http://blogs.forbes.com/monteburke/2010 ... -big-game/

Nobody on facebook seemed to give a shit, but it's a really well written article and the old stonerrock.com used to love arguing sociopolitical issues, so have at it, ho's.

I've realized that even the most ardent of moralists on this planet will often have troubles trying to atone their morality. Ultimately we all destroy to create--oxygen isn't yet determined to be an infinite resource, and while people were laughing about bottled water 20 years ago, they're not laughing anymore. I've realized that while I advocate humane practices even within an ultimately inhumane world, that I probably wouldn't be eating meat if I had to kill it, and every year that passes, I do feel slightly more guilty for some things. I doubt that the insects and organisms that feed on my decomposing self some day will feel guilty about the free meal, ha ha, but I do at least try to....I mean, we're supposed to be the civilized ones at the top of the food chain, but i'm sometimes a bit at odds how i'm personally supposed to do that. I'm not Ted Nugent, but I also like eating meat---I doubt I could be a vegetarian.

Come on over next fall and we'll figure out how to get the heads off my backyard urban chickens.


I was over at my Dad's yesterday and asked him what his uncles used to do - his mom grew up on a farm and he spent summers there in MN but he was not much good advice cause he thinks Roosters lay eggs. He said they'd chop the heads off all the chicken every fall with one good chop from the axe and start over with new chicks in the spring. Stewing hens.

For the hogs they kept one or two they didn't sell and had a local guy come by that did it over by the old killing tree, they couldn't do it themselves and they were farms. The calfs (veals) they would send off somewhere.


I think I have to wait on the urban backyard chicken thing, I'm hoping some foolish neighbor will do it and let me watch them while they're on vacation.

I know of a lot of people that are growing chickens in their backyards. Makes sense to me.
More and more people are finding out about how our grocery store food is made so more and more people are boycotting by providing their own food.
I have been against hunting in the past but now not so much. If it provides food, ok. If it provides a stuffed carcass or something hanging on the wall, not so ok.

I watched the movie "Collapse" yesterday, good timing on these thoughts.

edit: didn't read the article before I posted, off to do that.

edit again: Good article, very human. I like this part I donated most of the meat to local needy families (and there are plenty in this depressed area of Colorado). I sent some to friends and relatives. And I kept 15 pounds for myself. The meat is some of the best I’ve ever eaten.

The urban chicken thing is huge here in the hippie part of Oakland that I live in. If I had a backyard, I'd totally do that, but I'd have to get a wife to clean the cages and feed them first.

How about a pretty boy?, bear.

I'm worried about Cats and Coyote - plus our winters. It's been single digits for 3 weeks and the last thing I need to do is worry about same damn un-eaten chickens.

However, Devon Avenue very near us is a big 10 mile long strip of crazy ethnic enclaves in Chicago. Jews, Pakistanis, Russians and Indians. Did the they take you there when you visited?

There's now a "We-Kill-the-Chicken-while you wait" place . Big sign: "Takes only 10 minutes!" I bet I could bring my beloved hens in there every fall and come out with them converted to stewing-ready format. Except they would be our tasty pets.


Wisconsin is Deer Hunting USA - if they weren't culled they would stand around on the Interstates killing people.

On my way home from Kathy Griffin's Xmas party last night (Caution: Names Dropping!), I saw two coyotes by the side of Mulholland. One was squatting and taking a dump.

What was Kathy doing?


Kathy Griffin! I am a huge fan, not sure why. I read her recent Bio and enjoyed that too. She's got a smokin' bod, and could do better than the men she selects, rich or not.

Well, you're in luck because she and her boyfriend/tour manager, Tom, broke up a few months back. She was actually quite sad. But then her lab Larry pulled a tray of cupcakes off a table and all hilarity ensued.

Me and Camryn Mannheim (Caution: Names Dropping!), shared nutty Sharon Stone stories.

I'd be really impressed by your name dropping if you were hanging out with Lemmy, Clint Eastwood, or Milla Jovovich...Butterfaced celebrity gossip faghag chick? Not so much.
I bet Lemmy isn't afraid to cut a chicken's head off.

wheres the fuckin "like" button

Killing non-human flora & fauna is an interesting concept, I think about it because I do it often. Gardening is maybe 80% killing stuff, 20% helping life grow. I didn't kill an elk to get my tangerines, but a conservative estimate would be a hundred thousand aphids, whiteflies and Argentine ants died for me to get this year's crop. So when you've made the ethical jump from humans killing humans to humans killing mammals as morally equivalent (or in large part so), how to you judge mammal -> bird -> fish -> insect -> worm or whatever? And I kill amny, many "weeds," which are just growing plants living where I don't want them to be, playing minigod over my domain or hired killer over somebody else's. That Michael Pollan book the article mentions has lots or perspectives that I agree with too.

I love eating & cooking fish I've caught. I don't enjoy ripping the entrails out of mammals and skinning them, but I'm glad I have a few times. I have a predatory part of my nature and I'm glad to use it in the wild and try to keep it out of the city -- I tend to feel out of balance and claustrophobic in urban life if I don't get out on a regular basis. I ripped the heads off about 10 grasshoppers this week. I'm baking a chicken in the oven right now. I don't think anybody is waiting to judge me for these deaths in the afterlife, but I do think my critter body count colors who I am now. And I consider the ending of species and their unique genetic material off the planet as a bigger crime that the murder of a human, but again I get lost in the details of how you weigh the ethics as life becomes less and less complex.

Nested hierarchy of souls (Aristotle):

Plants - nutritive

Animals - sentient

Humans - qualitative

Kind of relates to Immanuel Kants' consequentialism vs. deontological argument:

I can summarize this arguement into I have pointy teeth and I'm hungry.

To me the morality of hunting is a non-issue when compared to the morality of massive habitat destruction that humans are causing. In fact hunting is so well regulated now, at least in the US, that it does a sufficient job of keeping the ecosystems stable.