I was thinking...
a weird thought earlier today, as I tend to do. It didn't start that way, of course. It started with a stray thought and then blossomed into stupidity and/or madness. Here's how it went:
I was once again thinking about vegetarians. Mainly about the whole, "I won't eat anything that has a face." credo that you might occasionally hear from a skinny pale person or see on a bumper sticker or a tshirt.
I don't know why, but there I was, alone with that thought. It tried to be inconspicuous and slip away after sharing its contents with me, but I was bored so I cornered it in one of the darker places in my mind and started to twist it around a bit. To see what would happen.
The first twist was what if "Science!" manages to bioengineer a faceless animal that tasted like ice cream or something equally yummy. Would it still be considered off limits? What if it was grown from the ground? Would the word come down from the Vegan high council that the "Faceless Ice Cream Bush Critter" was approved eating? It has no face so it cannot scream any louder than a carrot...
And that's where I twisted the idea around a bit more and it took on this shape:
What if "Science!" discovers that plants actually DO have faces, we just didn't notice them until now because they are quite unlike our faces, or even animal faces, yet they ARE there? What will vegetarians eat then? I know, plants don't have organs and jiggly bits so they are entirely not animals, but they are alive. What makes their lives any less sacred than a cow?
Twist:
Cows are sacred in India, right? I wonder if bean sprouts are sacred anywhere? Perhaps "Science!" will find a lost tribe somewhere... ummm... near bean sprouts... and the scientists will learn to their horror that the tribe believes that bean sprouts house the spirits of their ancestors. They learn this because Bill, the resident vegetarian botanist (he knows good eatin' when he sees it) is spotted by members of the tribe harvesting some of their ancestor patches for his lunch and they totally freak out. Bill's last thought as the rock that will kill him is hurtling toward his head is, "This will go quite nicely with some tofu."
Okay. That's quite enough of that. Seriously. Violent bean sprout revering lost tribesmen and vegetarian botanists named Bill. That's just silly. Go away mangled thought, I'm through with you.
I was once again thinking about vegetarians. Mainly about the whole, "I won't eat anything that has a face." credo that you might occasionally hear from a skinny pale person or see on a bumper sticker or a tshirt.
I don't know why, but there I was, alone with that thought. It tried to be inconspicuous and slip away after sharing its contents with me, but I was bored so I cornered it in one of the darker places in my mind and started to twist it around a bit. To see what would happen.
The first twist was what if "Science!" manages to bioengineer a faceless animal that tasted like ice cream or something equally yummy. Would it still be considered off limits? What if it was grown from the ground? Would the word come down from the Vegan high council that the "Faceless Ice Cream Bush Critter" was approved eating? It has no face so it cannot scream any louder than a carrot...
And that's where I twisted the idea around a bit more and it took on this shape:
What if "Science!" discovers that plants actually DO have faces, we just didn't notice them until now because they are quite unlike our faces, or even animal faces, yet they ARE there? What will vegetarians eat then? I know, plants don't have organs and jiggly bits so they are entirely not animals, but they are alive. What makes their lives any less sacred than a cow?
Twist:
Cows are sacred in India, right? I wonder if bean sprouts are sacred anywhere? Perhaps "Science!" will find a lost tribe somewhere... ummm... near bean sprouts... and the scientists will learn to their horror that the tribe believes that bean sprouts house the spirits of their ancestors. They learn this because Bill, the resident vegetarian botanist (he knows good eatin' when he sees it) is spotted by members of the tribe harvesting some of their ancestor patches for his lunch and they totally freak out. Bill's last thought as the rock that will kill him is hurtling toward his head is, "This will go quite nicely with some tofu."
Okay. That's quite enough of that. Seriously. Violent bean sprout revering lost tribesmen and vegetarian botanists named Bill. That's just silly. Go away mangled thought, I'm through with you.
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