Why I deleted the chicken thread.

[peeplj]

Dale, thank you.

All other issues aside, I think the board will get along quite well without the "chicken thread."

--James

[Azalin]

However, you are also biologically "meant" to reproduce with as many young females as possible, it is the very fact that you are HUMAN that allows you to choose not to.

Actually, I'm not choosing not too, but it doesnt seem to be working that way for me!

[herbivore12]

However, you are also biologically "meant" to reproduce with as many young females as possible, it is the very fact that you are HUMAN that allows you to choose not to.

Actually, I'm not choosing not too, but it doesnt seem to be working that way for me!

Uh-oh, I can see this thread heading the way the chicken thread was going when it was (let's assume humanely) killed!

Swords, double-edged, ouch, eh, Dale?

[Mark_J]

Oh please, sweety...not that tired old "sharp canine teeth" argument! Humans have PATHETIC canines! Compare them even to those of the herbivorous gorilla...there's no way you can tear raw meat (or rip out the throat of a gazelle) with those! Most herbivorous species have vestigal "canines" or eye teeth. Our eye teeth are no sharper than our incisors, and our jaw muscles are way too weak to masticate meat that hasn't been cooked or ground soft, other than, perhaps, certain organs.

I'm not going to get into the whole "humans were/weren't meant to eat meat argument," but if you are, you need to rely on more than that old, tired "we have canines, therefore we are carnivores" argument. Look at the entire system...the digestive system, the ability to manufacture and process certain nutrients, etc. That will tell you a lot more about what humans were meant to eat than simple dentition. Most likely, we were intended to live on a diet similar to that of most primates...mostly herbivorous, but not eschewing meat when it became available. Omnivores with a bias toward herbivorous food, if you will (as opposed to, say, a bear, which is omnivorous with a slight bias toward carnivorous foods).

To me, this all reads as if it originally came from an animal rights handbook or from a guest speaker or something. Maybe I'm wrong. This kind of rhetoric makes me ask lots of questions.

First is a re-iteration of anothers position. Why do some folks feel the need to try to convert, or insult at the very least, folks like me who enjoy eating meat? Just because I don't wish to change what I do, does not mean that I can't respect that you made a choice of consciene for what you do. I just do not feel bad about where my food comes from. I'd help butcher a deer once. I didn't feel bad about it. I'd do it again if I needed to do it to eat, or if I started hunting. I clean and eat all the fish I don't throw back. I went through Ag school for a BS. I know what happens in slaughter houses, processing centers, and packing houses. No pictures, stories, or other attempt to educate me (actually about things I am familiar with) will influence my decision. Why is this such a polarizing topic for some folks while other folks (like me) just don't feel motivated to form carnivour clubs that promote the elimination of the vegetarian diet?

Another is, "what if someone feels that eating meat for a particular meal is part of their religion and spiritual life?" The Jewish seder falls into this category. Is this something that Animal rights folks feel the need to interfere with, or need to modify the behavior of others? And yes, I'm aware that some folks have chosen to practice vegetarianism and the Jewish faith at the same time, but that is their choice.

Some food for thought or discussion: Is it a conscious decision to not care about an extinction of a species if it saves the lives of individual animals. I find this to be as objectable as animal rights supporters might find me eating a New York strip (rare, please). Here is one source covering the kind of event I'm talking about.Animal rights folks release alien invasive gray squirrels in red squirrel habitat.

It's time for me to go to sleep. I'm going to have bacon and eggs tomorrow morning and I'm actually going to enjoy it, even after I take my lipitor pills (yes I understand the connection between those events, as ironic as it seems. I might go bird watching after that. . .

I think black bears, for one species, have a much higher plant content to their diet verses meat.

Also, the red wolf will become genetically swamped by the grey wolf since people created conditions where greys expanded their range into red areas. Blah, blah, blah, and I digress, or is that digest.

[Mark_J]

Dale, thank you.

All other issues aside, I think the board will get along quite well without the "chicken thread."

--James

Hey, the chicken dance is a polka. Why can't we talk about the chicken dance?

[herbivore12]

Why is this such a polarizing topic for some folks while other folks (like me) just don't feel motivated to form carnivour clubs that promote the elimination of the vegetarian diet?

The thing that you, and at least one other person, seem to have missed is that the "preaching" started *against* vegetarianism before anyone responded. Dale closed a post because of (what he said were) reasons of propriety, then a person made an ill-informed and rather childish remark about vegetarians (who, as far as anyone can tell, had nothing to do with the closure of the thread). And now *you're* talking about vegetarians as if *they're* the preachy ones. Man, at least that's revealing . . .

Why do some folks feel the need to try to convert, or insult at the very least, folks like me who enjoy eating meat? Just because I don't wish to change what I do, does not mean that I can't respect that you made a choice of consciene for what you do. I just do not feel bad about where my food comes from.

Now, see, there's all this about how you respect the other position and just want respect in return, and your later comments about respecting religious tradition and so forth. Some people *do* feel bad about where your food comes from. So what are you doing to respect the religious or otherwise who feel that eating meat is wrong, or killing specific animals is wrong? Sure, you can pay lip service ("I realize you think this cow's holy, but I want a burger, can't you respect that?"), but that's all it is. Why would you expect anything *more* than that from the folks who disagree with you, especially if they're motivated ethically? (And do you have any moral beliefs that you would stand up for and speak about? Some people's beliefs include strong and reasoned beliefs about the slaughter of animals; why whould they remain any more quiet about their stance than someone opposed to abortion, or to Democrats, or to Republicans, or to billboards, or whatever? Or is it only annoying because you disagree?) No one here preached about vegetarianism or tried to convert anyone, but your response seems to indicate someone *had* done so. And if you're bringing it up "just for the debate", then why fuss about how tired you are hearing about the subject, and how polarizing it is? It's so weird; I wonder what you're trying to get at, or if you see what you're doing.

Note that no one's made an argument that meat eating is in all cases wrong or bad. Note that no one's even made a case that *not* eating meat is always superior in any way. What gives, here?

If you want to play the game of matching dumb vegetarian squirrel actions with dumb ideas from supporters of meat-eating (e.g., canine length), we can do so off-line, but setting up straw men to knock them over is pretty weak debating technique.

To me, this all reads as if it originally came from an animal rights handbook or from a guest speaker or something. Maybe I'm wrong. This kind of rhetoric makes me ask lots of questions.

Too bad you didn't actually ask the questions, as you might have learned something (if you were interested in the answers). Redwolf's info is in fact correct. The biggest canines in the anthropoid line belong to animals who are exclusively or effectively exclusively herbivores (gorillas, mandrills, and so forth); canine size, in many species, has a lot to do with display, and nothing to do with use as a killing or eating tool. So yeah, you were wrong when you called it simple rhetoric. If you need credentials, I have degrees in both biology and (biological) anthropology.

I mean, sheesh, guys. If you're going to cry foul, at least wait until someone's made a freakin' play. . . What bad sports.

Sorry, Dale. I'll go away now for a bit.

[Zubivka]

What was wrong, as long as the chicken was a willing adult?

[Wombat]

The only thing the deletion of this thread does for me is remind me again of what a cultural gulf there is between America and Australia.

When faced with reports of isolated bits of behaviour so disturbingly bizarre as to be scarcely believable, you can do one of two things. One is to duck for cover. The other is to take the bizarre and go completely over the top with it. In Australia the convention is to do the latter. Both are ways of coming to terms with ones sense of unease, of registering that a boundary has been crossed. You can lock the doors and pretend that nothing exists on the other side of that boundary. Or you can lurch out there and view the boundary from the other side.

To think that the surreal humour which greeted the post that started that thread is evidence of morbid curiosity strikes me as just about as bizarre as the content of that post itself. As one of those engaging in the surreal humour, I'm quite staggered at the suggestion that I might have been enjoying the horrible incident that gave rise to that thread. I eat very little meat and never feel wholly comfortable about it. I would never watch a cock fight or a bull fight. As for beastiality ... you must be joking .. er ..censoring ... Beastiality jokes are such a staple of the Australian repertoire that all but the most creative are considered boringly unimaginative not shocking.

I've often puzzled about this cultural difference. Actually, I suspect that in all pluralist societies, the tendency to defuse tension by censoring and the tendency to defuse tension by taking it straight over the top must both be in evidence. I think that which way a culture goes tells us quite a bit about that culture but I'm not quite sure what that is.

Since so many obviously don't get it, I should explain how going over the top defuses tension? Actually those of us who go in for it regard it as a more effective method of boundary policing than censorship. By crossing a boundary and looking at it from the other side but with a steadfastly surreal gaze, you are actually indicating a refusal to contemplate taking the possibility of actually transgressing that boundary seriously. This is actually a very effective way of countering those who attempt to shock by pushing a boundary, you simply take the rug from under them. They get ridiculed with laughter. That seems to those of us who prefer this method a much more effective form of boundary policing than censorship which actually creates an interest in the very thing one wants to prevent.

How on earth did this thread get to be about vegetarianism?

[herbivore12]

How on earth did this thread get to be about vegetarianism?

An ill-informed and then insensitively boorish comment from a member who seems to have assumed that Dale responded to vegetarian pressures rather than a request from one or more (maybe slightly prudish) members, a polite rebuttal with actual info from another member, then sudden pre-emptive defensiveness about things that never happened, then probably ill-considered responses by me, who was flummoxed seeing this all unfold, though I shouldn't be taken by surprise at stuff like this anymore. I guess.

I *am* surprised that the thread was deleted; sure, I'm a vegan, but I found nothing there to offend me (though maybe something weird happened after I last visited the thing), and plenty there to laugh about and to find bizarre. I fully agree with all that you've written here, though I'm not sure it's a cultural difference as much as it is an artifact of computer bulletin boards. That's to say, the folks I hang out with and work with are as likely to engage in over-the-top and self-deprecating humor as are the folks I've met in other countries (I've lived in England-- well, Oxford, anyway! -- and Switzerland, and have travelled quite a lot(including a couple of weeks in Australia, even)).

Then again, maybe we Americans are more likely to be a bit quicker to take offense at even perceived slights, but then, look at our presidential model for pre-emption! Maybe this explains a lot . . .

[Jack]

What was wrong, as long as the chicken was a willing adult?

Chickens can't consent (I'm sure you already knew that, but just in case somebody out there didn't - you never know..)

[kevin m.]

It was sort of fun while it lasted,though I was stupid enough to follow the link to the beheading video,and immediately wished that I hadn't(yeah I know,I don't want the REAL world infringing on my nice 'cosy' Chiff and Fipple,do I?)hmmm.....

[Zubivka]

What was wrong, as long as the chicken was a willing adult?

Chickens can't consent

Next time, bring her flowers, and ask them politely. Try and be a bit more romantic, Cran!

[Wombat]

How on earth did this thread get to be about vegetarianism?

An ill-informed and then insensitively boorish comment from a member who seems to have assumed that Dale responded to vegetarian pressures rather than a request from one or more (maybe slightly prudish) members, a polite rebuttal with actual info from another member, then sudden pre-emptive defensiveness about things that never happened, then probably ill-considered responses by me, who was flummoxed seeing this all unfold, though I shouldn't be taken by surprise at stuff like this anymore. I guess.

Ah, I see. Now that is far more offensive than the deleted thread.

I *am* surprised that the thread was deleted; sure, I'm a vegan, but I found nothing there to offend me (though maybe something weird happened after I last visited the thing), and plenty there to laugh about and to find bizarre. I fully agree with all that you've written here, though I'm not sure it's a cultural difference as much as it is an artifact of computer bulletin boards. That's to say, the folks I hang out with and work with are as likely to engage in over-the-top and self-deprecating humor as are the folks I've met in other countries (I've lived in England-- well, Oxford, anyway! -- and Switzerland, and have travelled quite a lot(including a couple of weeks in Australia, even)).

Then again, maybe we Americans are more likely to be a bit quicker to take offense at even perceived slights, but then, look at our presidential model for pre-emption! Maybe this explains a lot . . .

I wondered about whether or not this was an American thing and that's why I suggested there might be a divide here in all pluralist societies. One Australian left the board a couple of years ago about having an over-the-top remark censored. He was genuinely and obviously wounded by the suggestion that his remark was in bad taste. I think he overreacted, and I accept that this isn't a democracy, but I can understand why he would simply fail to comprehend how anyone could have taken him the wrong way. I simply got a strong sense of mutual incomprehension. I have no doubt that those who asked for the thread to be deleted acted from decent motives. But it it bothers me that, with genuinely offensive remarks being made on board nearly every day, enough people can't tell the difference between anarchic humour and the deliberately offensive for the wrong posts to be targeted for censorship.

[Walden]

"In an unusual scene of sibling bonding, the children of the deceased broadened their multicultural understanding by being instructed, by their half brother, in his people's mourning rituals."


Seriously, though, the so-called vegans and vegetarians among us have indeed (at least some of them) responded in a rather stereotypical manner to a bit of trolling from the man who previously brought us such gems as himself in a pleated skirt (okay... being of Scottish descent, myself, I'll not hold that one against him ), and the naked biking avatar.

[Brian Lee]

:roll:

Here we go again - and some of you guys obviously need to watch more of the Discovery Channel and Animal planet. Once you've figured out a lot more about what you're trying to sound so ethical and smart about then you'll be allowed to turn every thread you see into your own little "this-is-why-I'm-better-than-you-you-meat-eating-animal-killing-insensitive-Basmatis" soapboxes. :adminno:

Sheesh. Can we please talk about whistles again????

(and I think a lock or a definite second nuke is in order here too...sorry Dale.)