‘Plant Rights’: The Silent Scream of the Asparagus

I am surprised that they still use the term “creation” - as this assumes a creator.
But I assume they mean a personified cosmic accident or something.
Unbuntu!

Let me crank up my <s>weed whacker</s> weapon of mass destruction</s> and rid the <s>back yard</s> botanical concentration camp of undesirable species.

As always, the Canadians are way ahead of us on this important issue.

carrot_juice_is_murder

carl

Anything to avoid the real problems.  I’m glad Prophet Micaiah didn’t spend his time before the two kings admonishing them about the perils of the chariot horses expelling methane gas while in battle. (I Kings 22)

Does a flock of sheep grazing on a hillside = mass herbicide?  If the shepherd allows it, is he guilty of conspiracy to commit herbicide?  If he prevents it, is he guilty of animal abuse?  Can the sheep be tried and incarcerated?  Wouldn’t PETA object to such incarceration?

No wonder people are confused.

Next thing you know Greg, we’ll be hearing about pansies consuming one another. O the botanity!

My son wants to know if this means he’s off the hook for this summer’s grass mowing duty.

Hippies.  What are you gonna do?

I think we should insist that the swiss army knife include a spork utensil, at the very least.

Sorry Invicta, but there’s a big moral difference between a general haircut and wholesale turfocide.

Ban Roundup!

All jokes and frivolity aside, what are we really saying? Swiss wildflowers have more worth, and therefore, more rights than the unborn or people with diabilities? Western “civilisation” is going to Hell!!

By discrediting their authors, wacky ideas play an important role in maintaining the good sense of society.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Swiss wildflowers have worth—-but worth that is different in kind from that of sentient beings.

I was in the San Joaquin valley a couple of weeks ago, when they were preparing for their Asparagus Festival.  So I know where this is going.  First, they depose their bishop.  Then, they take their churches.  Then, they take their asparagus.  The horror; the horror!

This Dumb Sheep has pastured on the land, committing herbicide.  But—-this Dumb Sheep has also contributed fertilizer to restore needed nutrients to Mother Earth, and emitted methane to compete with cows.  Up with sheep—down with cows!  Methane is the new oil.
Dumb Sheep.

seems to me that man (and some women), as apex predator, has free rein to lay waste to all the beasts of the field, so that we might defend the dignity of their helpless prey, the plants.

I don’t think that I’ll ever look at a salad bar in the same light ever again.

It’s happening in Portland, Oregon!  See http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/david_reinhard/index.ssf to read about Dan Saltzman (city councilman) and his drive to provide trees with the rights he thinks they deserve!

drjoan:
Portland. It figures. They’re just as bad as Olympia & Seattle. So, does Plants Rights mean that dopers can’t harvest & smoke the crops they have growing in their basements? Will plants be confiscated and sent to “good” homes?

Has the Swiss Government realized that the biological species are made up of producers and consumers?  If we cannot harm the producers - then the consumers (including all humans) will die.

Really, nothing demonstrates the mental illness of liberal thinking better than stuff like this.

Hmmm…let’s think this through. If animals have rights and plants have rights , is it right for animals (not humans) to eat plants? If not, then what are animals supposed to eat? And what about plants that eat flesh like the venus fly trap & the pitcher plant? Are plants abusing animals? We MUST have answers! :-o
People Eating Tasty Animals
Animals Eating Tasty Plants
Plants Eating Tasty Animals
Ahhh….the circle of life!

How far does this extend?  Will the Swiss stop using antibiotics and antimycotics?

Let’s send the Swiss Audrey II.

Feed me, baby!

#6. Next thing you know Greg, we’ll be hearing about pansies consuming one another. O the botanity!

Can’t stop coughing - I just came here after the “cannibalism” thread, and this quote just jumped out and hit me in the face. OMG!

Composure.

Nope. Dinner’s ruined for sure. The asparagus is now a phallic symbol, to be boiled and sauteed in a little butter. Eck! I can hear it screaming. Oh, well. An Episcopalian should be able to rationalize anything.

A dish of Soylent Green, anyone?

Yes, someone had to go “there”.

Found this on Breitbart about PETA demanding an investigation into the death of Eight Belles yesterday at the Kentucky Derby.

PETA

“I don’t think that I’ll ever look at a salad bar in the same light ever again”—-Another Pilgrim [#15]

Makes it more exciting, doesn’t it?

Salad: the new forbidden pleasure.

Finally, finally someone had the courage to stand up for our silent friends.

Me, I’m off to McDonald’s.

“All jokes and frivolity aside, what are we really saying? [What about] the unborn or people with diabilities?—-Invicta [#10]

Ironically, the Swiss Constitution ironically applies the same word to “creation” (“Würde der Kreatur”) as the German Constitution uses in its flagship human rights provision (“die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar”). That was the provision under which the German Constitutional Court struck down a liberalized abortion law.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

“Has the Swiss Government realized that….?”

Note that the constitutional amendment was adopted by the VOTERS.

What if orthodox Anglicans were as clever and persistent sd PETA in doing low-cost PR.

My wife always slices her vegetables very gently and courteously.  Sometimes she slices them under general anaesthetic (the plants, not my wife).  Me!  I take out my latent hostility on them.

Weeds of the World….UNITE!!!

#24 Maybe somebody should be looking into racing in Kentucky? Two years in a row - are the horses just overbred or is too much demanded of them?

How about asparagus racing?

Ah Greg, such a lovely volatile topic but too late for me.  My cicadian clock is shutting me down.

But let me toss this into the ring:  ever heard that Amazonia is the lungs of the world? Anyone ever wanted to see a real, live carrier pidgeon or dodo bird?

You need not believe in plant rights to think that, “....arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong”.

Go get ‘em PETA!!

———Zero

too late, too late…

think maybe its Xero

Let’s see - they say animals are our equals and we shouldn’t eat them, and now they say plants are our equals and we shouldn’t eat them, either. 

That makes dieting a no-brainer, but it also makes +Kate’s recent spork endorsement seem pretty redundent.

Soylent Green - It’s What’s For Dinner!

I need to get in touch with my “cicadian clock.” Which brood is it this year?

I am taking up a collection to send a worthy asparigus, ++Vegetables to Lambeth.  He is a fantastic leader in the world, but is forced to hides underground to prevent personal attacks from the extreme right.  It is important that he be allowed to attend and present his just case before the ABC.  Please send your dollar to me, as he is unable to receive money directly without voiding his vow of poverty.

This will work itself out.  Once they cease cutting down and smoking certain botanicals, these ideas will naturally work themselves towards the dustbin of idiocy where they belong.

He heh. 

Teenagers in Holland, Michigan had a thing about driving around and “decapitating” tulip gardens, by opening the car door while the car was in motion.  The city of Holland discouraged this prank by issueing hefty fines (~$100, I believe) to offenders. 

Of course, it wasn’t a plant-rights thing.  Tulips are part of the tourist industry for that city.  And in fact, every Spring they host a large parade (“Tulip Time”), that folks flock to from all parts of the country.

It’s not a Salad Bar, it is a Death Row for vegetables.
Dead Radish Walking?

the snarkster

Irenaeus,  I am schocked by your suggestion that we should send Brother Asparagus into the grueling, er, field of racing. Besides, he’s not deep enough in the chest.

Leaving aside, for a moment, what these guys smoke, what do they EAT????
Will they be sending memos to the French telling them to stomp cruelling stomping on grapes?  Will we be called upon to stop the cruelty of grinding wheat between stones?  Not to mention, will FTD become a criminal organization?

Well, TJ, what about the cruel way that the French root those truffles out of the ground? Is no one going to speak for fungi? Or is that the only thing left we’re allowed to eat?

I shudder to think what they would do with Luke 19:40

“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

#30, if you’d seen my garden, you’d know that they already have.  It’s a Hitchcock movie in slo-mo.

#39 - I believe the export of the tulip bulbs is a major industry, no?  When will they convene the international tribunal for crimes against botany, to purge the world of this evil traffic in sacred flora???  Why will the Dutch not “strive for justice and peace among all organic matter, and respect the dignity of every kingdom, phylum, class and order?”

[#46]

In front of a prominant government building in The Hague, stands a famous sculpture of a horse.  The horse’s posterior has been placed so that it faces the street.  That’s Dutch humor. 

#39 - I believe the export of the tulip bulbs is a major industry, no?  When will they convene the international tribunal for crimes against botany, to purge the world of this evil traffic in sacred flora???  Why will the Dutch not “strive for justice and peace among all organic matter, and respect the dignity of every kingdom, phylum, class and order?”

That would merit a chuckle from even a Frisian! 

And it did, in fact. 

There’s an old joke about an environmentalist having to choose sides when a bald eagle eats a spotted owl. The updated version is how does a Swiss bio-ethicist react when a fungi destroys a tree.

There’s the obvious idiocy of the “moral” idea in play, but there’s also the legal stupidity of putting this in your constitution with out having any idea what the statement means or how it will play out in law and policy. It’s even more nonsensical than mandating X percentage of energy should come from “renewable” forms of energy and Y gallons of ethanol should be produces when the legislators and regulators have absolutely no clue about the science or economics related to the issue.

de Tocqueville was right!

The committee offered this illustration: A farmer mows his field (apparently an acceptable action, perhaps because the hay is intended to feed the farmer’s herd—the report doesn’t say). But then, while walking home, he casually “decapitates” some wildflowers with his scythe. The panel decries this act as immoral, though its members can’t agree why. The report states, opaquely:

“At this point it remains unclear whether this action is condemned because it expresses a particular moral stance of the farmer toward other organisms or because something bad is being done to the flowers themselves…”

Unless, of course, the farmer was required to decapitate the flowers under Sharia law.

Do these folks cry when they slice onions because they anthropomorphize their vegetables?

While you folks are out there mocking these serious thinkers, countless potatoes are being publicly humiliated as they are stripped naked, carved into strips and dropped into boling oil.  And what about the LGBT fruits denied equal treatment with their homophobic zuchinni neighbors?  Until we are willing to ordain apricots to the priesthood, none of us will be free!

Do you think that the reigning intellects of this proposal might take Vegie Tales . . . literally?

DaveG, apricots have nothing on passion fruit when it comes to being subject to rhetorical and gastronomic violence.

[51] Not to mention the interpol documented horrors of widespread trafficking in hunan beans.

News Alert:
Global South Products protest confinemnet in bins adjoining Western fruits!
In a related story, Global Southern crops including sorghum, okra and rice have lodged a formal protest with the World Court at the Hague.  They object to being displayed at markets in bins next to Western fruits inlcuding apples and pears.  Changing Attitudes has denounced the African products, claiming that their cultural insensitivity has led to violent atacks on fruits throughout the world.  The Archbishop of Cansofberries has appointed a committee to determine if a committee should be appointed.

Well, I certainly intend to do my part to put an end to this senseless slaughter. From this day forward, I pledge to abstain from the slaughter and consumption of all rutabagas, domestic and foreign.

the snarkster
President, Federated Anti Rutabaga Terminators

If one eats zucchini blossoms, and doesn’t let them mature into full grown zucchini, is that ok?  After all, it really isn’t a zucchini yet – it is only a potential zucchini – so it doesn’t count - right?

Come on Scott!  Get real!  The decision can only be made by the zuchini itself.  Anything else violates the zuchini’s right to choose.

If one eats zucchini blossoms, and doesn’t let them mature into full grown zucchini, is that ok?  After all, it really isn’t a zucchini yet – it is only a potential zucchini – so it doesn’t count - right?

I think it’s okay,
at least if you stuff them with a mix of blue cornmeal and chili peppers, with a little salt and enough water to make a paste, fold the ends of the blossoms closed, lightly coat with shortening, and bake.

It is an amazing read ( the pdf report with pictures ).

I will have to save this for my next sleepless night:

“Most ECNH members
assume that the dignity of living
beings is not an absolute value, but is
achieved by the balancing of morally
relevant interests: the good, or «interests
», of plants should be weighed up
against the interests or goods of other
organisms. A prerequisite for balancing
interests in this way, however, is
that plants have their own interests,
and these should be considered morally
for the plant’s own sake”

DaveG,
But what if the zucchini is in a permanantly vegetative state?  Can I withold its nutrition and then harvest it?

How about if the zucchini has a terminal condition?  Can I end its misery?

“But what if the zucchini is in a permanantly vegetative state?”

Scott [#61]: Please stop serving up these tired old value judgments and species-centric characterizations.

“Persistent vegetative state” is a metaphor developed for inconvenient, unproductive human beings, who have taken to being what they have no business being.

For vegetatables and vegetation, the vegetative state—-however persistent—-authentically expresses and perpetuates their nature and identity.

Hands off and sporks away!

Irenaeus
Being diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state might give rise to more rights and legal protections now.

This is horrendous news!  Does anyone know if we will be able to purchase vegetable offsets?

Anthroprocentricity - so passé,
Anticarnivorosity - so blasé,
Now it’s lichens and lettuce we must not harass, 
New Ethics from Helvetia:  Don’t walk on the grass!

As a Floridian, I have some experience and speak with some confidence on the subject agricultural ethics.
Because of the Terri Schiavo ruling, if a zucchini has reached a certain age and has gotten beyond its ability to have a meaningful existence, and cannot sustain life without assistance, cannot speak for itself, we are now able to ascertain with certitude posthaste that this zuccini would prefer to be assisted to die (euthanized) rather than exist in such a piteous state because of the cost of care and the prolonged emotional stress upon its family.

Irenaeus,
Well, it certainly must be ok to conduct experiments on seeds, right?  I mean - if you hold the fertilized seeds in a dormant stasis, it must be ok to experiment on them.
You can’t say there is a problem with interspecies hybridization, cloning, and simultaneously enjoying multiple pollen sources.

From Trinity Wall Street:

Dear Parish Family,

On May 19, Trinity Sunday, we will have a Plant Eucharist, “doing church” as if we were a diverse and inclusive phylogeny, with each specie having its own dignity.  We will celebrate the Eucharist and learn about the basic traditional outline for Eucharistic worship by experiencing it and participating in it from a new perspective.

It will likely be a surprise to see your Trinity Church rector dressed as a ginkgo tree, the choir robed as mosses or hornworts, the wardens as conifers, with Magnoliophyta assisting at the altar, and various ferns, grasses, vegetables, mellons, and shrubs within the congregation.  But think about it this way: could we not improve how we perceive the world by adopting a more plant-like outlook.  As Joyce Kilmer wrote:

“I THINK that I shall never see  
A poem lovely as a tree.”

Or, as the Sufi poet Rumi deftly penned:

“I died from minerality and became vegetable…”

After the service, we will recess to Battery Park for an appetizing picnic of organically grown, free trade algae and fungi, which I note are not technically considered to be plants.

Tired, I don’t think we can have a Plant Eucharist on Trinity Sunday.  In fact we probably shouldn’t have a eucharist at all anymore.  Bread is made from grains of wheat.  By grinding them to flour we’ve prevented them from reaching their full potential.  And the use of yeast in the process is positively immoral.  You let them reproduce and then you kill them off at high temperature.

Then there’s the wine - made from crushed grapes which are then fermented using yeast which again is sacrificed for our pleasure.

“I need to get in touch with my ‘cicadian clock.’ Which brood is it this year?”
                      —-Irenaeus #36

Pidgined-tongue Zero/Xero/Zerro dipped them all in chocolate and ate the entire brood.

And still no one speaks for Eight Belles?  Pity, really.  I bet Benedict wouldn’t approve. At least he’s a fearless cat whisperer.

Question:  If you eat your vegetables and fruits with a spork, is it OK?

News Flash:

Raisins are searching for a lawyer in their suit against craisins for patent infringement.  Also, raisins are considering filing suit against dried cherries and apricots.  The limit on litigation is due to funds drying up.

I will say, having visited the Redwoods and giant sequoia forests in California that such individual “plants” have a certain value after a thousand years or so of life that is more than your common radish.  When we are unable to see this value and beauty apart from in terms of a cash crop, we have lost something of our own souls.

“On May 19, Trinity Sunday, we will have a Plant Eucharist…It will likely be a surprise to see your Trinity Church rector dressed as a ginkgo tree”—-Tired [#68]

All I know is that the previous rector of Trinity Wall Street, Bp. John Howard, stinks worse than gingko fruit.

Monologistos [#73]: I agree. Trees are magnificent. We should continue to enjoy and (selectively) protect them, as we have been learning to do over the past century.

PS: In my book, nothing beats the Southern live oak.

No one will know
If you don’t want to let ‘em know
No one will know
‘Less it’s you that might tell ‘em so
Call and they’ll come to you
Covered with dew
Vegetables dream
Of responding to you
Standing there
Shiny & proud by your side
Holding your hand
While the neighbors decide
Why is a vegetable
Something to hide?