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Some plants eat animals, ya know.

Mike

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done--
"It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead--
There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."

The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head--
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat--
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more--
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.

"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said,
"Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed--
Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed."

"But not on us!" the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
"After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said.
"Do you admire the view?

"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf--
I've had to ask you twice!"

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"

"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.


Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Hi Michael,

Well, in a way, everything is a two-edged sword, you know: karmic law, ripples in the pond meeting the shore, the balancing act of yin and yang. We still need to make choices as wisely as possible, check the outcome, modify our behavior, make another choice, ...

Some jobs become obsolete, or self-terminate via changing conditions (natural and man-made.) There used to be a huge whaling industry. There used to be an industry in polishing buckles on hats using mercury. Thousands of jobs for telephone switchboard operators. The US has thousands of people who used to be overpaid and overcompensated factory workers in an automobile industry.

Some jobs are not worth saving. Now there are thousands of people employed at insurance companies whose job is to initially deny claims, even those they know are legitimate, and force us to follow-up multiple times before they will pay out. There are advertising agencies that provide jobs to numerous individuals whose job is convincing us that there is a major health crisis of men who can't get erections but that the cure is available. Probably every bureaucracy, even the tightest ship, has 10% to 20% of their work force in jobs that are absolutely unnecessary bloat.

No, the UN won't swoop down in helicopter drops to bring in specialists to retrain displaced workers, very few will receive an offer to be retrained and almost none will be provided with jobs to replace their current. But just like cockroaches, we humans are a resilient bunch, and we can learn to do something other than what our parents and grandparents once did, or what we once used to do. It is tragic when some outside condition forces people, especially subsistence workers and others who are poor, to immediately reevaluate and find another way of making a living - but we all have that ability. It's not callous to understand that jobs are not sacrosanct, especially in a world that is "getting smaller."

Dennis

_________________
Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

What is ethical for one person is not ethical for another person. I am mostly vegan not because of ethical reasons but because of health reasons. But after being mostly vegan for half a decade I began seeing things differently. I began seeing just how unnecessary some things are. The problem is people telling others what is right and wrong. People need to come up with this independently. I now see the whole issue of animal farming and the hunting and harvesting of wild animals as wrong and corrupt. But I also see and understand that some humans would die of starvation without doing this either for their own food or to sell to make a living. If we value all life we must find a balance and we can only do that for ourselves.

To say we know better is to put ourselves above others who do what we condemn as wrong, which is also wrong in my opinion. We all contribute to the destruction of the world simply by being alive, so no one is better then anyone else, and we only make small choices that make very little difference in the face of the degradation that takes place.

The question of whether or not to buy shell for a guitar pales in comparison to how many people are dying because of war and lack of true freedom in this world. Things need to be put in perspective. If you reduced your electricity to nothing, stopped driving, became vegan, etc... you would change nothing but the way you live and the only way it becomes important is if you tout it as so. save a life, and you become a hero, without saying anything. People are going to eat shell fish whether or not you buy shell for your guitar so you will not save any life by choosing not to. You may save a life by buying the shell though.

Just some random thoughts

_________________
Disappointment is an empty box full of expectation

You know, maybe Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) wasn't high after all!

Or maybe he was...

Dennis

_________________
Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

-

I have to say up front tht i mean zero disrespect to you take at all.

That said the question become first are the shell fish in question in danger of extinction in the region we are speaking of. To this I know California water were so accessible to modern commercial abalone harvesting techniques from the turn of the last century forward that commercial fishing over taxed the natural hachery. Shutting down commercial and civilian harvesting was prudent and due to our social order and the relative educated population the affect on our population was relatively non-consequential.

The same situation does not exist in the Asia’s Pacific Rim. A vastly great percentage of the population is uneducated beyond the realm of their subsistent vocation. And even for the majority of their younger generations there is very slim hope for more than what their parents, grand parents and ancestors had. Then add on tht that the level of commercial harvesting in the region has had far less affect on the shellfish populations than what accord in US waters. So to me to make a judgment of the relative worth of the vocation of subsistent shellfish harvesters in Asia sure seems a bit out of context with the do-good philosophy of the environmental movement.

It not a case where the animals are killed solely for their shells. the shell is a waste produce of the food harvesting. in a region where the shellfish in quest are not particularly over fished.

I'm very curious Howard, but are you a "Through the Looking Glass" aficionado, or did it finally come up on your reading list? Weren't you quoting from it over at Acoustic Guitar Forum too?

Not that I object. Just wonderin!

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I now see the whole issue of animal farming and the hunting and harvesting of wild animals as wrong and corrupt

I eat Cows. I am an enabler. Does that make me corrupt?

I'm sad to see that contemporary education keeps putting these relativist ideas about ethics into people's heads. It's of a piece with education that emphasizes everyone getting along (rather than anyone achieving excellence), which is supposed to mean that no one is wrong and no one can be criticized: "Little Adolph isn't wrong when he says all Jews and Gypsies should be exterminated. He's just saying what he thinks is right, and we can't tell him he's wrong. All you can say is that it would be wrong for you, Johnny, not that it would be wrong for anyone else."

Ethics would be a trivial waste of time if it were only about arriving at personal opinions, which we have no business saying apply to others.

Yes, Waddy, I saw a chance today for a rare Through the Looking Glass daily double, so I grabbed it. It's an old favorite.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Thanks everyone, for this thread. Makes me feel better that we can create such beautiful inlays on guitars, basically from the wrappers off someone's food

Animal farming is bad, but to me, destruction of the Amazon is much worse, because it's all so ancient and interrelated that it probably can't ever grow back. And killing a plant there means a lot of animals will die too. But as long as people are killing it anyway for farm land, better to put the carcasses to good use than just burn it all.

Killing of great old trees like the California redwoods is also terrible. They have more right to live than I do, existing peacefully for hundreds/thousands of years as part of the life force of the earth. But guitars take so little wood, one tree can provide a lot of goodness to the world. Just don't sacrifice them to make something stupid like a table, that works just as well made from sawdust and glue, or at worst, boards from smaller trees that can be farmed.

This is a little out of context with this post but in my mind it has a similar ring to Howard’s comments. Too often in the course of mankind the ideals of good intention; turn from being a philosophically good cause to being an enforcement of dogma. Every time I see, hear or read such things this song from the early 70s plays in my mind ear.


(sung by the accused)

I bless you madly,
sadly as I tie my shoes
I love you badly,
Just in time, at times, I guess
Because of you I need to rest
Because it's you
that sets the test

So much has gone
and little is new
And as the sparrow sings
Dawn chorus for
Someone else to hear
The Thinker sits alone growing older
And so bitter

I gave Them life
I gave Them all
They drained my very soul
...dry

I crushed my heart
to ease their pains
No thought for me remains there
Nothing can they spare
What of me
Who praised their efforts
To be free
Words of strength and care
And sympathy
I opened doors
that would have blocked Their way
I braved Their cause to guide,
for little pay

I ravaged at my finance just for Those
Those whose claims were steeped in peace, tranquility
Those who said a new world, new ways ever free
Those whose promises stretched in hope and grace for me"

I bless you madly,
sadly as I tie my shoes
I love you badly, just in time,
at times, I guess
Because of you I need to rest, oh yes
Because it's you
that sets the test

So much has gone
and little is new
And as the sunrise stream
Flickers on me,
My friends talk
Of glory, untold dream, where all is God and God is just a word”

(sung by the accusers)

We had a friend, a talking man
Who spoke of many powers that he had
Not of the best of men, but Ours

We used him
We let him use his powers
We let him fill Our needs
Now We are strong

And the road is coming to its end
Now the damned have no time to make amends
No purse of token fortune stands in Our way
The silent guns of love
will blast the sky
We broke the ruptured structure built of age
Our weapons were the tongues of crying rage

Where money stood
We planted seeds of rebirth
And stabbed the backs of fathers
Sons of dirt

Infiltrated business cesspools
Hating through Our sleeves
Yea, and We slit the Catholic throat
Stoned the poor
on slogans such as

Wish You Could Hear
Love Is All We Need
Kick Out The Jams
Kick Out Your Mother
Cut Up Your Friend
Screw Up Your Brother or He'll Get You In the End

And We Know the Flag of Love is from Above
And We Can Force You to Be Free
And We Can Force You to Believe"

(refrain sung by the accused)

And I close my eyes and tighten up my brain
For I once read a book in which the lovers were slain
For they knew not the words of the Free States' refrain
It said:
I believe in the Power of Good
I Believe in the State of Love
I Will Fight For the Right to be Right
I Will Kill for the Good of the Fight for the Right to be Right"

Now I open my eyes to look around
And I see a child laid slain
on the ground
Where the love machine lumbers through, desolation follows
Ploughing down man, woman, while listening to its commands
But not hearing anymore
Not hearing anymore
It’s the same shriek of the old rich

And I Want to Believe
That this madness will die now
And I want to Believe
There’s a light' shining through Somehow

And I Want to Believe
And You Want to Believe
And We Want to Believe
And We Want to Live
Oh, We Want to Live

We Want to Live
We Want to Live
We Want to Live
We Want to Live
We Want to Live

I Want to Live
I Want to Live
I Want to Live

I Want to Live
I Want to Live
I Want to Live

I agree with Howard.......sad.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Our ancesters went from hunters gatherers
We are now in the final stages of harvesting this planet
When the harvest is over we are gonna do just waht our ancestors did
for eaons and eaons befor they ever came to this planet...
When the harvest is over, we gonna leave this place.
Simple.

Eat or be eaten.

Now since you and me aint gonn a be on one of them space ships leaving this place;
I suggest we bend our minds to a win win economy based on sustainability or our extinction in guaranteed.

Pass the abalone meat please.


icu,

Padma

_________________
.

Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


.

Godwin's law in action. Oh, the irony....

Howard, your posts always give me pause for thought..........or a chuckle.

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

You have heard quite a few people express their own ethical opinions, and they are all valid--for those correspondents. The question is: What is your sense of ethics telling you? This you will need to decide for yourself. If, after reading all of these replies, you are still troubled, then you will probably decide not to use this material again. Or you might decide otherwise. Of course, you have already purchased some shell, so you must decide what to do with it. Once again, only you can decide the answer for yourself. If it were me, I would use the material on hand, because to do otherwise would be a waste of an already-harvested material. After that, if I still had concerns about future use of the material, I would simply not buy it again. But that's just me. (and I'll confess I don't have too many concerns about legally harvested by-products). You will eventually come to terms with this dilemma. It'll work out for you.

Are we talking bull fertilizer or seafood fertilizer?

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I do not think that my post exemplified Godwin's Law. Godwin's Law does not say that any reference to Hitler on the internet is inappropriate. On the contrary, the inappropriate invocation of Godwin's Law is itself an informal fallacy that has emerged in recent years.

I did not accuse anyone of being like a Nazi or Hitler. Neither did I analogize what anyone said to Hitler or Nazism. Nor was my reference hyperbolic. These are among the properties of an instantiation of Godwin's Law. I offered a reductio ad absurdum to a metaethical position (moral relativism) and for purposes of a reductio argument an extreme case is the most effective way of showing that the position criticized is invalid. This is quite different from hyperbole. I hope this post was not one of those that gave you pause for a chuckle. It was not intended to be at all funny.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

A unique ritual in this religion involves a holy fasting until death; it is called sallekhana. Through this one achieves a death with dignity and dispassion as well as no more negative karma.[39] When a person is aware of approaching death, and feels that s/he has completed all duties, s/he willingly ceases to eat or drink gradually. This form of dying is also called Santhara / Samaadhi. It can be as long as 12 years with gradual reduction in food intake. Considered extremely spiritual and creditable, with all awareness of the transitory nature of human experience, it has recently led to a controversy. In Rajasthan, a lawyer petitioned the High Court of Rajasthan to declare santhara illegal. Jains see santhara as spiritual detachment, a declaration that a person has finished with this world and now chooses to leave. This choice however requires a great deal of spiritual accomplishment and maturity as a pre-requisite.

The four arms of the swastika remind us that during the cycles of birth and death we may be born into any one of the four destinies: heavenly beings, human beings, animal beings, (including birds, bugs, and plants) and hellish beings. Our aim should be the liberation and not the rebirth. To show how we can do this, the swastika reminds us that we should become the pillars of the four fold Jain Sangh, then only can we achieve liberation. The four pillars of the Jain Sangh are sädhus, sädhvis, shrävaks, and shrävikäs. This means that first, we should strive to be a true shrävaks or shrävikäs, and when we can overcome our social attachments, we should renounce the worldly life and follow the path of a sädhu or sädhvi to be liberated.

Now me I once when young and crazy hunted rattlesnake bare handed, as a sort of medicine path thing with a Paiute buddy. The fact that my dinner could have killed me was a sort of religious experience. My point is it take all kinds...

_________________
"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

You are quite correct Howard - I was in error to raise a Godwin's Law flag on your post - but don't you think the reference to Hitler in your reductio ad absurdum response is just a little inflamatory? Surely there must be other examples that would have sufficed (a GW Bush reference for instance?)?

Indeed, this was not one of your posts I chuckled at. Incomplete education and the resulting unthought-out moral and ethical positions people/s take have caused more strife in the world than I ever care to think about. Let's hope this thread doesn't become another victim.

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

No you didn't, what you did do is made the illogical jump that my type of thinking is the same type of thinking that led Hitler down his path. Just so we are crystal clear.

_________________
Disappointment is an empty box full of expectation

I'm crystal clear, and my point is logically valid. You don't understand a reductio ad absurdum. It's in the form of a modus tollens argument: If p, then q. Not q. Therefore not p. In this case, if moral relativism were true, we could not say Hitler was wrong. But we do say Hitler was wrong, therefore Moral relativism is not true. Parts of the argument were implied informally; this isn't a logic class.

Sorry you took it to mean your thinking is the same type as Hitler's, but that was neither what I intended nor what I said. The argument was directed at an ethical theory, not at you. Nor do I think Hitler relied on moral relativism. But notice that by your ethical theory, I would not have done anything wrong no matter what I said about you, because it was OK by my beliefs, and you claim that what is ethical for me may not be ethical for you, and we can't say what is right or wrong for someone else.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Eh?
(And I thought forum rules said no cussin'..... )

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Howard there is a problem when applying symbolic logic to ethical arguments because in the end it boils down to the fallacy Consensus gentium. Formal logic only deals with the form of an argument.
That is why I brought up Jainism they believe the only truly ethical thing is to have no effect at all., to leave no echoes, it does not matter if those echoes have been defined as good or bad.

????

_________________
"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

I don't know where to begin here, so I'll stop.

I apologize to all for trying to argue about ethical reasoning on a guitar forum.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.