Delightful little pal Scout!

Dude. The children.

Dude wtf? A little disrespectful don’t ya think?

Seriously, an innocent victim of our culture–isn’t it bad enough they were mutilated and killed, you have to humiliate them too? Talk about insult to injury (ne’ death) When my partner found a roadkilled squirrel we took him near a giant old oak tree in her back yard and held a burial, both crying over his fate. That, juxtaposed with the disrespectful redneck glee here, is just too strange to fathom.

Very well said reply.
In addition, I like my food to not be moving, so dead is good!
Bring your puppet show to Echoes.

LOL, and right, I’m being like a normal “judgmental vegan.” I think I mentioned something about eating roadkill being wonderful. Not exactly standard vegan dogma. I think for myself. Quit trying to paint with such a broad brush–you’re doing the exact judgmental guilt-trip thing you accused me of!

I see some value in both perspectives, here. I honestly did not automatically think “Disrespect!” when I first saw the image of the hand-puppet squirrel several days ago. However, I can see how many people might think it so. I think first of all, it’s not possible for any of us to know how respectful it was or wasn’t without having witnessed it. Maybe Scout created the hand-puppet in some way with respect? It’s not something I would have chosen to do, but if Scout’s spiritual view is really Animist and he’s an honest man, I bet he didn’t treat it the same way your average modern human would treat a roadkill animal skin. I live by a highway here and over time I see a lot of roadkill.. Rabbits, cats, birds, turtles, possums, raccoons. It’s horrible. I personally believe my energies are better spent in working against the cause of the roadkills, as there are probably dozens of roadkill in the whole area where I live each week and I do not have the time to give them all a respectful departure. Scout could have left this one alone, too, but instead made use of it..

One of the ways ancient peoples showed their respect for the lives they took was by making good use of as much of the body as possible (while often still burying some of it – such as a specific part of the skeleton, etc.). If they found a freshly dead animal of some kind, killed but not eaten, I don’t know but I don’t think their only possible response would be to bury it in mourning. They might turn the skin into clothing, and other parts of its body into important tools, besides eating the meat if it’s fresh enough. Animal skins were worn on the body, and this squirrel skin is worn on the hand. What makes either example respectful or not? The actions and intentions of the one using them. Yes it’s quite possible to treat a “dead” animal disrespectfully even while turning it into clothing, I’m sure everyone agrees. Just as skins worn on the body can serve the purpose of keeping warm, so might a hand-puppet, I suppose, serve the purpose of telling a story from the animal’s perspective. Oral storytelling was an important part of ancient culture everywhere, in passing knowledge and wisdom, which is part of how respect was maintained.

Basically, I think it is *possible* that the squirrel was treated either with respect or disrespect in being turned into a hand-puppet. None of us can say which was the case without being there (or in Scout’s mind), but I am more than willing to give Scout the benefit of the doubt, all things considered!

I just kind of (a bit morbidly, yes, but true nonetheless) find myself wondering how urban scout would feel if his mother died and somebody turned her corpse into a marionnette show. You know, John Cusack in Being John Malkovich type thing. With respect, OF COURSE!

On the argument of comparing this to using human-skins as puppets – Would you not also expect to feel offended if you saw a wolf wearing a human pelt? Or if you were a flower, might you not feel offended to see the petals of your siblings adorning the hair of a human? Of course, wolves don’t wear human pelts, and no one can read the ‘mind’ of a flower to know how it would really feel about that (this is not to say that the flower can’t communicate it in some way).

But ancient humans would sometimes wear wolf pelts – I am a huge fan of wolves, and yet I hope we can agree that this was not a “bad” thing, mainly in such case that the meat of the wolf was eaten by the one who killed it and family/tribe of theirs, as a means of survival, and that the wolf’s life was taken in a respectful way – which would hopefully include a minimum of suffering. Living things by nature consume other living things to live, and it is a special duty and honor we should give any living thing to actively respect it and reduce its suffering in this process.

And with the flower, as an example, who is to say their opinion about the use of their bodies? We are not plants, so we don’t think like them. Plants are often said in ancient cultures to offer themselves to humans in the way of medicinal value etc. (even if this is not the case with ALL plants). Perhaps they would be pleased to see their own given such reverence as to be worn in beauty rather than merely discarded.

And finally – it is not entirely appropriate to try imagining human skins as puppets, simply because we ARE human and of course we’ll have a bias on that matter. Humans don’t wear other-human pelts, wolves don’t wear other-wolf pelts. You enter the aspect of a species regard for itself. So, the better example is a wolf using a human-skin. Of course wolves don’t bother with tools and things, but I suppose if we were the hairy ones and wolves needed our fur to survive the cold, we shouldn’t be too upset at them..

I used to think that vultures were the highest form of life because they never killed to eat. Then I found out from some other birds that vultures eat eggs. Oh, well. Guess we’re all in this together. I have learned to find violence acceptable–but not aggression. You have to kill, but you don’t have to sneer at your dinner. Hopefully no one here is sneering.

@therewildest

LOL nice troll. you got a few bites.

and lol @ the guy playing with roadkill. reminds me of a friend of mine.

how do you know when a roadkill is fresh enough? …. of course, if it’s soft enough to make into a puppet, then i guess it’s OK to eat?

I’e eaten squirrel, ad I’ve eaten roadkill deer, but I can’t really see how roadkill squirrel would work out too well. Isn’t it a bit…squished being so small and all? Somehow I can’t get past images of crushed bone and ruptured organs.

Scout: Have you ever been wrong about something? Have you ever considered someone else’s perspective for what it might have to offer rather than how you can argue that it’s wrong?