Archive for October, 2007
Catch-22 Videos
October 31st, 2007I am reading Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 again. It’s hilarious. As I read through Yossarian’s attention-deficit narrative, I can hear his dry, serious voice, “They’re trying to kill me.” I can see the insane soldiers scurrying through abrupt transitions. I can imagine hilarious shorts made from each chapter of the book.
Traditional media [...]
Why Plant Rights?
October 29th, 2007I wrote before pointing to an excellent essay on the subject of plant rights. Due to popular demand, here is my satire of PETA’s animal rights website.
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Science
October 21st, 2007Peter Norvig wrote a great article on how to recognize common flaws in published research.
Norvig mentions Seth Roberts, a noted self-experimenter. He espouses an unorthodox form of scientific investigation: self-experimentation. He maintains a public blog detailing his various experiments and results. It’s a unique approach that I’d like to adopt.
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Why Plant Rights?
October 20th, 2007Almost all of us grew up eating plants, wearing cotton, and going to forests and gardens. Many of us bought our beloved “seedlings” at garden supply centers, had chia pets, and kept beautiful flowers in pots. We wore linens and hemp, ate McDonald’s french fries, and tramped on lawns. We never considered the impact of [...]
What Is Plant Liberation? Excerpts From Philosopher Joseph Perla’s Groundbreaking Work
October 20th, 2007“Plant Liberation” may sound more like a parody of other liberation movements than a serious objective. The idea of “The Rights of Plants” actually was once used to parody the case for animals, as were animals for women’s rights. When Mary Wollstonecraft published her Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, her views were [...]
Plant Suffering
October 20th, 2007Branches and stems should be looked at for swelling, bumps etc. Roots should be looked at for insect damage. Also look at other plants in the environment: growing conditions, maintenance, has it been pruned lately, animal damage, sunlight, etc. Plants need to be manicured just as you do.
Also, plants feel stressed by vehicle traffic, [...]
Plant Intelligence
October 20th, 2007See the article on Plant Intelligence in the Annals of Botany: http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/92/1/1
Plants communicate with each other over long distances:
http://www.edwardwillett.com/Columns/plantcommunication.htm
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/u/j/ujq/jack.htm#wind
We now have deduced communication between plants at the level of being alarm mechanism. There is no reason to exclude the possibility of higher-level intelligent communication using similar mechanisms.
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Plant FAQs
October 20th, 2007Whether you’re a staunch plant rights advocate, an activist who’s just getting started, or a complete skeptic, you can use these answers to help clarify your understanding of the plant rights movement. The responses presented here are by no means the only answers to these frequently asked questions. They are simply intended to provoke you [...]
Plant Exploitation
October 20th, 2007Notice the parallels between the horrors of people exploitation
versus plant exploitation:
packed together tightly with no freedom to move or grow freely, slaves, force-fed, genetically modified, possibly unaware of their captivity.
Look at the death and destruction left at a corn field after harvest:
Plant exploitation is not funny:
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Plant Rights
October 18th, 2007Many vegans have thought deeply about the arguments against a diet composed of meat and other animal products. Some have not. For example, when asked, why not also limit the number of plants you kill and displace from their natural environment?, vegans often act defensively or attack.
I wanted to write a [...]