Fishy project

[Bill Glasheen]

I'm sorry but when it comes to PETA, I can't help myself.



PETA campaigns against eating fish


What can you say to this? From Bruce Friedrich, PETA's director of vegan outreach...

Once people start to understand that fish, although they come in different packaging, are just as intelligent, they'll stop eating them.

Just as intelligent as whom? A PETA "Empathy Project" manager? From Karin Robertson herself...

Fish are so misunderstood because they're so far removed from our daily lives.

Ooookaaayyy....

Maybe we should seek empathy training from other water creatures...



Excuse me, Mr. Shark, could you put your seal down long enough to chat with us?

Just what is your opinion, sir, about fish empathy?



Hmmm...good point!

- Bill

[MikeK]

Bill, everytime I go to the Bahamas I eat at this restaurant http://www.the-bahamas-restaurants.com/ ... index.html

It's fun to eat shark while watching sharks eat. It helps establish my place in the food chain, at least for now.

[Stryke]

But Lettuce has feelings too .... honest !!!

[Glenn]

We always ran into this when I taught general biology labs at a university, around the time we got to vertebrate dissection each semester. The same students who complained about this had no trouble with cutting up a plant and putting it under a microscope of course. They always argued that we should use computer simulations instead of animal dissections. Students don't actually need to see or appreciate what is inside an animal afterall.

"So doctor, you must have done a lot of dissections in college". "No, we just simulated them on the computer...lay back, time for me to open you up and operate".

Any time you categorize something there is a fair amount of subjectivity. This creature is intelligent according to me (or more realistically, according to my socially indoctrinated world view) and therefore deserves to live, while this other one is not as intelligent and therefore does not deserve to live. It just ***** to be a plant all the way around, no one seems to be arguing for not eating them. Realistically though, if you are going to argue against eating one kind of creature because it is an "intelligent" "living" being, you might as well argue against eating anything.

Whenever we had students who absolutely refused to participate in the dissection labs, and who made an adequate case (one that seemed based on conviction rather than just on trying to get out of the lab) to the head instructor in advance, he would assign to them a research paper where they had to examine all sides of this issue. He tried to get them to analyze the pros and cons of their convictions and of what they oppose. It was at least an effort to open their minds.

[Med Tech]

I sent them an email telling them about the different fish products I'm gonna eat every day this week in observance of PETA's latest stupidity campaign.

[Topos]

Bill,

The beatific look on the PETA lass with her inflatable dolphin date broke me up laughing. Perhaps her 'anchove' problem stems from lack of personal hygiene and not ichthyology. Can we thus humorously infer that PETA people will not eat any animal [grin] forcing them to revert to plastic substitutes? No wonder they have such sour pusses!

Forgive me but their psychosis.is probably grounded in what the Philosopher Ernst Cassirer called Mythic Thinking with the anthropomorphizing of animals.

Thanks for the comic belief. I shall even more enjoy my fish dinner at Great Bay Restaurant in Boston tonight.

[MikeK]

I thought the PETA gal Karin would clean up quite nicely with a makeover. Think she'd enjoy a dinner date to Firebirds?

[IJ]

Animal and human dissections are somewhat different; the humans volunteer, and aren't killed. Some of the animals may otherwise have been killed and tossed, which changes the equation. But students could reasonably decide to dissect in medical school but not a dog (they're not vets afterall) for these reasons.

There actually are some computer simulations that do an excellent job of preparing people for the OR. They're being used to supplement dissection now. One is made from tiny slices made from a frozen preserved inmate who was executed. He volunteered, but probably didn't know he'd be in a block and ground into dust and sequentially photo'd. Anyway he provides great images of undistorted anatomy.

I did the "dog lab" in med school. We took a happy live dog and practiced venous cut downs, tracheotomies, chest tubes, and splenectomy as well as sutures on real skin. Then we threw the dogs out. Very few of us had no reaction to dissecting and killing a living dog. We felt it was worth it because we wanted to be ready for humans who weren't out of time at the shelter. But most of us felt that some ... respect? reverence? a moment of silence? was due our "volunteers" that day. And some bowed out entirely.

[jorvik]

I can think of a few humans I'd prefer to do that to, rather than a nice dog
mr. zarqawi'..........perhaps .

[Bill Glasheen]

I'm with you, jorvik. We could give the New York Times something to write about...

Ian, it's worth mentioning that virtually all of the dogs used in such labs actually have a longer lease on life because they are used for research. Hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats are put to sleep every year because owners don't spay their pets and/or breeding animals get loose. In my book, it's a crime NOT using them for a greater purpose.

I've seen the process first hand. The vast majority come abused and/or malnourished. Before any of them can be used, they need to be dewormed and fattened up. I did strictly heart research for years (open heart surgery several times a week), and had to specify for heartworm negative dogs. If I did not, virtually 100% of the dogs coming to me had heartworms. You'd cut the heart open at the end of the experiment, and it would literally pop open with a spagetti of the worms. It's amazing the hearts still worked. Many of the dogs had bloody diarrhea from hookworms, and had tapeworm segments in their feces.

Another truly amazing AND sad thing to see was a run on greyhounds. These obviously were racetrack dogs that some owner chose not to keep any more because they couldn't cut it on the track. Such beautiful animals... Their heart muscles literally were 2 to 3 times thicker than the average dog. It made me wonder what my own heart must be like vs. that of a couch potato.

So.... I felt horrible about the humanity that created such a situation, but never felt bad about using the dogs for research. For many of them, their last 2 months was the best care they got all their lives.

And even though I was the grim reaper, I never, ever, ever shied away from loving the dogs before it was their time.

God bless man's best friend. We owe them a lot.

And for what it is worth, I have volunteered my own cadaver to science and/or medicine. Maybe some young woman could make good use of these blue eyes, or some unfortunate person suffering from heart disease will get a new lease on life. Or maybe a future Dr. Ian will get to cut me from stem to stern.

Have at it! When it is my time, I won't need the parts anymore. I hear there's no beer in heaven...

- Bill

[IJ]

We knew the dogs in question were headed for the Big Nap in the Sky. A lot of people still couldn't do the lab. The big question here is Head Morals vs Gut Morals; whether one is rationally weighing pro's and con's, or just has a sense in the guy that something is right or wrong and has to go with it. I'm a big proponent of Head Morals, so I was right in there, doing a third chest tube when they asked us to do one, and doing some skin sutures when they weren't part of the project. Trying to make the most use out of the dog and get the best out of awkward solution.

The PETA gang is off the deep end with the gut morals. Most people (those not raised out in the country) have a far easier time eating a chunk of pinkish tissue in a styrofoam tray covered with plastic and labeled, than they would killing the brown-eyed cow or whatever it came from. For the PETA people, that even goes to the point of fish, probably krill.

Fine for them, so long as they only embarrass themselves and dont break into labs or anything. A lot of what we do in this country has to do more with guts than brains. Specific to medicine, one of my friends is rotating through the neonatal ICU, where some kid was born with a brain the size of a walnut and has no chance of a meaningful existance. The question is when he'll die; everyday he tries, and the family says to do everything, and people run in and do CPR and give him drugs and fluids so he can "live" a little longer. I've got another, very rational friend who's brother was CRYSTAL clear he never wanted to live as a vegetable. He was in a car accident a whole year ago, and they can't let him go, even though he's done nothing more than exhibit basic reflexes. Fed thru a tube, incontinent, unaware, trips to the ICU for life support when he gets pneumonia, you name it. We also played this game with a 70 year old man with lung cancer who trid a salvage procedure to get another three months, which failed and left him hopelessly ill and in a lot of pain on a breathing machine. His daughter, again, couldn't pull the plug. She was quite aware that she should. In the end it came to her fully conscious admission that she couldn't say a sentance that sounded like she wanted her father to die. Even though everyone knew it was better if he did. They way our country works, as many people who get to the hospital die like this than peacefully, although my success rate is improving.

We make funny decisions sometimes... end up treating fish better than other people half the time, and our dogs better than our relatives, too often. Here's to progress in that arena.

[Glenn]

Very few of us had no reaction to dissecting and killing a living dog. We felt it was worth it because we wanted to be ready for humans who weren't out of time at the shelter. But most of us felt that some ... respect? reverence? a moment of silence? was due our "volunteers" that day. And some bowed out entirely.

I never taught dog dissections (although I dissected preserved cats and sharks in comparative anatomy as an undergraduate student), but I did have to kill rats for the labs I taught. There were some TAs who had no trouble teaching the dissections but could not kill the animals, they had someone else do that for them. I hated it, but like you said felt there was a benefit from doing it. Students used to preserved specimen generally felt they got a lot out of looking at freshly-killed specimen.

[Bill Glasheen]

It's not bad to feel bad about hurting and killing.

It is bad when we cannot comprehend our role in the greater ecosystem. And it's bad when we shield people from the very natural proess of death. It is after all the only certainty in life other than taxes.

Are we missing something when Hollywood shows death so gratuitously, and yet we shield people from some of the most natural parts of everyday existence? Our perspectives have really gotten warped.

- Bill

[IJ]

They certainly are; see the moronic millionaires slug it out on a current thread. Who created this losers?

I wouldn't say, however, that humans have a "role," in the environment. When PETA asks their dogs to eat vegan, that's dumb. But humans have moved beyond biology. We may have been hunter gatherers for the most part, but now we can fly to the moon. We can meet all out needs nonviolently--if we choose. And if they want to live vegan lives, power to em. We're not obligated to fulfill our former role in the environment. This is evident every time we get into our plastic and electronic and refined steel and glass machines and drive to work at computer plants and oil refineries and dam rivers and reshape ecosystems. Those things aren't bad per se, but they illustrate how a little thinking has moved us permanently beyond the laws of the forest.

[Guest]

I wouldn't say, however, that humans have a "role," in the environment.

You just proved Bills point about being disconnected from the eco system. Everything you do has an impact.

But humans have moved beyond biology.

Darn I must have been fishing the day everyone got converted into tin men.

We may have been hunter gatherers for the most part, but now we can fly to the moon.

I can’t I don’t have that skill set.

We can meet all out needs nonviolently--if we choose.

what are you referring to here Ian is this one of those brutality of meat slogans from the fine folks at peta?

And if they want to live vegan lives, power to em. We're not obligated to fulfill our former role in the environment.

If you’re trying to say it’s okay for you to embrace a vegan diet, I would agree with you. But it’s not a former role; man has not abandoned meat in his diet.

This is evident every time we get into our plastic and electronic and refined steel and glass machines and drive to work at computer plants and oil refineries and dam rivers and reshape ecosystems.

Yes technology has had an impact on the ecosystem. The garbage and pollution created from these modern convinces definitely have had a negative impact on many species including our own.

Those things aren't bad per se, but they illustrate how a little thinking has moved us permanently beyond the laws of the forest.

I agree, man has always utilized the natural world to fill his needs. But we have not moved from the ecosystem Ian, we are still part of it, if we mess it up enough it will kill us all. Is that the law of the forest you refer to? Plastic and steel do not change the rules. If you shcit by the spring you drink from you get sick. If a city dumps excrement in the river and their neighbor drinks from that river……

The Vegan urban lifestyle is disconnected from the ecosystem. You think the hunter gather thing is past history. It’s not , I lived a good chunk of time in the bush. I know many who still do. You base your assumptions on what see around you and that is not reality for many of this world.

The urban Vegan lifestyle, the cities spread consuming land and the people demand food. Natural areas are put to the plow to provide crops, displacing wildlife. Very few bother to put in a crop of lentils in their yard or on their roof.