photograph, "Each One." This was the photo that Bill used as the cover for the book. As Bill and I were discussing this photograph, he told me that Paul was very involved in the selection of all the photographs and this was one of his favorites. I asked Bill when I was going to see him working again, specifically as photographer of another Paul tour, and he told me probably in 2007. That was great news.

Rusty Anderson and his girlfriend (not pictured) arrived around 8:00 pm and that was a wonderful treat. He looked great, seemed well rested and was very friendly with all while he autographed books, and posed for pictures.

The photographs on display travel with the exhibition. Don't plan on taking any photographs home with you. Your chosen photograph is listed as an order and filled in England, where all photographs are personally signed by Bill and Paul and delivered in about 6 weeks. They start at $1,000.

I saw many familiar faces, friends that I had made from the 2002 and 2005 tours, and all in all everybody had a very good time. Judging by the very large crowd, I am sure Bill will have a very successful exhibition.

--Marion Urcan (Macca Reporter)

(photo: Marion Urcan with Rusty Anderson)

The exhibit ends April 2nd

For more info:

Morrison Hotel Gallery
1230 Prospect St.
La Jolla, CA 92037
858-551-0835 phone

Hours:
11am - 8pm (Sunday - Thursday)
11am - 9pm (Friday & Saturday)
www.morrisonhotelgallery.com

March 4, 2006 -- Contact Music

MILLS McCARTNEY CLASHES WITH CANADIAN MINISTER ON TV

Sir Paul McCartney's wife Heather Mills McCartney clashed with Canadian government minister Danny Williams live on television last night over the controversial seal slaughter in Newfoundland.

The former Beatle and his activist wife journeyed to the ice floes of the Gulf Of St. Lawrence on Thursday to bring media attention to the cruel practice. After discussing the seal clubbing industry in Canada on talk show LARRY KING LIVE on CNN, the McCartneys gave Newfoundland premier Williams the chance to defend the controversial practice.

During the live show, Williams accused Mills McCartney of being "sensational", adding, "My concern here is that the McCartneys are not completely informed. I recognise that they're active. I recognise their zeal."

After Williams insisted "90 per cent" of the seals are killed by bullet, rather than clubbing, a passionate Mills McCartney fired back, "Well, it's just not true. It's complete and absolute rubbish. Most of them are shot and clubbed in a 'hacky' pick thing, which is a tall, long hook and then they hit them once with it and drag them along the ground. And they only use the one bullet."

When Williams brought up vegetarianism and animal charities, Mills McCartney said, "Why are you going off on a tangent? Why are you not sticking to the seal hunt, the fact that it's used for fashion, the fact that they are inhumanely killed and hours and hours and years and years of footage to prove it?

"You're such a politician. You keep going off on irrelevant things like beef that people eat, fish that people eat. People don't eat seals."

McCartney attempted to reason with Williams, saying, "The point we're making here is that this is inhumane. No matter how much you say it is humane, it isn't. This is a small percentage of the fishermen's income."

McCartney insisted his battle was with the Canadian government over the hunting, not the Canadian people, saying, "A majority of the Canadian people say they don't want it to continue.

"As I said before, you've (Williams) got a boycott that's costing you millions at the moment on the Red Lobster front. And these are the kind of things that would end if the seal hunt ended. It's a win-win situation, Danny. Go for it."

Some supporters of Canada's annual harp seal hunt grudgingly acknowledge that Paul McCartney's global reach as a megastar could spell trouble for the hunt's future.

Pictures of McCartney and his wife, Heather, frolicking with doe-eyed seal pups on ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence flashed around the world this week.

The couple's strong anti-hunt message received a huge boost late yesterday when they appeared on CNN's Larry King Live for a sometimes-heated debate with Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams.

McCartney told King he'd like to see an international ban on the use of seal skins.

"These pups haven't even had a swim yet," the former Beatle told the CNN host during a satellite feed from a Charlottetown hotel.

"They're totally reliant on their mothers. They're helpless."

Heather Mills McCartney called the hunt "archaic, brutal and cruel," a characterization disputed by Williams.

"For the record, I don't condone, nor do the people of Newfoundland and Labrador condone, the inhumane treatment of animals," the premier said.

Williams insisted the seals are killed humanely, saying 90% of them are shot, not clubbed - a claim McCartney's wife called "absolute rubbish."

The premier accused the McCartneys of being misinformed and invited them to come to Newfoundland to "learn the truth and the facts."

"I'm really sorry the McCartneys are being used," Williams said.

"We're not being used," Mills McCartney shot back.

At one point McCartney rolled his eyes when Williams said the FBI has "terrorist files" on animal protection groups such as PETA and Greenpeace.

King, who repeatedly pronounced Williams's province as New-FIN-land, had to act as a referee at several points as the debate grew heated.

He told Williams to stop talking at one point to allow Mills McCartney to make her point.

"Why are you so against the seal hunt being stopped?" a clearly exasperated Mills McCartney asked the premier.

"Why don't you want that to happen? Why don't you want peace talks to end this war against animals?"

Williams, who has a reputation for fiery, volatile debate, defended his actions afterwards.

"There's a point where people who don't respect Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and who don't treat us with respect, will get it back in spades from me," he said. "I certainly wasn't going to allow the McCartneys to dominate that interview.

"They target us because we're a smaller province and it's a smaller industry," the premier said after he emerged from a TV studio in St. John's. "They're not going to take on the beef industry. A seal pup makes a great photo-op."

However, Jack Troake, a Newfoundland sealer with 55 years' experience, admitted that the arrival of the McCartneys on the protest scene is a concern.

"I'm certainly concerned about this lad," said the Twillingate fisherman, who can remember when French film star Brigitte Bardot caused a sensation when she showed up to protest the fishery in 1972.

"He's a much more powerful person."

By Rebecca Aldworth

Heather and Paul McCartney Bring Hope, and a Media Spotlight, to Canada's Seals

On Thursday, I was privileged to stand on the spectacular ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence with two of the most dedicated and visible animal protectionists in the world-Heather and Paul McCartney. They came to the seal nursery to draw world attention to the cruel and needless seal slaughter that will take place just weeks from today.

For the past seven years, I have gone to the ice floes to document the commercial seal hunt at close range-observing horrific acts of cruelty. But today was a different kind of visit. It was a celebration of what is, to me and to the hundreds of tourists who visit the ice floes each year, the greatest wildlife spectacle on earth.

Here on these ice floes, just days before the hunt begins, harp seal mothers nurse their babies in an icy landscape so breathtaking it simply cannot be adequately captured in photos.

As Heather and Paul emerged from their helicopter, they were visibly struck by the awesome beauty of the ice floes and the newborn pups nursing from their mothers. They eagerly walked over to the closest seal pups and began to talk softly to them. As the sun shone across the ice, I felt as though I had come to the best place on earth.

Every year, the visitors that come to the ice tell me it has changed their lives.

Heather and Paul's visit may be life-changing in a different, more far-reaching way. The truth is that their trip to the ice may be the best hope right now for the hundreds of thousands of baby seals sentenced to a cruel death by the Canadian government.

Heather and Paul McCartney were well aware of the significance of their visit, which was intensely covered by the world's media. They were well-prepared for the international attention. I was impressed by how thoroughly they had researched the issue, how knowledgeable they are about the hunt-and how committed they are to ending it.

It was touching to watch as Heather and Paul interacted with the newborn baby seals. I could hear the pups' soft calls sounding across the ice floes as the McCartneys gently knelt next to one tiny, three-day-old seal. And I could see how much they were affected. Looking across the vast ice floes at the pristine harp seal nursery, Paul said to those around him, "This is one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on EarthIt's very rare that you can come to a beautiful, wild place like this."

As we prepared to leave, I paused at the helicopter and glanced back over the ice floes. A few feet away, a mother seal raised her head from a hole in the ice and looked right at me. I suddenly realized I was crying. Looking into her thoughtful black eyes, I could only silently apologize over and over again for not having been able to stop the hunt yet.

Heather and Paul McCartney clearly shared those feelings. As we flew away, Heather remarked how hard it was for her to spend time with these helpless baby seals, knowing in just a few weeks time they would be slaughtered. Heather and Paul came to the ice floes to speak out against the commercial seal hunt, and it is clear they left with an absolute determination to end it.

I have campaigned for ten years to halt the commercial seal hunt. In that time, I have tried almost every method to convince the Canadian government to stop the slaughter. I believe that the McCartneys' presence on the ice floes signals the beginning of the end of this cruel industry. With Greenland, Italy, and Mexico joining the growing list of nations deciding to end their trade in Canadian seal skins, it is clear to me that the end is truly in sight. I know that the overwhelming majority of Canadians want this to end.

As Paul said Thursday on the ice floes, "Canada is known as a great nation....But this is something that leaves a stain on the character of the Canadian people and we don't think that's right. I don't think the vast amount of Canadians think that's right."

Rebecca Aldworth is director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The HSUS.

We'll go on at 9:30 pm and the other acts will be announced soon.. I suggest you get there early cuz last time it was fire marshall time, remember? We can only hope to get the same welcome this time out. So c'mon!!! You are all welcome to join me there to shake off the work week together!

I'll be selling my new CD, Mondo Magneto, and hope to see your smiling faces out there.

love,
Brian

The Mint
(323) 954-9400 (for reservations - strongly suggested) $8.00 cover
6010 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035

Unconfirmed reports are circulating that Paul McCartney might pen the next James Bond movie song. Word is the Executive Producer of "Casino Royale" liked "Riding To Vanity Fair" so much he wants Paul to adapt it as the movie's theme song.

Unconfirmed reports are circulating that Paul McCartney might pen the next James Bond movie song. Word is the Executive Producer of "Casino Royale" liked "Riding To Vanity Fair" so much he wants Paul to adapt it as the movie's theme song.

St. John's - Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams will appear on television Friday to debate the seal hunt with former Beatle Paul McCartney.

Mr. Williams has been invited as a guest on CNN's Larry King Live, to debate the issue with Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills McCartney.

Elizabeth Matthews, a spokeswoman for the Premier, said Mr. Williams will tape his appearance from St. John's Friday afternoon.

Matthews says the Premier's goal is to educate people about the seal hunt and counter a campaign of misinformation by well-funded groups that have a "huge communications machinery.

McCartney is calling on the Canadian government to end the annual seal hunt off the East Coast.

The former Beatle and his wife rolled around on an ice floe in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Thursday, posing with white seal pups as part of a high-profile protest mounted with the U.S. Humane Society

March 3, 2006 -- This is London

McCartneys' plea to save the seals

Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Heather braved the freezing Canadian ice floes today to beg the country's Government to stop the "brutal" annual seal cull there

The couple stood side by side against the backdrop of the pristine white ice to issue their impassioned plea just weeks before the hunt begins.

And they said they hoped their influence could put an end to the cull by next year.

With the haunting cries of the harp seal pups playing in the ice behind them the only other sound, Sir Paul said: "We are out here on the ice floe trying to call upon the Canadian people, the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Government to consider putting an end once and for all to the seal culls."

Mills-McCartney, who later lay on the ice to play with one of the pure white pups, and had to draw back when it went to bite her, said the babies were killed before they had even had the chance to have a solid meal or a swim.

"Imagine having a child and having your baby bludgeoned to death in front of you with a wooden club for the sake of fashion and fur," she added.

The couple also called on the British Government to ban the import of seal products.

Sealers in the Gulf of St Lawrence, off Canada's east coast, used either clubs or "hakapiks" to beat the seals to death or shoot them.

Then they skin them and leave the gruesome-looking bloody carcasses on the floes.

The Humane Society International, which organised the McCartneys' visit, together with British group Respect For Animals, said in many cases the seals - who can be killed from the age of just 12 days old - are still alive when they are skinned so their pelts can be sold to the fashion industry.

Sir Paul said: "In about three weeks time the baby seals are due to be clubbed to death or shot.

"For many years people have been trying to have this brutal practice stopped. "We are here to see if we can lend our voice to his campaign and maybe get it stopped once and for all."

Heather Mills McCartney added: "We won't be able to stop these beautiful baby seals being bludgeoned to death, but if we all join together and put pressure on the Canadian government to do what is just humane, hopefully this will be the last seal hunt."

The model said there was no reason for the cull, because dealers only made 5% of their income from it.

The couple were on ice floes just north west of the remote Magdelan Island, and spent several minutes posing for cameras stroking a tiny pup.

The former Beatles star said the argument that sealing should continue because it was a century's old tradition was flawed.

"Plenty of things have been going on for a very long time, like slavery and apartheid," he said.

"Just because they have been going on a long time doesn't mean they should continue to go on."

He said actually being out in the seal's natural habitat really brought the importance of the protest home to him.

"This is one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth," he added.

The star suggested the Canadians should turn to eco-tourism and allow local communities to make money from seals that way, rather than by killing them.

Ending the seal cull would mean the "fantastic wildlife spectacle" could be enjoyed by future generations, he added.

A biting wind meant the temperature on the floes was around -30C (-22F).

"This is the coldest place I've ever been to, but it's worth it," Sir Paul said.

Last year the singer pledged not to perform in China again, because of the country's animal rights record.

But today he said he would not be extending the boycott to Canada, despite his opposition to the seal cull.

"I have a lot of respect for the Canadian people," he said.

"They have been asked what they think about the seal hunt, and the majority are opposed to it.

"It's not their fault."

Several countries have banned the import of Canadian seal products in recent years, but the UK is yet to do so.

Last year, some 317,000 seals were culled.

When the McCartneys flew into their base on Prince Edward Island from Halifax, a spokesman for the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans was on the plane to talk to them about the cull.

Phil Jenkins said today that he was concerned that the couple, with whom he had a "polite and respectful conversation", had been given inaccurate information.

He said the hunt was neither inhumane nor a threat to the seal population, and insisted that it was an economic necessity for the local community.

Rebecca Aldworth, the HSI's director of Canadian wildlife issues, said she believed the McCartneys' visit would give the campaign a significant boost.

"I think their visit will also force the Canadian Government to take a long hard look at what they are doing," she said.

Sealers, who are mainly from nearby Newfoundland and also work as commercial fisherman, argue that they rely on the income generated by the hunt.

Although there is no official start date for the hunt, it usually begins in the last week of March.

Pups can be killed as soon as they begin to shed the white coats they are born with, when they are around 12 days old.

The most prized pelts, which can fetch as much as 55 Canadian dollars (£28) ($50)each, come from pups who have just finished moulting, and are around 19 days old.

The quota in 2005 for how many seals could be culled was set at around 320,000, as part of a figure of 975,000 over three years.

No quota has yet been set for this year, but a decision is imminent.

Paul McCartney -- the smarmy Beatle without the fiery genius -- was set to descend on ice floes near Prince Edward Island today to add his "megastar" weight to the celebrity outrage over Canada's barbaric custom known as the annual seal hunt.

Hopefully his weight won't send him crashing to the bottom of the Gulf of St. Lawrence -- officials say the ice is much thinner than usual this year and might not be able to handle the combined weight of Paul's ego and entourage.

Reports yesterday confirmed Sir Paul wants to go beyond merely posing for pictures with the forlorn water puppies -- he wants to reach out and touch a pup.

Yes, the doe-eyed former Beatle wants to "interact" with a doe-eyed harp seal pup -- get one, as it were, into his life.
"I imagine Paul will want to stroke one and if the seal's comfortable with that, well then he will do that," said Andrew Plumbley of the Humane Society of the United States, one of the organizers of the trip.

Note that qualifier: "If the seal's comfortable with that."

Wouldn't want to make a baby seal uncomfortable -- it would defeat the optics to have an angry pup lashing out at the artist who gave us "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?"

Taking this bored-celebrity farce a step further, government officials are warning Sir Paul that touching a pup is simply not on. That's because, as Canadian Press reports, federal regulations prohibit people from disturbing marine mammals "unless authorized to do so under a valid licence."

Or as Frank Ring, spokesman for the federal Fisheries Department, so charmingly explained it: "That means people shouldn't be touching them." (Unless they have a licence to kill, which McCartney, who wrote and performed the theme for "Live And Let Die," should thoroughly understand.)

Ring even told reporters that violations can lead to charges.

Summoning the bosomy courage of Brigitte Bardot before him, McCartney might just be willing to take that risk.

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams was on safe ground yesterday when he deduced McCartney didn't know squat about the seal hunt.

"I am assuming McCartney has never ... taken the time to be educated about the positive facts surrounding our annual seal harvest," Williams said in a statement, adding: "I find it offensive and insulting that an individual with such international influence would come to our province and pass judgment on individuals who are participating in an industry that sustains their lives."

The irony is that Canada has steadily upped the quota for the hunt since the late-1990s as demand for pelts increased in Europe's fashion houses. Maybe Paul should be working this one out on the other side of the pond.

There is plenty of butchery going on in the name of harvesting the seas -- the international fishing fleet is strip-mining the ocean floor in a short-sighted grasp for quick profit.

The harp seal hunt isn't even a side dish to this disaster -- it's merely a cause celebre for burnt-out European entertainers who know a cute face when they see one and little else.

Canadians should respond by going on the offensive.

Send letters, people, to Apple Corps. demanding they release John Lennon's classic Beatles songs in a format that omits virtually all of McCartney's material.

Yes, let's have John's "I Am The Walrus" without Paul's dreadful "The Fool On The Hill"; "A Day In The Life" without the saccharine "She's Leaving Home"; "Sexy Sadie" without the wretched "Honey Pie"; "Come Together" without Paul's insipid "Maxwell's Silver Hammer."

It's time for the world to declare that the greatest rock albums of the late '60s were the Beatles LPs shorn of McCartney's junk.

Give that old doe-eyed Beatle something to really blubber about.

John Gleeson is the editor of the Winnipeg Sun can be reached by e-mail at: jgleeson@wpgsun.com

WEBMASTER'S COMMENT - Gleeson probably enjoys kicking his dog while listening to John Lennon tunes.

The annual seal hunt off the East Coast is a "stain on the character of the Canadian people," music legend Paul McCartney said Thursday as he and his wife Heather staged a high-profile, anti-hunt protest on barren ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The megastar couple called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to end the centuries-old commercial slaughter by buying back hunters' licences and promoting eco-tourism instead.

"We don't want to see the local people suffer," McCartney said after the couple got on their bellies to get a close-up look at newborn harp seals sprawled on an ice pan about 20 kilometres northwest of the Iles-de-la-Madeleine.

"But, from what we hear, it is quite a small amount of their annual revenue and this could be easily sorted out by the Canadian government, if they care to do it."

Under partly cloudy skies, the McCartneys travelled by small plane from Charlottetown to Iles-de-la-Madeleine, 160 kilometres northeast of Prince Edward Island. They then boarded a helicopter and flew to the ice floes.

Dressed in bright orange survival suits, the 63-year-old former Beatle and his wife posed for photos with a snow-white pup as a media entourage of about three dozen looked on.

"We're calling upon Stephen Harper and the government to consider looking at this problem . . . in the light of the international objections," McCartney said.

"Canada is known as a great nation . . . But this is something that leaves a stain on the character of the Canadian people and we don't think that's right. I don't think the vast amount of Canadians think that's right."

The most recent figures suggest the industry, which started in the 1700s, was worth between $15 million and $20 million annually and employed up to 10,000 people, most of them in Newfoundland. Supporters argue that income from the harvest is vital to remote communities with few other economic opportunities.

The McCartneys, longtime animal rights activists, noted the Canadian government had approved a three-year management plan in 2003 that set the total quota for harp seals at 975,000 - a move that prompted renewed outrage among conservation groups.

Phil Jenkins, a spokesman for the federal Fisheries Department, said he took the opportunity to make Ottawa's case directly to McCartney when he spoke with him during a flight into Charlottetown on Wednesday night.

"Sir Paul McCartney said that he had heard that the seal population was declining and there was a conservation issue," Jenkins said. "In fact, the seal population is at 5.8 million animals and that's about triple what is was in the 1970s."

Jenkins said he was concerned by the McCartneys decision to pose with the youngest harp seals, known as whitecoats, because hunters have been banned from killing them since 1987.

Under federal rules, harp seals must not be killed until they lose their white fur. That can happen in as little as 12 days. But most of the seals taken are about 25 days old, the Fisheries Department says.

Thursday's protest was organized by the Humane Society of the United States and the British-based group, Respect for Animals.

"This is the biggest thing that has ever happened in the seal campaign," said Rebecca Aldworth, spokeswoman for the Humane Society of the United States.

"Paul and Heather McCartney are two of the most visible people in the world and they are two of the strongest animal protection people in the world. Them taking a stand for seals today will help us to bring a final end to the commercial seal hunt."

She said the proposed licence buy-back program should include compensation for lost income.

"Given that the federal government subsidized the return of the commercial seal hunt (between 1996 and 2001) we think this would be a good investment to see its end," Aldworth said Thursday.

Earlier, the McCartneys release a statement describing the hunt as brutal, and they cited a 2001 independent veterinarian report that concluded close to half of the seals killed were likely still conscious when skinned.

The Fisheries Department says it has an independent report that suggests otherwise.

"Sometimes a seal may appear to be moving after it has been killed; however seals have a swimming reflex that is active - even after death," the department says on its website.

"This reflex gives the false impression that the animal is still alive when it is clearly dead."

The department has also insisted Canadians support Ottawa's policies, citing a February 2005 Ipsos-Reid poll that concluded 60 per cent of those surveyed were in favour of a "responsible hunt."

The date for the start of this year's hunt has yet to be set, though it usually begins in late March. The 2006 quota is also under review.

Stella McCartney is riding high.

Her autumn-winter ready-to-wear collection, presented Thursday (March 2), accordingly oozed easy confidence.

Guests, including Courtney Love , watched as models paraded across an ornate ballroom at Paris' Grand Hotel in sweater dresses and superskinny jeans tapping into fashion's obsession with the 1980s.

The daughter of former Beatle Paul McCartney has thrown out her gimmicky slogan T-shirts and filled her wardrobe with luxurious V-neck sweaters that she might pair with perfectly cut slouchy trousers to wear to the office.

Deftly draped cashmere dresses in contrasting volumes bore witness to her training on Savile Row, the London area famous for hand-tailored suits.

Teenage girls aren't the only ones who aspire to McCartney's unique brand of urban cool. Celebrity fans include close friends Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow, who wore one of her designs at the Oscars last year.

The newly svelte and sober Love, who is recording an album with producer Linda Perry, said she only partially supported the ban on animal byproducts.

McCartneys fight seal hunt in Canada

Opponents of Canada's seal hunt have a powerful ally in their bid to end the annual slaughter: Paul McCartney, who pledged to take to the ice floes Thursday and frolic with the doe-eyed pups before the harvest gets under way.

The former Beatle and his wife, Heather Mills McCartney, arrived Wednesday night in this fishing community on Canada's Atlantic coast and intend to land a helicopter on the ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence if Thursday's weather permits.

The longtime animal-rights activists want to publicize the plight of the fluffy white pups, which are calved and weaned from their mothers on the frigid ice before being clubbed to death.

"Previous Canadian governments have allowed this heartbreaking hunt to continue despite the fact that majority of its citizens -- as well as those in Europe and America -- are opposed to it," the McCartneys said in a joint statement before heading up to the ice floes Thursday morning.

"We have complete faith that Prime Minister Harper will take swift and decisive actions to end the slaughter of these defenseless seal pups for good."

The United States has banned Canadian seal products since 1972 and the European Union banned the white pelts of baby seals in 1983.

The British government also is considering banning the import of seal goods. Groups such as Respect for Animals and the Humane Society of the United States, which are coordinating the McCartneys' visit, are encouraging people to boycott Canadian seafood as a show of solidarity.

"I think the McCartneys are two of the most visible people in the world, and with them drawing attention to the fact that this hunt is still going on, this is going to get that message out across the world," said Rebecca Aldworth, who will be observing and documenting her seventh seal hunt for the Humane Society.

Aldworth said the McCartneys quizzed her long and hard about the annual harvest, including the economic benefits that sealing brings to the local fishermen, whose livelihoods were devastated when Atlantic Ocean cod stocks dried up in the mid-1990s.

"I've observed the seal hunt at close range for seven years. I've routinely witnessed conscious seals dragged across the ice with boat hooks, wounded seals left to choke on their own blood, and seals being skinned alive," Aldworth said in a statement. "The commercial seal hunt is inherently cruel, it is a national disgrace."

The Canadian government endorses the harvest as a cultural right for many Maritimers and announced a hunting management plan in 2003 with a quota of 975,000 seals over three years.

About 325,000 seal pups were killed during the hunt last year, bringing the local fishermen $14.5 million in supplemental income, which they say their families badly need during the winter offseason.

The dates for the spring leg of the hunt have yet to be announced because the unseasonably mild temperatures in northeastern Canada have made the ice thin.

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said Canada would not terminate the annual hunt and insisted it is the most regulated mammal harvest in the world. The government says the country's seal population is abundant, estimating there are 5 million harp seals.

"I would encourage Mr. McCartney when he comes here to see the effect this is having on the economy and to realize this is sustaining people in their home communities," Hearn said.

Aboriginal and Inuit subsistence and commercial hunters begin the kill Nov. 15 in Canada's vast expanse of frozen northern waters. The spring leg of the commercial hunt starts in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and moves to the Atlantic Ocean about 30-40 miles away from Newfoundland.

Harp seals have been hunted commercially off Newfoundland since the early 1700s. They were first harvested for their oil but now are culled mostly for their pelts, sold mostly for the fashion industry in Norway, China and Russia.

MARY McCARTNEY: 'MY DAD IS NO KINGSLEY'

Sir Paul McCartney's eldest daughter Mary has laughed off suggestions her dad would come across "all Ben Kingsley" maintaining he never insists on being addressed by his title.

Kingsley was criticised by other titled British stars after his knighthood was used on the poster for new movie "Lucky Number Slevin." Co-stars have also revealed Kingsley demanded he be called "Sir Ben" on the set of films.

But Mary is confident her father has only been humbled by the prestigious accolade. She says of the former Beatle, "Dad isn't like that at all. For him it's the honour of being made a knight rather than being called Sir."

Paul McCartney's star-power protest against seal hunting in Canada will go ahead as planned off the P.E.I. coast.

During a press conference Thursday morning it was announced that four helicopters carrying McCartney and his wife Heather Mills, and an entourage of media and animal right activists would be fuelled up and would fly to an ice floe in the Gulf of St. Lawrence where seal pups are expected to be.

The former Beatle is then expected to make his way out onto the floes to get as close as possible to the newborn Harp seal pups.

The trip was put in jeopardy Thursday morning when it was reported that unusually thin ice may not have been strong able to support the weight of the helicopters.

The longtime animal rights activist and his wife arrived in P.E.I. on Wednesday to fight to end Canada's centuries-old seal hunt.

McCartney wants to "highlight the work of two animal protection groups to stop the Canadian seal hunt," according to the Humane Society of the United States.

Federal regulations prohibit people from disturbing marine without a proper license, so McCartney will have to keep his distance from the seals.

Organizers of the trip canceled plans to fly over the area Wednesday because of bad weather.

Meanwhile, a Canadian sealers' organization and Atlantic Canada politicians have been critical of McCartney's highly-publicized visit.

McCartney recently wrote a letter to former prime minister Paul Martin, calling the hunt cruel and asking it be banned.

The hunt generally runs from mid-March through to mid-April, but the timing of this year's hunt is still uncertain.

Harp and hood seals generally give birth to their pups on ice floes, but the unusually thin ice could leave many of the young facing a fight for life.

McCartney follows in the footsteps of other stars who have protested the seal hunt, such as Brigitte Bardot, and TV's MacGyver, Richard Dean Anderson.

In 2004, the federal government estimated there were 5.9 million harp seals on the East Coast, up from two million in the early 1970s. Ottawa estimated the value of the hunt was around $16 million, and has implemented hunting quotas to keep the seal population sustainable.

The pair are set to watch harp seal pups off Newfoundland in the hope their visit will draw attention to the slaughter.

Long-term animal rights campaigner Sir Paul 63, and Heather, 38, are then aiming to lobby Canadian PM Stephen Harper at talks before the hunting season gets under way.

The couple also appear in a BBC1 fly-on-the-wall documentary, "McCartneys Versus The Fur Trade," later this month.

Paul McCartney hands back an autograph as he and his wife Heather Mills McCartney make their way through the airport in St.John's, Newfoundland, Canada, Wednesday, March 1, 2006 en route to Prince Edward Island.

McCartney and his wife will travel to the ice floes off the Canadian Maritimes this week to observe seal pups before the country's annual hunt opens, the Humane Society of the United States said.

With her fashion-forward line of workout wear for Adidas, now in its third season, British designer Stella McCartney has hit a grand slam.

The lightweight collection includes stylish pieces in four categories: running, gym, swim and, new for spring, tennis. But these clothes will take you far beyond your workout. Long mesh tanks, side-tie nylon shorts and zip-up hooded jackets are stylish enough to be worn all day. Sweet, ruffled cover-ups look almost too good to sweat in, but would you expect anything less from the former head designer for Chloe?

The wide-ranging collection doesn't stop with sportswear. There are also terry-cloth towels and bathrobes, protective visors and swimwear to get your pulse racing. And let's not forget accessories: Ms. McCartney pulls it all together with shoes and gym bags, in colors ranging from khaki green and dusty rose to eye-popping red.

Compared with her equally chic runway collection, the Adidas line is a steal: prices start at about $20 for accessories and go up to $320 for apparel.

The former Beatle and his wife Heather plan to land a helicopter somewhere in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Thursday and Friday to observe harp seal pups before the annual hunt begins, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

Rebecca Aldworth said the megastar and his wife, longtime animal rights activists, are hoping to press the federal government to end the hunt and draw attention to a species that has been a favourite cause for a cast of celebrities.

"They are taking a very strong stand against the commercial seal hunt and are going to be devoting their energies to making this a global issue," Aldworth, the society's director of Canadian wildlife issues, said Tuesday from Montreal.

"So they're there to make a strong statement about that to the Canadian government."

Aldworth said the couple plan to be in touch with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to urge his government to end the hunt.

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said Canada is not going to terminate the annual practice, insisting it is the most regulated hunt in the world.

"I would encourage Mr. McCartney when he comes here to see the effect this is having on the economy and to realize this is sustaining people in their home communities," he said in Ottawa, adding that he's not concerned about the effect his visit could have.

"We hear this every single year. We started with Brigitte Bardot . . . but the majority of people are not fooled by 20-year-old pictures of baby seals being killed on the ice."

The British government is also considering banning the import of seal goods and groups like Respect for Animals, which is co-ordinating the McCartneys' visit, are encouraging people not to travel to the country as a sign of their opposition to the hunt.

"There is pressure building up from all quarters and with the increased levels of publicity now if I was the Canadian government I would be absolutely stupid not to ban it," Mark Glover of Repect for Animals said from Nottingham, England.

The group contends that a million seals have been killed in the last three years, with many of them being skinned alive after being shot or clubbed, according to a release on their website.

Still, some sealers say the aging musician should keep his nose out of a business that has kept their communities afloat for centuries.

"He'll go out there and cuddle up to a whitecoat and they look beautiful, you can't get away from that and it is cruel, you can't get away from that either, but it's something we've done for 500 years," said Jack Troake, a 70-year-old sealer in Twillingate, N.L., who plans on joining the hunt this season.

"It's helped to sustain us. We go to bed with a full stomach, a tight roof over our head. It's part of our culture, our history."

The couple might have trouble getting their message out since mild weather has prevented the formation of many ice floes, where the harp and hooded seals give birth to their pups.

Frank Ring of the federal Department of Fisheries said it's not clear when or if the hunt will go ahead because of the high temperatures, adding an expected cold snap could thicken now-thin patches of ice.

If they get out there, the McCartneys' hope to boost public condemnation of an industry - described as the world's largest annual slaughter of marine mammals - that 20 years ago seemed doomed.

At the time, celebrities like Bardot and Martin Sheen pushed to have it stopped amid a worldwide campaign that featured graphic photos of doe-eyed whitecoats, or baby harp seals, being bludgeoned on the ice floes.

The protests worked. The United States moved to ban the import of seal products in 1972, and the European Union instituted a partial ban in 1983.

Prices plummeted to as low as $5 per seal pelt, and in 1987 the Canadian government banned the killing of whitecoats.

The protesters went away, but the industry didn't die - by the mid-1990s, new markets opened up, the price for pelts started to rise and the sealing industry's efforts to encourage humane harvesting practices limited the impact of renewed protests.

As a result, both the industry and the seal population bounced back.

In 2003, Ottawa announced a three-year management plan with a quota of 975,000 seals over three years, angering conservation groups who resumed their protests.

In 2004, the federal government estimated there were 5.9 million harp seals on the East Coast, up from two million in the early 1970s, and the value of the hunt was pegged at $16 million a year.

Facts about the annual seal hunt off Canada's East Coast:

Species: There are six species of seals off the Atlantic coast - harp, hooded, grey, ringed, bearded and harbour. Almost all hunting is directed at harp seals.

Hunters: In 2004, there were 15,468 licences issued to seal hunters. The industry was valued at $16 million.

Profession: Licensed sealers must apprentice under a professional sealer for two years.

Quotas: During 2003-2005, the catch limit for harp seals was set at 975,000. The limit for hooded seals was set at 10,000. The limits have yet to be set for 2006.

Areas: 90 per cent of sealers on the Front - the area off the east coast of Newfoundland where the majority of the hunt occurs - use rifles. Sealers in the Iles de la Madeleine and on Quebec's Lower North Shore traditionally use clubs or hakapiks.

Season: The majority of sealing occurs between March and May. In 2005, the main hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence started March 29. The main hunt on the Front opened April 12. No dates have been set for 2006.

Population: The number of harp seals off the East Coast is estimated at five million, almost triple what it was in the 1970s.

Pay: A top-quality seal pelt can fetch about $70, which is near the record high.

SIGN PETITION TO BAN SEAL HUNTING IN CANADA

CALL ON CANADA'S NEW PRIME MINISTER TO END THE SEAL SLAUGHTER!

The largest commercial slaughter of marine mammals on the planet is set to begin again in Canada next month.

By the end of the hunt, more than 300,000 seals are expected to be clubbed or shot to death by fishermen who hunt seals off-season to pick up extra cash by selling their skins. Almost all of their victims will be BABIES -- some as young as 12 days old.

During a recent hunt, veterinarians who examined dead seals concluded that 42% of the seals examined had most likely been skinned while they were alive and still conscious.

Polls consistently show that most Canadians oppose the hunt, but still the Canadian government and fishing industry refuse to end it.

But there is new hope on the ice. Canada has a new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, and a new party in power. With enough public support, they may consider ending this terrible hunt forever.

SIGN THIS PETITION NOW and send it to anyone who cares about protecting the lives of Canada's seals.

pm@pm.gc.ca (note the Prime Minister has shut down his email!)

Send a fax

Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa
K1A 0A2

Fax: 613-941-6900

Email Loyola Hearn who is allowing the hunt!!!
HearnL@parl.gc.ca
mp@loyolahearn.nf.net

For more on how you can help the campaign, please see Protect Seals:

"What You Can Do list" at www.hsus.org/ace/20535

Pledge to boycott Canadian seafood at:
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/protectseals

In addition, please see www.hsus.org/fur where you can sign a pledge form to make the commitment to go fur-free.

Macca Report Blog!!! CLICK
Topic: Saving the Seals
Readers welcome to contribute!
Tell the world what you think of the baby seal slaughter!

Paul McCartney: NASA 'Hits a Chord'

Paul McCartney discusses honoring the Return to Flight crew and playing for the space station during his concerts. CLICK FOR NASA VIDEO PAGE

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