BS: Plant Rights

Subject: BS: Plant Rights
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 May 08 - 09:08 AM

Carrots don't scream when you peel them, at least not at frequencies we can hear. Princes sometimes talk to their plants, but do they listen for the replies?

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 May 08 - 09:20 AM

IF you plant 'rights' , what grows ??

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 30 May 08 - 10:31 AM

Don't talk to be about plant rights... my plants at work are under threat from, of all people, those who are in charge of the office environment!

I repotted some a while ago and have since been plagued with fruit flies. My reasoning is that the compost was not properly treated before being bagged for sale, or else it really is a Miracle gro.

The environmental people put down some insect monitoring traps which of course, are now filled with deceased fruit flies. Rather than dealing with the problem bugs, They say that the plants must go!

I'm going to be staying late tonight to repot in fresh compost (and hope it's been treated with pesticide) and have a squirt around with a fly spray to try and break the cycle but they were going to condemn my poor plants without a second thought to the environment that they improve with their lovely wide leaves and cheery flowers.

Ho hum....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 30 May 08 - 10:51 AM

I'm a firm believer in the rights of plants, with the exception of various species of obnoxiously invasive vines such as smilax (catbriar), honeysuckle, wild grape and wild blackberry. I have accumulated a full arsenal of devices intended specifically for the purpose of denying them their rights, but they don't seem to care. They merely thumb their little green noses at my futile attempts to control them and reassert their rights within a few days.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 May 08 - 11:35 AM

Usually if you simply take off the top 1/2 inche of soil and replace it you'll have picked up the part of the dirt they are breeding in. And you might want to try something like a liquid mix with NEEM in it.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Peace
Date: 30 May 08 - 12:38 PM

"Plant Rights"

Plant Lefts, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Acorn4
Date: 30 May 08 - 01:45 PM

Someone did a song about this at a local club recently -can't remember who wrote it but remeber the line:-

"All we are saying is give peas a chance".

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Peace
Date: 30 May 08 - 01:49 PM

Nobody's talking about
Snow peas, canned peas, bagged peas, green peas,
Peas mmmm, peas mmmm, peas mmmm

All we are saying is give peas a chance
All we are saying is give peas a chance

You can get them at any market
Ingles Market, Central market, even Target
Albertson's and Martin's and Shop Rite and Price Rite
And buy peas, buy peas

All we are saying is give peas a chance

"Give Peas a Chance"

Credited to Mike Littoris at the site I got it from.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Peace
Date: 30 May 08 - 01:50 PM

It's a noble thought:



Whirled peas.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 May 08 - 02:36 PM

I am bothered by the finding that veggies do scream when they're picked, just not at a frequency we can hear without technology.

I liked it better when we thought they didn't.

But I still eat veggies!

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 08 - 02:39 PM

Hell, cows, little lambs and bunnies, and pigs and naugahs scream when picked, too.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Peace
Date: 30 May 08 - 02:46 PM

"Hell, cows, little lambs and bunnies, and pigs and naugahs scream when picked, too."

. . . and also some electric guitars.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Bobert
Date: 30 May 08 - 04:02 PM

'Round this farm some plants have 'um and other ain't got none at all... Burdock has zero rights but the way it grows you'd think it thought purdy highly of itself... You gotta go down 'bout a foot to get nuff root to kill the sumabich...

But now take one of the pepper plants that the P-Vine has grown from seed and are 'bout a week from goin' in the veggie garden an they are only up about 4 or 6 inches and these little guys have all the rights in the world... And they get talked real purdy to, too...

Then there's everybody else on the plant hierarchy and I must confess that beauty is in the eye of the beholder... I like thissle and have some that I let grow that if the P-Vine knew I was let growin' that we'd need another thread entitled "Bobert rights???"...

...lol...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: gnu
Date: 30 May 08 - 04:09 PM

But, what about plant rites?

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 May 08 - 05:35 PM

Brother Bernard SSF of Hilfield Friary once wrote of a meeting between Br Bonaventure of Portiuncula and Leonardo Boff, in the Brother's garden.

Boff comments on the beauty, variety and order of the garden but then notices an unruly, bushy green plant. "Brother Bonaventure, what is that?" he asks. Bonaventure replies "They are our sisters, the weeds, I let them grow there because they too are daughters of God, and they sing the beauty of God."

Weeds are just different flowers in the wrong place.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 May 08 - 07:52 PM

...And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed ("shedding," as he called it finely, "the green blood of the silent animals"), and predicted that men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called "Why should Salt suffer?" and there was more trouble. (The Napoleon of Noting Hill, GK Chesterton.)

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 31 May 08 - 02:52 AM

For those who believe in equal rights for plants and animals... a cautionary tale (which, incidentally really ought to be put in the DT, it's on a thread but not the DT....)


LUMLEY KETTLEWELL
Graham & Eileen Pratt

I'll sing of Lumley Kettlewell, a man of Yorkshire fame
In Bolton Percy he was born and there he made his name
Although a wealthy farmer's son, & posessed of health most rude
He spent his whole life trying to prove that no-one needed food

Chorus:
In spite of Lumley Kettlewell and all he had to say
It seems that man was born to eat until his dying day

Now you might think him funny, or consider him berserk
But think of the advantages if Lumley's theory worked
Goodbye to indigestion and adieu to diarrhea
A little abdominal emptiness is all you'd have to fear

The strictest of experiments he ably carried through
He starved his dog, he starved his horse, he starved his donkey too
To cure their dreadful habit, of eating between gaps
And when success was in his grasp, the poor beasts just collapsed

He saw food as an evil and disdained a good square meal
Plates of chips and Yorkshore pud for him had no appeal
He practiced and he practiced to perfect the food-free day
And just when he'd perfected it, the poor sod passed away

So when the final trumpets blow and mortals bow down low
To those grand men of science who taught us all we know
With Einstein, Pasteur, Curie too, let Lumley take his seat
His failure proves that truth of truths, you die unless you eat:

(Best recorded version - Nick Dow on 'A poor mans gift')

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Gurney
Date: 31 May 08 - 03:33 AM

Naugahs, Peace?   


Am I walking into a trap?

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Melissa
Date: 31 May 08 - 04:18 AM

I think they're mostly harvested for their pelts, Gurney..not much meat on a naugah.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: gnu
Date: 31 May 08 - 05:01 AM

Hard to find too... they hide so well.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: topical tom
Date: 31 May 08 - 05:18 PM

Carrot Juice is Murder by the Arrogant Worms

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 01 Jun 08 - 05:48 PM

Buried away in here is a serious question (perhaps better phrased as, "does vegetation have a right to exist?"). There seem to be a lot of people who unthinkingly believe that it doesn't.

The American writer, Jared Diamond tells an alarming story in his book, 'Collapse: Why Civilisations Fail'. Apparently, in Australia all land belongs to the government and is leased to farmers.
Much Australian land has a layer of salt below the surface and this salt is held in a sort of equilibrium by the native vegetation.
The government made it a condition of agricultural leases that the tenants must clear the native vegetation from the land - and this brought the salt to the surface, rendering it useless for agriculture.
But the government stubbornly continued with its land clearance condition. Worse still, during the latter part of the Twentieth century, the value of Australian agriculture to the Australian economy went into decline whilst tourism became more important.
One of the most significant regions for tourism is the Great Barrier Reef. But, as a result of the land clearance the Reef was being damaged by salty run-off into the ocean. According to Diamond the policy of land clearance is being changed now - but almost too late.

The folly described above is not unusual and, undoubtedly White Australians brought their almost atavistic 'hostility' to vegetation with them from Europe (OK, the UK!).
We all know about deforestation and how it is now generally thought to be a 'bad thing' - but still it goes on, all over the world, and the more it is deplored the faster it seems to happen.

The other day I went for a walk near my home in the suburbs of a big, Northern UK city. I walked across an area of sports pitches, several acres in extent. It was a Sunday afternoon, at the height of the football season, and there was not a person in sight - let alone a 'sports person'. The area was one vast mono-culture - probably Perennial Rye Grass. All 'native' vegetation was long gone. And I think that there are powerful forces at work in our society and in the wider world who believe this to be wholly a good thing - complex and varied eco-systems are 'untidy' and 'anarchic' and must be either rigidly controlled or ruthlessly exploited.

We are now beginning to get an inkling of where this sort of thinking leads - but I suspect that it will continue unabated until it is far too late for us and for the world's ecosysytems.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Rowan
Date: 01 Jun 08 - 07:21 PM

Apparently, in Australia all land belongs to the government and is leased to farmers.

If this is exactly what Jared Diamond wrote, Shimrod, it is one of the rare occasions he's got it wrong. When I last checked (~30 odd years ago) land in the ACT and the NT was leashold (on 99 year leases, apparently) as was much rural land in western Queensland. When the Texans of King Ranch wanted to establish themselves in Queensland the then state govt (who wanted them to do so) was forced to change relevant legislation so that such land became freehold. Since Eddie Mabo's victory in the High Court in 1983 (declaring the application of Terra nullius in Australia to be null and void, Native Title has also had an effect on the amount of "unalienated Crown Land" (ie land that isn't National Parks etc) in most jurisdictions.

Much Australian land has a layer of salt below the surface and this salt is held in a sort of equilibrium by the native vegetation.
The government made it a condition of agricultural leases that the tenants must clear the native vegetation from the land - and this brought the salt to the surface, rendering it useless for agriculture.

It's rarely a layer of salt that is below the surface of the soil; rather it is the usual mineral salts that are routinely present in soils. Without the removal of water in the soil caused by plants' transpiration (especially the deep-rooted ones that take the water from deeper down) the water table rises close to the surface and sometimes produces pools at the surface. The water carries anything that's dissolved in it (here, the salts usually in soils) and these are left close to or at the surface when the water evaporates. Many parts of the Western Australian wheat belt and the Murray Darling Basin are affected by this process, even though scientists employed by the Soil Conservation Authority of Victoria demonstrated its occurrence and implications in the 1930s. And while the taxation encouragement for "clearance" was removed in (approx.) the late 80s-early 90s, parts of Queensland were still being legally cleared until a year or so ago. But some landowners in northern NSW are stll doing it, illegally but without sanctions being applied.

One of the most significant regions for tourism is the Great Barrier Reef. But, as a result of the land clearance the Reef was being damaged by salty run-off into the ocean.

The runoff affecting the reef doesn't have salt as the problem but acid. The coastal strip is largely sugar cane farms that were developed on relatively swampy soils. Soils that are continually wet and poorly drained often have the iron in them bound as sulphite or sulphide; in such a relatively anaerobic environment these salts are relatively immobile. When the soils are drained to allow agriculture, oxygen penetrates the soil structure and reacts with the iron salts so that iron oxides and sulphurous/sulphuric acids are produced. The soils are then described as "acid sulphate soils" and can have a pH of 2 or even less; this is roughly the same as the acid in you car battery. The rainfall washes the (more soluble, now) acid out of the soil and it's the acid that's affecting the Reef.

And, yes, it was a local plant physiologist of my acquaintance who recorded noises from the stems of the tomato plants in his lab as he cut them; I think it was he who described them as "Screams". And, I confess, whenever I've been on the receiving end of a vegan rant it's usually ended when I accused them of perving on the private parts of plants (their flowers) or unthinkingly aborting wheat foetuses whenever eating bread.

And I once heard an apologist consultant for the mining industry give a paper on Mineral Liberation and the rights of copper atoms to be liberated from deep entombment; he pretended at the time to be an independent antropologist.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: RangerSteve
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 12:31 AM

Thistles have no rights in my yard. I understand that they're sort of like a national flower in Scotland, so if any of you Scots are offended, you are welcome to come over here and dig them out and take them home with you. Someone earlier made a reference to weeds as "the daughters of God", well, thistles are the ungrateful daughers that rebelled for no reason, other than that they could, and are hanging out with punkrockers and Goths, getting drunk and pregnant while they're still young, selling and doing meth and crack, and beating up their siblings. That isn't permitted here, and even though the flower isn't bad looking, they have to go.

I like dandelions, though. They can stay.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 04:57 AM

The Office Environmental man has been round... new fly traps have been set - the plants may get a reprieve (especially if I pick any flies off the traps with my tweezers before he sees them)!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 06:12 AM

Thanks for the clarification, Rowan.

I note that though the details may be wrong the effect of clearing native vegetation is the same - the environment, and ultimately the economy, suffers. This leads me to conclude that humanity's assault on the natural environment is ultimately irrational and all the more dangerous for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Grab
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 08:48 AM

Steve, it's not so much that "dandelions can stay". It's more that you can't get rid of the buggers once they're in!

At our last house, I reseeded the lawn. It was heavily-compacted clay so I did the job properly, digging in plenty of sand and compost to improve it (especially the top tilth). Because the "lawn" previously had mostly comprised dandelions and moss, the digging-over also involved extracting all the bits of moss and dandelion roots. You really would not *believe* how much dandelion came out of that lawn! It was one beautiful lawn when it grew, so all that work did achieve something, thank goodness.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 09:26 AM

Grab,

Dandelions and moss are plants - and so is 'grass'. Have you ever given any thought to why you favour one sort of plant over the other? And having chosen 'grass' (obviously! ...?) why you devote so much time and effort to keeping it just a few mm high?

Have you ever thought about what functions dandelions and moss serve - or were they put on Earth just to annoy you?

A friend of mine has Romanian daughter-in-law. She asked the Romanian woman, "what was the first thing that you noticed about England?". And she replied, "all the short grass - why do you need to keep the grass so short?" So your choice of plant for your back garden may not be as 'obvious' as you think.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 11:01 AM

Hydrogen peroxide seems to be an answer to a lot of plant problems. Try a squirt of grocery store strength, undiluted, on the soil of the plants. That may take care of the flies. I heard it on an organic gardening program over the weekend.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: RangerSteve
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 01:58 PM

Dandelions, as far as I'm concerned, are nice looking flowers. And since I don't have any neighbors, there's no one to complain that I'm contributing to the spread of weeds by not removing them. It would be too much work anyway. I used to just mow them down, but over the years, they seem to have evolved, now the flowers bloom when they're only an inch high, too short to be mowed.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 04:39 PM

Get enough dandelions, from a clean, mostly lead free environment, then you can make dandelion wine.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 04:48 PM

The leaves taste great in salad.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Paul Burke
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:38 AM

here you go again, heartlessly exploiting the plants. If I said it's a good idea to get a female cat, cos you can make a tasty curry with the kittens, I can imagine the response. But to SRS it's OK to rip the limbs from a living dandelion just to satisfy your gluttonous lust.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Bee
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 11:44 AM

A patch of my lawn about three by four metres in size has gradually become a carpet of Northern White Violet, a tiny violet with bright small green leaves. The violets have been blooming for three weeks now and show little sign of stopping until mid June or so, after which the leaves become more lush and a little darker. They can stay. Don't even have to mow 'em.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 12:38 PM

Okay, true story:

My brother is well known as being, well, outspoken, weird, and not given to suffering fools gladly. So when he was in college and a rabid vegetarian become overbearing in her statements about how animals felt pain and so plants were the only "ethical" things to eat, he took conducted an actual, scientifically grounded, experiment.

First, he hooked a couple of electrodes to his left arm, attached them to an oscilloscope (this was more than a few years ago, okay?), and stabbed himself in the arm with a sterilized scalpel. A friend recorded the 'scope readings of the pain.

After bandaging his arm (hey, I told you he was weird, but he didn't feel right about asking someone else to stab themself) he hooked the electrodes to a mature carrot and brutally YANKED it out of the ground.

Same sorts of 'scope readings as when he'd stabbed himself. He repeated the experiment on another carrot, but this time cut off the part sticking up above ground. He got the same "pain readings".

His conclusion was obvious: plants feel pain too.

(I also made some conclusions about my brother, but they were irrelevant to the basic experiment.)

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 11:30 PM

There's a line in Nottinghill about the carrots from a woman fruitarian (?) who eats only fruits and veggies that fell from their plant.

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 05:04 AM

YAY!! The man has been round, the insect traps are virtually empty and the plants stay!!!

Now my colleague is annoyed at the tiny bits of compost on her desk...

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Rowan
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 07:01 PM

There's no pleasing some people, Liz.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 09:38 PM

Don't Slay that Potato
Words and Music by Tom Paxton

How can you do it? It's heartless, it's cruel.
It's murder, cold-blooded, and gross.
To slay a poor vegetable just for your stew,
Or to serve with some cheese sauce on toast.
Have you no decency? Have you no shame?
Have you no conscience, you cad?
To rip that poor vegetable out of the earth,
Away from its poor mom and dad?

    [Cho:]
    Oh, no, don't slay that potato!
    Let us be merciful, please.
    Don't boil it or fry it, don't even freeze-dry it.
    Don't slice it or flake it.
    For God's sake, don't bake it!
    Don't shed the poor blood,
    Of this poor helpless spud.
    That's the worst kind of thing you could do.
    Oh, no, don't slay that potato,
    What never done nothing to you!

Why not try picking on something your size,
Instead of some carrot or bean?
The peas are all trembling there in their pod,
Just because you're so vicious and mean.
How would you like to be grabbed by your hair,
And ruthlessly yanked from your bed,
And have done to you God knows what horrible things,
To be eaten with full-fiber bread?

[Cho:]

It's no bed of roses, this vegetable life.
You're basically stuck in the mud.
You don't get around much. You don't see the sights,
When you're a carrot or celery or spud.
You're helpless when somebody's flea-bitten dog,
Takes a notion to pause for relief.
Then somebody picks you and cleans you and eats you,
And causes you nothing but grief.

[Cho:]

There ought to be some way of saving our skins.
They ought to be passing a law.
Just show anybody a cute little lamb,
And they'll all stand around and go "Aw!"
Well, potatoes are ugly. Potatoes are plain.
We're wrinkled and lumpy to boot.
But give me a break, kid. Do you mean to say,
That you'll eat us because we're not cute?

[Cho:]

Subject: RE: BS: Plant Rights
From: maeve
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 07:14 AM

Bee- Those are my favorite violets!