Sad Times, and Rainbow Bridges

August 11, 2003 10:01 AM

"So I thought about the story of the rabbit jumping into the fire and realized that Grendel would have wanted to give me every last little bit of joy possible, and I should do something truly personal with her body. I decided to make a fancy dinner with her." (via memepool)
posted by emelenjr (86 comments total)

Make sure you read the front page where the owner admits to it being a hoax/morality play.
posted by Zosia Blue at 10:08 AM on August 11, 2003

I'm less convinced by the front page with its multiple contradictory explanations than by the post itself.
posted by SealWyf at 10:13 AM on August 11, 2003

Silence of the Bunnies
posted by ElvisJesus at 10:24 AM on August 11, 2003

Rabbits is tasty.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:27 AM on August 11, 2003

I was just wondering what made this a fancy dinner. I mean, did he use candelabras or something? Or is rabbit inherently fancy?

I just wanna know...
posted by jpburns at 10:28 AM on August 11, 2003

Looks like chicken.
posted by stbalbach at 10:28 AM on August 11, 2003

i miss oolong. And now I'm hungry too
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 10:34 AM on August 11, 2003

Tastes like children.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:40 AM on August 11, 2003

(sings)
Here comes Grendel Cottontail,
I'll wash her down with lotsa ale,
Hippity hoppity,

...and so on.

I figured it was a scam...but the vehemence of some of the people who posted - sheesh. I've never hunted, and never will, but for cryin' out loud, if the guy ate his pet bunny (assuming it died of natural causes, or such), SO WHAT? I had meat lasagna last night, and eggs this morning. I doubt they would have tasted better or worse if I had "named" them prior to consuming them.

Top of the food chain, we humans are. It's not something to feel guilty about - it's just Nature.
posted by davidmsc at 10:42 AM on August 11, 2003

Good point davidmsc - there is no philosophical difference between eating your meat lasagna and a pet bunny.

I'd hope you take this argument to its logical conclusion, and therefore have no qualm eating (and killing to eat) your dog, cat, ferret, or any pet.
posted by tr33hggr at 10:47 AM on August 11, 2003

My wife is looking a bit frail of late... frail and tender
posted by ElvisJesus at 10:57 AM on August 11, 2003

This reminds of of a David Letterman bit from some time ago: "This Thanksgiving our family decided to try something different so we got a turkey chick and raised it ourselves, but when the holiday came around, we just couldn't bring ourselves to kill Ol' Tom.
...So we ate the dog."
posted by TedW at 11:21 AM on August 11, 2003

You are just one sick fucker.
You need to die and have your pets eat you. How the fuck would you feel then?!

Actually, pets DO eat their deceased owners fairly often. Not their fault really - they can't open cans and there's nothing else handy. The owner, presumably, doesn't feel it.
posted by orange swan at 11:22 AM on August 11, 2003

Paging Cold Chef...
posted by i_cola at 11:22 AM on August 11, 2003

I think I'd have to draw the line at dogs and cats, and maybe horses, because typically in the US you just don't eat those. Hindus would say the same about a cow, I imagine. And if they serve those domestic animals in a restaurant in the US, they probably tell you it's something else.

But I've eaten curried goat in an Indian restaurant in D.C., I've had ostrich in a restaurant in Winston-Salem, N.C. And rabbit is indeed deeeeeelicious. I agree with davidmsc: I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat carrots. Those are for rabbits.
posted by emelenjr at 11:29 AM on August 11, 2003

I was just wondering what made this a fancy dinner.

Maybe he ate it with his pinky extended?
posted by MrBaliHai at 11:30 AM on August 11, 2003

People are so weird. They'll go eat cow and get mortified at the thought of eating a rabbit.

People, they make no sense. Silly and arbitrary, the lot of them.
posted by xmutex at 11:32 AM on August 11, 2003

This hasenpfeffer tastes like carrots!
posted by briank at 11:39 AM on August 11, 2003

Am I the only person who's worried that eating a pet that died of "natural causes" might not be the greatest idea in the world? I mean, who knows what kind of toxins its flesh might contain...
posted by Slothrup at 11:42 AM on August 11, 2003

Of course there's no ethical reason I wouldn't kill and eat my cat. I simply get more pleasure from her company than I would from eating her. If I decided to kill and eat her, however, I would take no guff from the peanut gallery.

People too easily confuse emotional attachment with morality.
posted by kindall at 11:45 AM on August 11, 2003

To expand on the pets eating their owners theme; Nick Lowe wrote a song called Marie Provost, about the silent film star who passed away in her apartment. When the police finally discovered her body, it had been partially consumed by her pet daschund. "Even little doggies have gotta eat" the song went.
posted by reidfleming at 11:51 AM on August 11, 2003

All meat is equal. Eat your rabbits, eat your people. If you are going to eat animals, don't get picky about which ones.

However, PLEASE would those meat eaters in the audience stop talking about clawing their way up the food chain. Nobody clawed their way anywhere. Most of you have trouble walking around the block, let alone catching and killing a rabbit or anything bigger with your bare hands.

...and before you get started, you didn't invent your way up the food chain either. Most of you just SHOP your way ALONG the food chain. Geesh.
posted by ewkpates at 11:52 AM on August 11, 2003

reidfleming:
[from memory]

"She was a winner,
'till she became doggie's dinner,
she never meant that much to me..."
posted by jpburns at 11:55 AM on August 11, 2003

Only with humans does cuteness curry favor and thus discourage consumption? I too worry about the decontextualization of the food chain in modern society.
posted by shoepal at 11:57 AM on August 11, 2003

What ewkpates said.

Honestly, the whole food chain justification for eating non-human animals is pathetic. Extend the argument, and you have a wonderful moral ground for eating the mentally disabled, or any Other not at the top of some arbitrary chain. It reeks of hierarchy, a fear that has resulted in some gross injustices like slavery and the sublimation of women.

/rant off
posted by tr33hggr at 12:00 PM on August 11, 2003

Marie Provost

Mary Provost did not look her best
The day the cops bust into her loneiy nest
In the cheap hotel up
on Hollywood West July 29
She'd been lyin' there
for two or three weeks
The neighbors said
they never heard a squeak
For hungry eyes that couid not speak
Said even little doggie's have got to eat


She was winner
The became the doggie's dinner
She never meant that much to me
(But now I see) Oh poor Mary


Mary Provost was a movie queen
Mysterious angel of the silent screen
And run like the wind
the nation's young men steam
When Mary crossed the silent screen
Oh she came out west from New York
But when the talkies came
Mary just couldn't cope
Her public said Mary take a walk
All the way back to New York


Those twin balms didn't help her sleep
As her nights grew long
and her days grew bleak
It's all downhill
once you've passed your peak
Mary got ready for that last big sleep
The cops came in
and they looked around
Throwing up everywhere over
what they found
The handywork of Mary's little dachshund
That hungry little dachshund

Poor Mary, poor Mary, poor poor Mary
Poor Mary
posted by ElvisJesus at 12:10 PM on August 11, 2003

Mr. Pinchy would've loved this.
posted by condour75 at 12:14 PM on August 11, 2003

There's actually a good medical justification for not eating people. Carlton Gadjusek actually won a Nobel Prize for linking the practice of funerary cannibalism to slow viruses like Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

It's the same reason you don't give livestock feed enriched with meat from its own species. It tends to give them Mad Cow disease.
posted by pjdoland at 12:25 PM on August 11, 2003

"Soylent Green is RABBITS!"

And condour75, I think it's just "Pinchy" -- no "Mister" in front of it. Which, come to think of it, is truly one of the funniest single scenes that I have ever viewed:

"No more pain where you are now, boy...(crunch)..."
posted by davidmsc at 12:32 PM on August 11, 2003

Does anyone but me think this is a really lame and boring joke to play on an internet community?
posted by agregoli at 12:33 PM on August 11, 2003

Silly posters, rabbits are for kids eatin'.
posted by DBAPaul at 12:37 PM on August 11, 2003

Actually, pets DO eat their deceased owners fairly often. Not their fault really - they can't open cans and there's nothing else handy. The owner, presumably, doesn't feel it.

A good example being Queequeg the dog on the X-Files (named, aptly, after the "cannibal" from Moby Dick, and completing a round of symbolism and name-play that involved Mulder as an obsessed Ahab, as well as Scully's nickname of "Starbuck").

Also apt: Queequeg ends up eaten by a Nessie-esque sea-monster.

Say what you will about the 'Files, but they definitely had their high-points.

Back on topic, I'm not much concerned about this fellow. There are far too many LIVE animals in need of attention. You're wasting your time here on this trolling sensationalism when you could be looking at the Humane Society's action alerts or even *gasp!* PETA 's animal-rights activities. Or, if you're too cool for PETA's oft ridiculed extremism and you want something more dishy and scandalous, you can even visit ASAIRs.

It's the LIVE ones need help. IMHO.
posted by Shane at 12:39 PM on August 11, 2003

I'm just impressed he reports being able to skin and dismember the rabbit... most people these days wouldn't be able to stomach the act of butchering an animal, whether they have a personal attachment to it or not.
posted by adamms222 at 12:44 PM on August 11, 2003

Your points are well-taken, Shane, but his animals ARE alive.
posted by agregoli at 12:46 PM on August 11, 2003

Again, he didn't kill or dismember anything.
posted by agregoli at 12:47 PM on August 11, 2003

I was with the crazy bastard until I read the disclaimer that it was all a joke, and not just any old joke but a joke without purpose, a joke to get attention, a joke with a bullshit "I wanted people to take a look at personal morality" disclaimer that failed in almost every capacity to disguise the real m.o.: some bored human being's inability to live an existence (even a fictional one) and post definitively about it, or to stick with concrete details. What could have been a genuine confession defying folkways is instead nothing more than a jaunt into Al Capone's vault. And no one here should give this two-bit prankster any attention whatsoever. It is an insult to the legacy of Andy Kaufman when you piss off an audience and then fail to perpetuate the ruse. This dunderhead's in violation of several precepts of U.S. Pranks & Ruses Code Section 87. I say, let's teepee the twad's house.
posted by ed at 1:04 PM on August 11, 2003

...gross injustices like slavery and the sublimation of women...

posted by tr33hggr at 4:00 PM AST on August 11

The sublimation of women?
posted by signal at 1:15 PM on August 11, 2003

Wonder if a pet monkey is good eatin'. Prolly tastes like chicken.
posted by VelvetHellvis at 1:39 PM on August 11, 2003

The sublimation of women? My favorite scene!
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:41 PM on August 11, 2003

How very heinlein of an idea...

Friends
The Police

I likes to eat my friends
And make no bones about it
I likes to eat my friends
I couldn't do without it
Ain't a man or poet, friend
I know just how you'll taste
Your limbs go sliding down my throat
And never go to waste

Your death of course, will sadden me
Until I grok your essence
I know your life was not in vain
When digestion is commencing
Consider this a celebration
And the deepest pact of friends
And I hope that you will dine on me
When I come to an end

Even friends may come to you
With a new found revelation
But think of it as life renewed
And not their termination
"To know you is to eat you,"
Should be the code of lovers
Death brings the highest act of love
Preserved for one another

People say that what you are
Is only what you eat
And my friends become a part of me
Oh it's then that life's complete
To know you is to eat you
The act of love supreme
Each one of us inside himself
Can appetise the dream
posted by KnitWit at 1:42 PM on August 11, 2003

I think I'd have to draw the line at dogs and cats, and maybe horses, because typically in the US you just don't eat those.

And you are limited by your immediate environment, why?

People too easily confuse emotional attachment with morality.

Word.
posted by rushmc at 1:44 PM on August 11, 2003

People easily confuse custom with morality.
posted by signal at 1:49 PM on August 11, 2003

I'd hope you take this argument to its logical conclusion, and therefore have no qualm eating (and killing to eat) your dog, cat, ferret, or any pet.

There is actually another logical conclusion: go veggie.

My girlfriend uses this logic to explain her veganism. She wouldn't want to kill a nice pet bunny rabbit, so why should she be willing to kill a cow? She also takes spiders outside instead of squishing them, etc.

It's no more logical, but it is gentler.
posted by scarabic at 1:50 PM on August 11, 2003

scarabic - yeah, that's what I was getting at, without being evangelical.

I'm using sublimate in a very academic sense (sorry), applying both literal definitions (to modify a property into another state, as well as the social application of modifing our "natural" expressions into something more socially acceptable). Implying, therefore, that certain tendencies are labeled "feminine" in an effort to make them seem less important than masculine endeveaors.

Eh, I should have used another word.
posted by tr33hggr at 1:56 PM on August 11, 2003

A friend of mine some decades back told me that when he was a child he had a pet rabbit. One day he told his father, "Dad, let's kill the rabbit." Dad, being as eccentric as my friend, agreed. They killed and butchered the rabbit and had it for dinner.

At the time I knew him, my friend was raising rabbits for food. (He also had one of the largest and most productive vegetable gardens I had ever seen.) But the years had socialized him. He named and befriended the "breeder" rabbits, but those destined for meat were never named, and he interacted with them as little as possible. He had, in short, become a modern man instead of a subsistence farmer.

I suspect most of us could not kill and eat an animal we had known personally. ("Alice, pudding. Pudding, Alice.") Hell, I had pet freshwater clams for years, because by the time they had cleaned the canal water out of their little guts I had become fond of them. But consider the traditional farmer, or even the 4H kids who raise an animal for a competition and then sell it "cut and wrapped". Is it hard for them the first time? I do know that my grandmother, who was not raised on a farm but came to one after she married, wept openly every time she slaughtered a chicken.

I would like to think that if I ever lived in circumstances where the slaughter of meat animals was expected, that I could do it without freaking out. But then I remember those damn' clams. The three longest-lived ones were named Athos, Porthos and Aramis. And they all had personalities. I swear it.
posted by SealWyf at 2:00 PM on August 11, 2003

Only with humans does cuteness curry favor and thus discourage consumption?

mmmmm..... curry.
posted by GeekAnimator at 2:03 PM on August 11, 2003

What disturbed me about this tale was not the consumption of a rabbit, something I've participated in on many an occasion (including the dismemberment etc.) nor the raising of his own food, which is common, but the motivation for eating the bunny (yes, I got that it was a joke, thanks).

I should do something truly personal with her body.

This reminds me of Jeffrey Dahmer and others keeping parts of his victims and consuming them to become closer with the victim.
posted by Pollomacho at 2:16 PM on August 11, 2003

> The sublimation of women?

Shooting 'em from the solid directly to the gaseous state without an intermediate liquifaction stage. One of humanity's deepest shames.
posted by jfuller at 2:25 PM on August 11, 2003

rushmc, point taken about immediate environment, but I think SealWyf has a better point about attachment. That's why I don't think I could kill and eat a dog. Forget that eating dogs/cats/horses is kind of frowned upon in the US, I've just grown up around dogs all my life. My parents still have seven of them. And goats. And a donkey.

My brother and I had rabbits for a while when we were kids. They used to beat each other up. I never found out what happened to them... they just disappeared one day. Dinner was especially good that night, though.
posted by emelenjr at 2:31 PM on August 11, 2003

I'm just impressed he reports being able to skin and dismember the rabbit... most people these days wouldn't be able to stomach the act of butchering an animal, whether they have a personal attachment to it or not.

When I was younger I had friends who hunted. If you ate there, you helped butcher the animals they brought in. All of us learned how to strip and butcher the deer and it did give us a closer connection with the food we ate.

It never stopped me from eating venison, as I see meat as part of an average diet, and someone has to kill and butcher them.
posted by SuzySmith at 2:34 PM on August 11, 2003

Ok, I'm sorry.

/hangs head, slinks away
posted by tr33hggr at 2:35 PM on August 11, 2003

>> The sublimation of women?
>
> Shooting 'em from the solid directly to the gaseous
> state without an intermediate liquifaction stage.
> One of humanity's deepest shames.

One of my favorite labs in metaphysics was the sublimation of desire. It was especially fun to drop a chunk of it into a a cup of water and watch it steam.

(I know. Silly seal.)
posted by SealWyf at 2:46 PM on August 11, 2003

The three longest-lived ones were named Athos, Porthos and Aramis. And they all had personalities. I swear it.

I'd just like to say that while having pet clams is quite possibly the coolest thing ever, it is not cool to name them after swashbuckling heroic characters. This will remind the clam of its tragic inability to swashbuckle, and could lead to a terrible and irrevocable depression resulting in clam suicide.

Please, I beg you, be more thoughtful in your bivalve naming from now on.
posted by Kafkaesque at 3:01 PM on August 11, 2003

I think I speak for frozen women everywhere when I say that sublimation is bliss. I much prefer my new gaseous state. (after all, there's more room on the outside, etc...)
posted by taz at 3:01 PM on August 11, 2003

Similarly, we did the sublimation of rage in high school. The consequences of a badly done exercise, however, could be nasty.
posted by jokeefe at 3:03 PM on August 11, 2003

Kafkaesque, I once had a three pet clams; I named them "Percy", "Bysshe" and "Shelley".
posted by taz at 3:08 PM on August 11, 2003

Ah hates rabbits.
posted by mathis23 at 3:13 PM on August 11, 2003

He had, in short, become a modern man instead of a subsistence farmer.

Have family whom grew up on farms, all had similar stories about making a farm animal a pet and the sorrow that ensued. Realized the sorrow was the working farm's economy. Usually too they were warned, very young and parents gave in with the added note: one day... Then it happens, usually the out come was how mad the parents made them and how could they do this to them. Key word, to them and looking at the economic settings at the time.

Concluded, a working farm is for all family members not one; buy and raise your own pet. Not that they couldn't have a pet yet it's a working farm. The family dog guards all the members on the farm, not just one. Pets are an animal given or bought with that intent. Otherwise it would be costly on the farm's economics. If you picked out farm animals as your pets to keep, not only do you have a farm but a zoo too.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:16 PM on August 11, 2003

Been there, done that, got the cliche (and just pull it out to annoy the tight asses in this thread). This guy may have been joking, but I'm not. I've killed and eaten rabbits that were considered pets, because that's what you do to make it through the Winter. I raised the animals for 6 years, including show champions, stock champions, and dressed weight champions. I still have the ribbons in a box somewhere. I've taken rabbits that I have named, cared for and raised from birth, and smacked them in the back of the head with a 2 and a half pound file, because that's what you do to put dinner on the table.

I firmly believe this: if it came to eating our pets to survive, very few of us would be able to resist once its dead. Confirmed vegans maybe (but the rest of us starving survivors will just eat your bony asses ;-). Most of us will do what it takes to eat. We'll cry, we'll feel remorse, and we'll go right the hell on living, because that's what people do (for the most part). Its the killing part that will get to you, and that's why this little interwebnet joke fails.

If one was really trying to shock for entertainment, he wouldn't use a cute little bunny for his thought experiment, he'd use a cat or a puppy. I agree with tr33hggr, that the same logic applies to all. Assimilation of meat isn't a ritual, its a necessity (for many of us omnivores) and it wouldn't be an issue if you could afford some protein that wasn't from a good family friend. The point of this webshit is to push people into an extreme of moral statement (killing bunnies is wrong ... eating pets is wrong ... decisions made right now define life to infinity... ) eeehhh, not so much. You makes your chooses, then you lives wit' em.

By the way, any non-vegans who haven't tried Guinness rabbit are totally missing out.
posted by Wulfgar! at 3:27 PM on August 11, 2003

One day the Buddha was walking through the forest as a travelling monk begging for alms. He met a monkey, a fox, and a rabbit. "Can you help me please? I'm old and weak, and too exhausted to continue my journey. I've come so far and have nothing." The monkey climbed into the trees and brought him some fruit. The fox slipped away and soon brought back a nest of fresh eggs. The rabbit said to the monk, "I have only grass, which you cannot eat. But if you build a fire, I will jump in so that you may eat my small body." The monk built a fire and the little rabbit bravely jumped into the flames. At that instant, the Buddha revealed his true self and plucked the rabbit from the fire unharmed. Deeply moved by the rabbit's selflessness and charity, he placed the kind hare on the moon so all could see and follow the hare's example.
posted by roboto at 3:29 PM on August 11, 2003

If you picked out farm animals as your pets to keep, not only do you have a farm but a zoo too.

and much spam to be send.
posted by quonsar at 3:29 PM on August 11, 2003

The fox slipped away and soon brought back a nest of fresh eggs.

Wouldn't the fox have slipped away, killed the rabbit, and brought it back? Just sayin ...
posted by Wulfgar! at 3:41 PM on August 11, 2003

Poor Mary

It's MARIE Provost, not Mary. Sheesh. Kids these days, they just don't remember the classics.
posted by MrBaliHai at 4:01 PM on August 11, 2003

At that instant, the Buddha revealed his true self and plucked the rabbit from the fire unharmed. Deeply moved by the rabbit's selflessness and charity

Selflessness or self-destructiveness? Why would the rabbit assume that his life/existence was worth less than that of the monk? Where is the charity of the Buddha in rewarding the rabbit's sacrifice (and preventing his death) without correcting the flaw in his reasoning, leaving him susceptible to similar evaluative errors in the future?
posted by rushmc at 4:05 PM on August 11, 2003

Ha!

Our book group is reading Watership Down in a couple of months. My wife and I are hosting. Though we know it's sick and twisted, we plan to prepare rabbit for dinner.
posted by jdroth at 4:20 PM on August 11, 2003

This reminds me of Jeffrey Dahmer and others keeping parts of his victims and consuming them to become closer with the victim.

I completely agree with Pollomacho. It doesn't bother me that this person ate a pet, but I find the ritual quasi-cannabalistic overtones kind of creepy. Eating a pet for sustenance is one thing, eating a pet to "do something personal with the body" makes me edge away and reach for something heavy.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 4:59 PM on August 11, 2003

[emeril]
Let's kick it up a notch!
[/emeril]
posted by emelenjr at 5:07 PM on August 11, 2003

It's MARIE Provost, not Mary. Sheesh. Kids these days, they just don't remember the classics.

So kill me .... and eat me. (And I am more than old enough to have known better. Sorry)
posted by ElvisJesus at 6:16 PM on August 11, 2003

Thank you Wulfgar!, for responding to my argument, and not my poor choice of terms. Finally, someone to grapple with issues rather than vocabulary.
posted by tr33hggr at 7:14 PM on August 11, 2003

Selflessness or self-destructiveness? Why would the rabbit assume that his life/existence was worth less than that of the monk? Where is the charity of the Buddha in rewarding the rabbit's sacrifice (and preventing his death) without correcting the flaw in his reasoning, leaving him susceptible to similar evaluative errors in the future?

Word. You gotta set 'em straight thems young 'uns rabbits.
posted by ( .)(. ) at 7:55 PM on August 11, 2003

Wabbit season!
posted by littlegirlblue at 8:47 PM on August 11, 2003

I find the whole food-chain line of reasoning pretty accurate.
Nature is based on living things consuming other living things (be they plants, animals, fungii or otherwise), and I can't see how "cute" is a sound basis for moral judgements.
The whole idea that humans are in some way "outside" of the food-chain is based on a fallacy - we need to eat, and we can't eat rocks. The only way to escape the food chain is by cremation.

The reason we don't eat other humans is that same-species consumption greatly increases the risk of many diseases, it also destabilizes societies, which we humans rely on to stay on top of the food chain.

Since having all humans understand this is rather tricky, we've evolved an aversion against eating things we're emotionally attached to instead - thus preventing us from eating our own babies and such.

Where this backfires is of course when our instincts trick us into developing emotional bonds to food animals, and thus on some subconscious level putting them in the "human, do not eat"-category.

Cats and dogs are a special case, since they fulfill a useful function in society (pest control, hunting, guarding) and thus are more use to us alive than dead. Dogs in particular have been around for so long that it's possible humans have evolved a natural attachment to them. Still, I would have no qualms about eating a cat or dog, as long as I won't have too look into it's disturbingly human-like eyes when it's slaughtered.

What concerns me most is that he (allegedly) ate the rabbit after it died of natural causes. Doesn't he worry about diseases?
posted by spazzm at 9:43 PM on August 11, 2003

Roboto: word!

Most puzzling thing to me is how we what walk on two legs have such an odd relationship with those what don't. As usual, Homer has something to say on the issue.

Lisa, get a hold of yourself. This is lamb, not _a_ lamb.
posted by psychoticreaction at 1:47 AM on August 12, 2003

A Welsh friend of mine was brought up on a farm and had a pet sheep (named), she claims she had no problem when it came to slaughtering time.

Also, with regard to pets eating humans, at least one woman in the UK has pledged to have her body ground up for pet food rather than see it wasted in burial or cremation (sorry, can't find a link).
posted by biffa at 2:24 AM on August 12, 2003

Scrolling scrolling scrolling
Nup no recipe from Migs ... crap !
posted by johnny7 at 7:08 AM on August 12, 2003

Selflessness or self-destructiveness? Why would the rabbit assume that his life/existence was worth less than that of the monk? Where is the charity of the Buddha in rewarding the rabbit's sacrifice (and preventing his death) without correcting the flaw in his reasoning, leaving him susceptible to similar evaluative errors in the future?

West, meet East. Remember this is a Buddhist tale, life and existence is an ongoing process, not just here today gone tomorrow (or as in the Warner Bros. cartoon, "hare today..."). It is what you do with the life not the life itself which is sacred.
posted by Pollomacho at 8:16 AM on August 12, 2003

spazzm, I've noticed that a lot of people tend to not only put cute animals in the 'human, do not eat' category, they seem to exclude any animal that is not traditionally eaten in their home from their diet, permanently.

Occasionally it comes up in conversation that I've eaten a lot of non-traditional foods during my various travels, and Americans tend to be turned off by the idea of eating anything that isn't fish, poultry, cow or pig.
posted by mosch at 8:29 AM on August 12, 2003

hoax that it is, note that only scavengers eat animals that die of natural causes.
posted by dabitch at 8:34 AM on August 12, 2003

we can't eat rocks

Thanks to the no good mineral liberation front.
posted by biffa at 9:06 AM on August 12, 2003

Human geophagy, look it up.
posted by NortonDC at 9:46 AM on August 12, 2003

And people with bipolar disorder eat lithium, which is mined. A medicine that's mined... that still seems odd to me.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:46 AM on August 12, 2003

It is what you do with the life not the life itself which is sacred.

Again, in that case why didn't the monk offer HIS life to the rabbit?
posted by rushmc at 12:03 PM on August 12, 2003

Again, in that case why didn't the monk offer HIS life to the rabbit?

Maybe as a monk, or more so as the Buddha, he already had?
posted by Pollomacho at 1:32 PM on August 12, 2003

If you notice, my lips never move as I say this stuff. The secret is being able to talk directly out of your ass.
posted by Pollomacho at 1:33 PM on August 12, 2003

Actually from what I have read, the rabbit was supposed to be an incarnation of buddha, and it was some other deity (Indra?) that was the recipient of the dinner.
posted by konolia at 9:49 PM on August 12, 2003

The Magical Hare In The Moon
posted by goddam at 6:24 AM on August 13, 2003