I've been around here for three years, and I've seen a lot of amazing crap pass across the “front page.” I don't think Thomas or Judy or Emily chose this crap for the stellar writing, but because it was intriguingly horrid. Hell, I know my own EPs often came from this editorial need to shock and fascinate readers. And the OS community is not averse to diving into things like that fake pitiful transgender Thanksgiving poor-little-match-girl story (you can probably find that one near the top of the list of most popular posts of all times if you haven't had a chance to read it) - we love crap. It makes our day.
But really, Emily – celebrating a sociopath who can string words together correctly? Someone who claims to be killing animals to get in touch with his/her feelings about a father's death? What are we supposed to learn from this?
This place is doomed. Not only are we a world-class spam site, which we can't even get into most of the day, we have “editors” who are nothing but punk kids, and the current one thinks it's amusing to promote stories that equate animal slaughter with deep thoughts and great writing.
This would all almost be funny, but I seem to have lost my sense of humor here. I no longer mind the fake transgender story, so - thin silver lining.
But Emily - fie.
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just phyllis for now
Margaret Feike
Galen Gregory
John A Bayerl
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I'm glad, cause, I sure do write them good, don't I? :D
I'm guessing one of the stories on the Cover is about somebody killing animals to forget or remember their parents. I very rarely read anything off the Cover as most of the stories there make me want to fly to New York City and ask, "WHAT THE HELL?? WHY DID YOU PICK IT!?!?!!?!" and then maybe go out to lunch with the staff at Salon!! :D
Sometimes, we just need to wander off into the thorn bushes without questioning, lose our mind or something.
Oops, forgot...
FIRST!!! :D
And got an EP!!!
Sheesh, it's like, Jeffrey Dahlmer started his life on Open!! The next post will be --- "I killed my first human being....her name was Steve!"
And Ed I Tor will give them an EP but if Tink writes about cute kittens, pffffft, not even a passby!! What the hell?
Maybe I need to change my style, talk about the time I killed a whole bunch of school kids!!!! With a blunt object!! EEK!! EEK!!
~flees into the thorn bushes~
(Actually, heading off to the unemployment office to turn in my sheet!! ~hug~)
Fie, Emily. FIE. I'm not likely to get tired of saying that any time soon. You deserve a lot worse, but I'm trying to be civil.
The purpose of the cover to draw in those who don't normally read OS in order to generate ad revenue. Sometimes it's good writers and good writing, often it's sensationalist crap.
Honest to god, Emily - if you're paying attention at all, get a fucking grip. You've really screwed up. Do something about it! Or, you know,don't. Whatever. Fie.
and if you think there was the same kind of garbage on the cover since the spring of '09, i'll tell you i was here then too, and you must have been looking at a different site than the one i was looking at. jocelyn testes-harder was about as bad as it got, and that was arguably just intensely snarky satire. i'll be happy to reconsider if you show me a screen shot of a cover with anything like what we've been subjected to recently.
Many of the authors that make the cover are new here or come once or twice, make the cover and are seemingly gone. I wonder if they are plants, just people the Editors know and ask to write sensation.
Anyway, I have been here a few years too, and noted the salacious aspect of the cover, along with the glaring editorial miss of spelling and grammar errors, becoming an everyday occurrence.
Candace - Jostlin' testes harder, what a name.
Too much. It's not enough that she(judging from the avatar) is murdering animals daily but then some poster is all, " You uptight Peta people!," It doesn't take a Peta person to uh.... find ... uh... fault... with insane sociopathy, son!
Next she'll get a job here for her vivid portraits of killing babies. Then, the Pulitzer for her new age approach to torturing the elderly.
Just a note to non jews: That cover story in no way represents jewish traditions.
It was sick...just fucking sick.
Frankly, I think everyone in OS worries way too much about the cover and about ratings...(they truly should not matter to anyone with self-confidence)...but to give this sick piece of shit special placement is way, way over the top.
Hitler got Time Magazine's Man of the Year once...but at least there seemed to be rhyme and purpose to that move. The cover slot for the "I kill animals with traps and pry the jaws open so I can get at their fur" was disgusting...and whoever in OS allowed it to be on the cover ought to be part of the nation's unemployed immediately.
"Animals are not put on this earth so that you can work through your grief by taking away their lives. We have psychologists and therapists and even mental institutions to help you do that."
I'm sorry I read it, actually.
Rita - "salacious" is the perfect word for the situation, and one which I never remember, unfortunately. I wouldn't begin to guess if there were any plants. I have a bad feeling there are plenty of people out there willing to become transitory spectacles. That we're part of an organization that encourages this makes me kind of ill.
Joan H. - oh, dear. It won't improve your day.
You're right, this is low even by OS standards. I was sickened by what I read there and if the editors allow this trash to remain on the front page then I have lost all respect for the editorial staff. It really makes me question why I stay here at all.
I've never complained about the cover until now. This was too much.
Rita - ditto on Fernsy.
Scarlett Sumac - don't read it. I wish I hadn't.
And in case you haven't already read this multiple times
FIE, EMILY
Maybe this guy killing living animals makes him feel alive again. Bathing in the blood of animals can be cathartic. Perhaps he'll try humans next and blog it.
FUCK HIM and the dead animals he rides in on. This is complete slime. I'm as disgusted as you.
And let me add, fuck the editors for putting this creepy shit up there, AND ...........
FUCK ALL THE EDITORS, not for the piece itself but the title: THE JOY OF FAT SEX. Zanelle has a piece up and it seems to be about just this one and I intend to get over there and comment as well. What is wrong with salon?
That said, I want to add that for two plud days I have tried to read and write and it's been impossible. Stalls and stalls and stalls and more stalls. It is obvious why writers are leaving here by the busload.
If this person was my student in a college context, I would take them by the hand to the college counseling services, immediately, where they would be treated as a serious case. I have done so multiple times, won't go into details, but students who revealed that they were killing/harming animals were considered ill enough to be put on medical leave from the college.
After the Virginia Tech massacre, our faculty was briefed about signs to be aware of in art and writing. Killing small animals was at the top of the list. It was also a practice of the Virginia tech shooter. My serious concerns are with the poster, the people in the poster's sphere (students?!), and of course the creatures whose lives she feels entitled to take in order to soothe herself. OS and the cover is immaterial in this light.
I'm very jewish and all her talk about impurity and jewish traditions are reserved for the orthodox. She doesn't strike me as an orthodox jew. Then again, how wild that some Orthodox jewish woman is in the forest trapping animals, when not making gefilte fish in the kitchen. I pity the Gefilte, pre-mortem( badabum. sorry.)
This should be an open call. What awful nutjob think can we write to assure a cover story. Anyone game?
BV wrote an amazing piece a few days ago that made the cover. it was about bad blood between her father and grandfather that she was caught up in as a child. it was some of the best prose this site has *ever* seen. and it got an EP and a spot on the cover, which should be a good thing. but look at the quote that is the cover hook:
“At six or seven, I didn't have a word for what I felt, abandoned by two men I loved, holding a vile candy bar that cost so much.”
― Bellwether Vance
does that sound like what the piece is really about, or does it sound more like it might be about something ... else?
my own experience a couple weeks ago. i wrote a piece about the massive power outage on a horrifically hot night in san diego, about a compelling need to write, about the fact that my brother has cancer. and the quote that made the cover? was about how i put a pillow between my thighs (to put my ipad on, conveniently not mentioned).
what the fuck is going on around here?
Good writing never makes it to the front page, while copycats become Editor's Picks. Who's monitoring this site? Twinks?
On another topic, what's the matter with the OS servers? Trying to get access to OS sometimes is like watching grass grow!
My post that made the cover in March was quoted on the one line I wish they'd missed. Now I know better.
As for the cover, it seems like a different site to the posts that are on top feed.
I appreciate your writing about this -- thanks again for the warning!
Angry Monkey will post it for me though as I've already posted my award winning piece this day!! Thank you!!! :D
But Emily - FIE.
I actually started this on Fridahy but waited until this morning to post it.
Similar minds.....
I would like to thank the original poster for inspiring me!! KILL ALL HUMANS!! GRRRRRRR!!!
Tink says, "I am brilliant, ain't I?" then went to the litter box for some RnR time!! :D
LKWalker's piece is still on the Cover.
I really hope I get an EP and Cover too with my tearful story of my grand daddy's death!! ~WEEP~
BAD EMILY, for sure.
FIE!.
I give up.
Fie, Emily.
I didn't see anything about trapping for her own food in the post. Nor about trapping for furs to sell (not that that would make it any better - I'm against that). So the blurb is misleading.
Checked back. She mentions trapping martin, muskrat, squirrel and rabbit. I don't know about eating martin or muskrat (urk) and squirrels can carry some virus that makes them iffy, or so I've read.
The editor made it look as if the piece says something it doesn't actually say...read the blurb on the cover...and try to find it in the essay.
This must be a friend of someone in OS...getting some free publicity for whatever reason. Cannot imagine it is money. If it is sex...I hope the sex is great.
This was my comment on her blog:
Thank you for writing this. I found this post because of a post another OS member wrote in outrage about this making the cover. I expected to find a story about someone torturing kittens in front of an altar covered with red cloth and black candles. I didn't expect to read more than a paragraph before "Flagging" it.
But I grew up hunting. I can't say I ever "needed" to in an economic sense, my family wasn't starving. But the fall deer was a welcome addition to the freezer, and small game was as well. Groundhogs we killed just for being Groundhogs. ( I'm not talking about cute little anthropomorphic weather predictors- I'm talking the kind that can chew up a whole garden and endless rows of crops in a single day and dig holes for cows and horses to step in and break legs, and undermine creek banks so they collapse under a herd- that kind of groundhog )
Besides, there was a strong ethic that if you were going to eat meat, you owed it to the animal which fed you, and to yourself, to understand what that meant. It meant taking the life of another being. You did this not in anger or in blood lust, but in deep appreciation and gratitude for the "spirit" which animated both you, and the animal which grew its body to feed you.
I quit hunting years ago, but I still know that every bite of Big Mac or Chicken McNugget was once a living breathing creature, with life and feelings. I also know that the spirit of that creature has returned to the godhead, perhaps to return with another body, perhaps not. That said, I find it hard to kill spiders crickets and flies at this point, much less cuddly mammals.
I've found it very hard to euthanize beloved pets when they reached the age and degree of sickness, that it was time. But as you have learned and are learning, it is the cycle of life. my condolences, sympathy and love on the death of your father.
May I sincerely suggest to anyone who was offended by this story, that you think about where that package of muscle you have on your grill came from, and if you are so moved, become a vegetarian. That is not a snarky comment. it is meant to make you think about the things this writer has thought about.
A new one today is complaining about anonymous people criticizing people on the internet.
Probably the most disturbing thing I've seen on the front page. Sometimes, disturbing is good. Not this time. It boggles my mind that it got an Editor's Pick.
I didn't read the part where she eats the animals, just the part about playing with their dead carcasses and the one line, think it's at the end, is where my comment came from ---- the story itself in general feels like 'My life as a serial killer---chapter one: My name is Dexter'.
"These animals would die, whether by my hand, or by another. Every person I loved would die, whether by my hand, or by another. All I could do, to make sense of my world, was a good deed of truth. I would grieve, and I would praise. I would spend my time with death, so that I could spend my time with life, truly alive."
And another line in the middle of the piece ----
"Nearly every day now, I kill things.
It is more than the fact that I eat meat and I squish bugs. Every day in my traps I kill small or large, beautiful and furred creatures.
When I extract their bodies from the heavy steel jaws of the traps, I hold them in my hands, and marvel at the beauty of their bodies. At the adaptations each species has made to perfect it for the job of living. The gorgeous dinosaur-like tail of the beaver, scaly and hard. Its long curved teeth that make our axes and saws look like child’s play. The dexterous, articulated fingers of the muskrat. The razor sharp pointed teeth of the marten. The winter white fur of the hare.
These creatures are perfectly designed, perfectly fit into their environments. And in my hands, they are dead. "
Of course, I guess the author got her worth, people are talking about it, otherwise, it probably would slipped under the radar as another piece forgotten(there is a lot of them!).
It sounds like she needs more help than what a bunch of sniveling bunch of bloggers such as ourselves can give!!
~shrug~
~wanders off~
"All of these kinds of things do happen on the internet, they do.
However, IF you are referring to comments on your last article, which I was going to leave alone, those comments sound much more like concern and horror for how you are dealing with death, how you CAUSE death to something else as panacea for your grief, rather than as mean and angry rants, which there are plenty of out there online.
While OS editors have covered this as trapping food now that your post has been flagged multiple times today, you didn't say anything about eating, or making fur coats, or any other use for these corpses other than you are just killing animals. With prayers you say, but how do the prayers mean something if you are just wasting those animals' lives without use?
Grief is so powerful, I understand grief so horribly powerful it takes over a body and mind.
Transferring that pain to another living creature by killing it just to make yourself feel better is just wrong, and more, it is disturbing. You and your post disturbed many people.
As for the ending?
Some might say society's 'breakdown' might have more to do with lack of respect for life, while concerned comments toward your actions might be a sign society is still very much intact and worried about you.
I am truly sorry for the loss of your father."
I did think her post on tidiness kind of funny....except for the part about animal bones strewn on the floor, which I now am wondering about.
Okay, that was snarky, sorry.
Anyone know what wine goes with human flesh?
Monkey says Thunderbird.
I'm leaning towards MD20/20!
Hello?
All I've got to say is - What the hell is up with you people? I've got to go along with Token & Mojo on this one.
No mention of torturing animals anywhere. Killing them yes, but man has been killing animals for millenia and often enough for reasons not very different than those stated here.
And, regardless of what you think about the content, the writing is great.
I never ran I trap line myself, but I had many friends who did, mostly before school. my assumption, is, of course, that she was tanning and selling the furs, or trying to learn how to (She gets into the process of tanning a rabbit skin) the morality of that in itself is a debate for another time. The one thing my uncle (who taught me about hunting) would become outraged about was the thought of "Killing for sport". This brings up a whole philosophical debate within the "hunting Community", there are those of us who would like to see an open season on "Trophy" hunters. But so long as they don't leave the meat to rot, (it feeds many a guides' family) I can't say too much about it.
This brings up the whole "killing without purpose" question. How many kids have shot a songbird with their first bb gun, only to learn they couldn't undo it? Educational? Hopefully.
I remember having thoughts similar to hers, as I skinned and cleaned animals who had just minutes ago been walking around. It is an education. Far better she should take out her learning experience in a way at least marginally approved by society. Better than experimenting by torturing pets, or humans. I see no mention of the joy of torturing helpless beasts.
I was a merciless killer of frogs in about the 3rd grade, I needed no other justification than that i needed their bodies to explore biology. Many animals and people have died contributing to our understanding of our world. Is the search for understanding an inappropriate use of killing? That would certainly put a new complexion on most of our wars.
Anyway, to answer your question, No I have always lived by the dictum of, if you kill it, you eat it.
Except for groundhogs, roaches and T-partiers, those it's okay to kill just for being what they are.
My supposition is that she was attempting to learn the ways of trapping, and it is not a "sport" for the soft hearted. (one reason I never ran a trap line- I can shoot an animal, but not trap it- chacun a son gout) At any rate, she writes well about her experience and her perceptions. I happen to believe ( Read that "know in a way that causes me to act on it as truth) that all spirit returns to the godhead, and that that is no more than saying that when you stop playing world of war craft and leave virtual world, you find out who you always were. Same for animals. No death. just change.
That said, I've decided that i will go for a cover by exploring the wonderful world of Dolcett in a post (Warning- do not find out any more about Dolcett unless you want to have to wash your eyes and mind out with bleach) THERE's something to worry about.
The author is supposed to be a meditation and yoga teacher, who "every day" kills "small or large, beautiful and furred creatures" in her traps.
This no doubt makes for some interesting conversations in the meditation hall, and probably also makes for a very busy schedule.
I imagine the following situations:
Towards the end of the meditation class, the trapper-teacher says "Class, I'd like to spend more time discussing the Lotus Sutra, but I have to go work my trap line five miles north of Forest Canyon." Or perhaps --
Student: "Teacher, with respect to diet, what do you recommend for the student of yoga?"
Trapper-teacher: "I recommend a diet with lots of meat from animals that you kill by yourself. For example, today I brought a squirrel stir-fry for lunch. Yesterday I had a stew made from someone's toy poodle that wandered into one of my traps." Or maybe
Student: "Teacher, that's an interesting outfit you have on today. I haven't seen anything like that before . . . . "
Trapper-teacher: "Well, my pants are made from wolverine hides that I stitched together. And my shirt is 100 percent rabbit fur, with buttons made out of elk antler. I find that clothing made from animal skin is ideal for yoga." Or perhaps
Trapper-teacher: "Ok class, let's take 30 minutes for lunch. I brought an extra beaver sandwich if anyone wants one." Or maybe
"Trapper-teacher: "Class, watch where you step. I put my skinning knife somewhere and can't find it. Has anyone seen my skinning knife?"
I mean really. The whole thing is absurd.
The author's bio also states that she has written a hockey-based rock opera musical, a novel, and a book about the business of yoga.
Given her success on Open Salon, already with several cover posts, I wonder if OS management recruited her. I imagine the following ad:
"Online venue seeks writer for prominent place on the cover page. Must have written at least one novel and one musical. Must have experience in Judaism, meditation, yoga, hockey, and killing furred animals. Respond with cover letter and resume to open.editor@salon.com. Salary DOE."
Myriads comments and JT's comment are cracking me up. Any story of hre mentionging animal bones is now suspect , to say the least.
not just the decay
for that they hand out degrees at Columbia and elsewhere...
for aiding and abetting
thankfully I'm not qualified
Serially busy anyway: "Since leaving New York City she has lived in New Zealand, Ecuador, British Columbia, The Yukon, Montana, Mexico, Maine, Vermont, Colorado and Sweden...She has worked as a waitress, bartender, welder, snowboard instructor, baker, goatherder, trapper, yoga instructor, theater director, rock picker, horse trainer and musician...Her hobbies include playing ice hockey, kayaking, skiing, hiking, swimming, bow-making and hammock swinging."
LOL LOL, Mishima!!!
I just showed this to my mother and she is convinced that this woman is just an insane antisemite. My sister (who is very lazy,) just read it, and said, " Why doesn't she just keep her apartment filthy, and set out mouse traps."
We all are not only struggling with how OS put this on the cover but the logistics of where this woman does her "trapping."
Lines from her new musical,
" Downward dogs and tortured hogs ,"
Or "- Kubler Ross had had it all wrong."
"Every day I hear a yelp from my lawn
I go out to see freshly killed fawn.
It's a beautiful new dawn."
Titles by me. Song from sister.
You are so f***ing funny, sister.
Thank goodness you're here!
More lyrics? Yes, work is dull today...
Yes, a beautiful dawn, a crow on the lawn
how can I trap? It'll be a snap
once those feathers are mine
a lunch, a coat, a hat, will be fine!
Oh yeah, I don't eat these,
I'll send it to Emily's...
I did say a prayer, so anti-killers, not fair!
(bring in chorus)
Godhead Schmodhead? Seriously? My lord, your wisdom shatters my cosmology and leaves it as dust. So, Oh learned One, what happens to YOU, (or any other creature's being) when the body dies? Your irrefutable explanation should be at least worth a cover. I suspect you are just mocking me because you are Islamophobic. (Sufi, actually, I recently converted)
Horns of a Dilemma - heh. Yeah, do not be exposing your underbelly for death pornographers to be sticking sharp blades into. Sorry - I'm having the worst day regarding ending sentences with prepositions, I am than disturbed.
FIE, EMILY.
It's not that I don't care about your opinion, but you could express yourself in more understandable terms. I don't require that anyone believe as I do. I do require that you respect the fact that I believe as I do, if you want me to respect your beliefs. I no where found any mention of "grooving on" the death of small animals. I read a thoughtful reflection upon death. Were animals killed in the process? yes. I recall reading a biography of John James Audubon when I was young, and being horrified how coldly he collected "specimens" so he could paint them. Man kills animals. Man kills man. All mortals die. I would like to hear your belief in what comes after. JKWalkers thoughtful writing is certainly no more cruel than would be any Native American' s explication of his relation to his world and its creatures.
I can't really believe that it had become Editor's pic.Someone must have found a leek to get such repulsing stuff on the front page.
If you intent to leave this place,please let us know.
BUT:I would like you to stay here.
Frank:I am glad to find you here with your distinct comment.I agree with you to the fullest in every word you asid.
Thank you for being around.
It becomes Soylent Green!!!!
What?
:D
Nothing is mentioned of eating said animals, making use of the fur other than beginning to tan the skin (for what?), no needles made from bones, nothing that shows the honor to the animal at all except words of a grieving human who killed them to feel better about herself, to feel alive again, herself.
That does not honor an animal's life, it demeans it, in my opinion.
I would love a Native American who practices traditional hunting and ritual to weigh in on this aspect, but it might not matter even then.
She made it clear the only reason she kills is to feel more alive herself. That's disturbed.
No, No, the BODY becomes soylent green, your soul is eaten by demons.
@Mumbltypeg
I don't mean to insult your serious feelings about this by making light of it, but making light of death is one of the ways of handling it. Where you saw death porn, I saw a young woman, who may be just a bit of a tree-hugger for my taste, contemplating the reality of death. No one gets to avoid it, we all face it in different ways. If you want to see what I consider "Death Porn", go help at a Humane Society on a day when they are Euthanizing unwanted animals. That will break your heart. But you already know this, you've had to go through it yourself. As have I. you certainly have a right to your opinions and feelings, and I enjoy your posts. But I don't see here what you and others see. The only thing i can say about the formation of my opinion about trapping is that my friends basically looked at each dead muskrat as another quarter in their pocket. Sadly, many of them still do. I worry more about them than I do about JKWalker.
Tink - sniveling bloggers are hopeless at therapy - you are so right!
Linn and Noseethian and Jeannette deMain - I didn't mean to overlook you. I'm just not reacting well to this. Thank you for commenting.
Wash, flush, and floss.
I just found out this:
Browser is not a dog.
I thought it was a mutt.
You not a snoozer pup.
You look like a poodle.
`
I just blogged. I way behind.
The faster we go we get butts.
We get bigger behind butts.
`
I heard a madman ran into the Capital.
Canadian secret service said he's loose.
He ran into the politicos office building.
Canadians said: "To find a nut there is to:
`
Be looking for a nut in an American nuthouse.
To find a madman farmer in the Capital Hell is:
To look and find a needle in a barnyard haystack.
I been jailed, drunk, sober, and I still look for one:
One woman who no kick me out of the house for bad:
Garlic breath. Odors.
Garlic's a aphrodisiac.
No break wind in bed.
Here was my response:
I kinda sensed this would lead to a “you eat meat because someone else killed something—and you wear a belt made of leather from an animal someone killed.”
Bullshit.
As I once said to a hunter friend of mine: “Yup, someone did kill the animals whose flesh I ate last night…but I don’t have a fucking cow’s head on the wall of my den. And I didn’t ride through town with a carcass strapped to the fender of my pick-up…with my chest swelled with pride because I dared to stalk the deadly white-tailed deer in big dangerous forest with a rifle or shotgun.”
You assholes wanna impress me…do your hunting like the original Americans did when they trekked into herds of bison with a bow and arrow; hunt a whale with a harpoon from a kayak; stalk an elephant with a spear like an African pygmy; or face down a Grizzly Bear with a Bowie knife. Then I will be impressed.
But to call yourself a hunter or try to justify the horseshit you are trying to sell here the way you are is a joke.
Tink - wine coolers. The pink ones.
Why are you reacting so viscerally to this? What buttons did it push to cause you to see things that aren't there?
The post in question is not horrid writing - its very good writing regardless of how you feel about the content.
There is no indication that the writer is a sociopath. I presume you are referring to those who are found to have tortured small animals as children before moving on to other things as adults. That is not here.
You are making up things that ARE NOT in the post. It is not "death porn" - what compels you to interpret it that way? It is not evil.
I am so glad Mumbletypeg brought this to our attention.
Bellwether: I tried the eating puppies thing. I'd stick to damp sex with dolphins.
No, No, the BODY becomes soylent green, your soul is eaten by demons."
Damn those demons!!!
What if I got no soul?
Then I get to become Ed I Tor in the next life?
EVERYBODY GET EPS then!! :D
What, we killed another bloggers dream of greatness? And a movie contract?
EVEN BETTER!! Good night everyone!!!! :D
WINE COOLERS FOR EVERYBODY!!!
Which maybe answers your question, MarkinKentuckiana. Yes, it pushed buttons, but for you to say it was about things that weren't there indicates more about you than me.
http://lkwalker.com/2007/11/i-trapper/
or here:
http://lkwalker.com/2006/08/letter-to-the-anti-furs/
I know most of you have no experience of such wilderness life, but those of us who have know exactly what she is saying, and cruelty or "Socio/Psycho pathy has nothing to do with it.
The "adult" who has reached "manhood" (finally:after 40 yrs)
tells me that this was an incident of supreme misjudgment to be
followed up by a sincere apology to all of us.
The "still a kid" in me still has hope, and a wild imagination, and
thinks this is a fine brilliant strategic move to raise confidence and
comraderie among the morally developed of us osers
in order to start writing more beautiful, clever stuff
and making every one else cleverer by osmosis
and making os a salon of the most gifted.
i will not tell you what the old man in me thinks...
She's running a trapline - killing animals for their fur. Whatever you think of it, that's what she's doing.
Would your prefer that she be incapable of appreciating the beauty of the animals after she's killed them? Would you prefer that she be incapable of writing eloquently about it? Is rubbing her face in the fur any different than deer hunters smearing blood on the face of someone who has made their first kill?
It was to the point(look who's talking!! Teehee!! My posts ramble and I am a serial killer!! :D) and I didn't feel like I was reading the diaries of Dexter.
Sorry, her post on here wasn't either of those posts, I stand by my decision....she was Dexter's sister-in-fileting, Amanda Huggenkiss!!
~nods~
~wanders off~
And just in case I haven't said it enough - FIE, Emily.
@Myriad
Having stated that you don't care about my beliefs, and that you don't care if I respect your's or not, what makes you think any of the "assholes rubbing deer-blood on the forehead of first-time killer" (something I've never seen done) care whether you are Ok with it or not? Why should they? (Seriously?-Why? when you make no effort to understand?)
On a larger note, the thought of abortion makes me uncomfortable-- yet I recognize that it comes under the heading of "None of my Business" let's not even get into the "killing cuddly animals" vs "killing Babies" debate.
Why are you only reacting/responding to that single thing?
Why do you refuse to address my questions? Why do you fall back on invective rather than reasoned argument?
What are your underlying assumptions that are making you react this way? Why are you resorting to name-calling instead of discussion?
Why do you feel you can judge others and that your judgement is absolute?
Where did I state that I thought you'd be "OK" with that practice.
The fact that you don't like it does not invalidate it as an expression of acknowledging the animal that has just been killed.
You said, "Is rubbing her face in the fur any different than deer hunters smearing blood on the face of someone who has made their first kill?" Which equates the two but presumes I'd see some difference. I don't.
And, hell, this judge-not stuff is silly - we all judge all the time. All the deer-hunters (most of whom do it for 'sport', not food, even those who end up eating some of the meat) of course don't give a shit about my judging them....but it's interesting to note that Ms Walker apparently can't abide the judging that's gone on here.
Not that it really matters, but i was referring to the two articles for which I gave the urls. I never trapped, but I've hunted, and the story she posted here just assumed that the context would be obvious. It was to me on first read. I'm sorry it was not to those of you who were offended.
It appears you have some reading comprehension issues, because you keep responding to things that aren't there - both in the original post and comments. You respond to what you imagine has been said.
To the best of my recollection, the positive statements I have made about LKWalker's post addressed her strong writing ability, not the subject matter. I do not believe you will find any statement from me that says I'm OK with it - I haven't said one way or the other.
I am not so much defending her as I am attacking you for thinking that your beliefs allow you to make such harsh judgments about others - evil, sociopath - when they are only your beliefs, not universal truth.
I am attacking you for resorting to name calling rather than reasoned discussion when someone opposes you. You remind me of someone who can only scream I'M RIGHT, I'M RIGHT, and sticks their fingers in their ears going LA-LA-LA-LA-LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU when someone else tries to speak.
I'm going to bed. I've got to be at work tomorrow bright and early with the PsychoBoss.
I understand the idea behind trapping, especially for people who rely on it for an income or for food. It's nothing that I have an interest in, but as long as it is done as humanely as possible, and in accordance with reasonable state fish and game regulations, I can generally live with it.
And if someone wants to write a post about trapping, that's fine with me too. In such a post I would expect to read about the subsistence lifestyle, what it's like to live off of nature, living in a cabin and cutting your own firewood, or whatever. Again, it's not going to be my favorite post, but I get it.
But the post in question -- apparently since deleted -- just seemed weird to me. (As of this moment, the post is still available in a Google cache.)
Rather than being a subsistence hunter, the writer in question appears to use trapping as a way to meditate upon death by killing animals.
This is where it gets weird for me. The author talks about their beautiful, perfect, furred bodies. Well, going out on a limb here, but I suspect that those dead, beautiful, perfect, furred bodies would rather have been left alone to be their living, beautiful, perfect, furred selves. Barring that, they probably would rather have killed for the purpose of making someone's stew or helping to make someone's rent payment. Instead, they are killed so that the author can have some kind of spiritual feeling about her dead father and about death in general.
"This is my relationship with death, and it is a relationship I am compelled to have," the author writes.
While one can reasonably claim that there is some necessity behind killing animals in order to make stew or pay the rent, there certainly is no necessity behind killing animals in order to "have a relationship with death."
In my humble opinion, killing animals without necessity, in order to achieve some kind of supposed spiritual insight, is both contradictory and a desecration of spirituality.
Albert Schweitzer wrote that the truly ethical person "tears no leaf from a tree, plucks no flower, and takes care to crush no insect. If in summer he is working by lamplight, he prefers to keep his windows shut and breathe a stuffy atmosphere rather than see one insect after another fall with singed wings upon his table."
St. Isaac of Nineveh wrote: "What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation. For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm her or him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner such a person prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in the likeness of God."
Likewise in Judaism, animals can be used for food or for their skins, but only when there is a legitimate need. The Torah contains a number of commandments related to the humane treatment of animals, and these are expanded upon in the Talmud. Killing animals in order to have a "spiritual" experience is not a legitimate use of animals.
But it seems that our trapper-author knows nothing of Schweitzer or St. Isaac or Jewish law. I have to wonder if she even knows state law. Many states prohibit steel-jaw traps, but our trapper-author writes of removing "their bodies from the heavy steel jaws of the traps."
So for me it's a very weird post, a meditation on death that both motivates and is motivated by the killing of animals. The author seems to have a spiritual experience, but that experience comes with the cost of needless cruelty to animals. How the post ended up on the cover is a mystery to me.
The last post to this thread was three days ago.
LKWalker still posts on Open Salon. I think it was OS, not she, who took down the previous post so many here objected to. But she's still -- can you bear it? -- a member of this OS ?community?. I didn't "agree with" everything she wrote in that particular post, ?"but/and"? I've been almost as much concerned by all the third-person venom of reactions.
How's about, hey, a few of you get together directly? Tell one another what your feelings thoughts or objections are? How many of you, here, have been in touch with her directly?
Couldn't some of all of this Open Salon noise [sic, if I must?] been avoided had you done that?
"Oh well" ... color me "old", o.k.? Not meaning to be insensitive to the many issues, but "couldn't we all jes get along"??
I mean ... maybe tomorrow, or the next day? After the posts on this particular discussion/argument could perhaps be ... well, um ... stopped?
"jes sayin'" -- if you disagree, do tell me so! ;-)
The last post to this thread was three days ago.
LKWalker still posts on Open Salon. I think it was OS, not she, who took down the previous post so many here objected to. But she's still -- can you bear it? -- a member of this OS ?community?. I didn't "agree with" everything she wrote in that particular post, ?"but/and"? I've been almost as much concerned by all the third-person venom of reactions.
How's about, hey, a few of you get together directly? Tell one another what your feelings thoughts or objections are? How many of you, here, have been in touch with her directly?
Couldn't some of all of this Open Salon noise [sic, if I must?] been avoided had you done that?
"Oh well" ... color me "old", o.k.? Not meaning to be insensitive to the many issues, but "couldn't we all jes get along"??
I mean ... maybe tomorrow, or the next day? After the posts on this particular discussion/argument could perhaps be ... well, um ... stopped?
"jes sayin'" -- if you disagree, do tell me so! ;-)
They Do.
STOP YOU.