I dont think enough people took a shot at your room and switch question.Two replies is insufficient but I guess you have two schools, those that will leave it set in center position so as to not take sides and live with that guilt, or those like myself that feel that if you can spare one by choosing death for the other, then thats all you can do. Interesting.

Sky, you should rent "Sophie's Choice" You might find it engaging as its basically that situation however its her own children during war time.

You're right that not enough people took a shot at it. I was thinking I probably should have started a new thread for that question - maybe a "Part 2" type thing. My own (possibly miguided) evaluation was that it was not something that people felt comfortable enough with to even confront as a hypothetical situation. But that may have been simply because the question was in the middle of th thread instead of the OP. I dunno.

I must confess that I've stayed away from Sophie's Choice for the same reason I tend to stay away from "downwer" movies in general (and most mass media news) - they're/it's just too depressing. But one of these days I guess I'll have to watch it just because I hear it was such a great movie and I love Meryl Streep.

Maybe if I rent Finding Nemo at the same time and watch it right afterward.

Yeah. Finding Nemo was really cute. I had no idea that Ellen Degeneris was bilingual.

Coulda been dubbed. Hard to tell for sure underwater.

I don't see how you came to that conclusiong, but ok. You can't come to a non-egocentric way of torturing anyone, really. Torturing someone else is a manipulation for your own agenda.........whatever that agenda may be.

I see ur point about the dog, but it doesn't take much effort on my part to kick a dog in the nose..........and not worry about whether it was "evil" or not.

There are times, where my survival is not as important as my "heart". Death is simply a part of life. I know, it is scary as hell to face death, but it is inevitable for us all.............SO, I would rather die holding to what I value than to be stripped of it just to die later, with nothing.

It is true, you can't take anything physical with you.........but I believe you CAN take compassion, etc.

Again, just because I don't understand your "logic" doesn't mean it isn't logical, maybe a better explanation from you could help??

Roaches are evil.

Bees are good.

This is merely an opinion.

And the ANTS dear goddess?

Come to think of it, why the discrimination against whales in the first place? Every other creature in the entire move spoke English. What was the agenda there? Maybe some sort of allusion to whales being "the supreme beings" of the sea?

Oh you actually watched it? I wasnt going to give away the plot if you were going to rent it. Yeah I think everyone else did speak perfect English. I guess whales are unnaturalized ocean citizens.

Wasnt one of the Star Trek films based on alien whale beings? I cant remember which one. Spock was doing some communicating with them.

Slaves cannot have any intrinsic good or evil because they can only do what their master dictates. (Unless they rebel of course, in which case they become evil by definition and are squashed)

Well unless they are Thomas Jefferson and then they have sex with their slave mistress and many children out of wedlock and hide it.

True enough. But somehow I can't see Jeannie having out-of-wedlock offspring by any of the members of her ant slave colony.

hey c'mon now!! wives were guilty of thing to ya know !!

Oh yes, I've seen Nemo 5 or 6 times. One of my all time favorites.

As I recall, the Start Trek movie with the whales was the last one with the original cast. It involved time travel back to the sixties in San Francisco. Some very fuunny bits surrounding that premise.

And then there was the final book in the "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, named "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish". I forget exactly what the upshot was. Something about marine mammals being the most supirior race in the universe or some such.

They are my slaves of course.

They bring up ant gravel from the earth to be placed in my driveway.

Correct. If the slave ants disobey they are sinners and the wages of sin is death. They either bring up the ant gravel or they will all be killed by the all mighty Goddess of brutal truth and honesty. Or I will set my ant eater upon their city.

HMM? before you do try this:





THE ANT ORDEAL.
Another almost prehistoric ceremony was that of Anut, 32 called Antish 33 or Tivihayish, used as a sort of supplement to the toloache initiation, as an education in courage, skill, and quickness for young men. It has been so long discontinued that it is impossible to obtain a complete description of it. It was not performed every year. Sometimes there were many candidates, sometimes very few.

The sand-painting was used in this ceremony, which is one of the four in which it was employed. The first night of the ritual they did not sing or dance; but they had something they whistled with all night long.

The chief would select the young men when they were old enough to endure the ordeal. It was done secretly in a place apart. A certain cone-shaped hill with rocks on top was one of the places where they used to perform it.

Early in the morning before dawn the youths would be taken into the house or sacred enclosure and given hot water to drink.

The chief had a basket in which he collected ants; and one by one the candidates were taken to the place prepared and made to lie down while the ants were shaken out of the basket and over their naked bodies with a certain sort of plant. To this a song was sung: "Toma no kwato."

After a time the ants were whipped from the body with nettles. When all was over, the sand-painting was made as in the toloache fiesta. The lump of sage seed and salt was also used in the same way. This implies that there had been a previous period of fasting. Invocation was made three times by the indescribable



p. 92

solemn groans and gestures; then the lump of sage-seed and salt was placed in the mouth of the candidate and spit into the central hole of the sand-painting.

A race was then made by the candidates, probably similar to the races made at the time of new moon; and the winner of the race painted the rock in the designated place, with red and black paint.

After this came the dances and songs of Anut, four or five of which are remembered, sung to the accompaniment of the ringing stones.

A ceremony for tattooing was somewhat similar, but no definite account has been obtained of it; and the songs belonging to it have been forgotten. They had a ceremony for it and would lay the person down in a certain place. Those who performed the tattooing were obliged to fast previously for a certain length of time.

Both men and women were tattooed. One of the old chiefs had a mark on his left wrist; another of the old men had the tattooing on his nose. The meaning of the marks could not be discovered.


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Footnotes
91:32 Anut, species of large red ant, regarding which there are songs.—S.

91:33 Antish, the action of lying on an ant hill and permitting one's self to be stung, which was thought to be beneficial; anti, verb, antish, action of same.—S.

maybe they can help with your artwork -

Wait a minute!!!

Stinging ants whipped from the body whith stinging nettles?

Not sure I could have thought up anything that painful if I had tried.

No wait...

Then they rubbed the salt all over the body right?

AAAAAHHHHGGGGGGG!!!!!