My Second Up North Adventure, Day 3 of 3

I’ve only been here two and a half days but it feels like I’ve already lost myself—no, that phrasing is almost entirely wrong—perhaps I have already FOUND myself again. Me—the person who laughs as the quirky chipmunk outside cleans off his tail after stepping through some unsightly matter or another—me—that strains my ears for the haunting call of the loon. Me, who sprints from the house with my binoculars as dusk sets in hard because I see water birds of some sort far out on the bay. Me that spends hours staring intently at deer tracks wondering how old they are…me that is disgusted with myself for loving this place, this land, so much—yet only spending (at most) three weeks a year here. I feel like my soul knows this place but my mind does not—and I’m disgusted with that fact.

I have to leave today in order to be at my childhood home tomorrow for Easter—a holiday I don’t believe in but a family that I do. A family that doesn’t question me when I head to this house up north alone…a family that may silently worry about my perpetual loner status but does not say a word (well, they don’t say MANY words. There are of course the occasional hookup attempts by my mother and the mentions of future nieces and nephews by my father). They put up with me, and sure they only selectively listen when I go on spiels about the environment, but at least they listen at all.

I hate the city for all of the obvious reasons and love this place for all of the obvious reasons as well, but there’s more to it than that (as is always the case with love and hate). I have many great friends in the city, but none of them truly grasp my beliefs (and, well, the facts) about the environment and civilization. SOME will humor me and half listen as I explain my passions, but most won’t even do that.

Here in the woods with no human companionship I find many who agree and understand. Here, be it the chipmunk , the merganser, the birch or the eagle, they all not only understand, but agree. Here the wind wraps me in hugs of understanding. Here my muse is not smothered beneath concrete and light pollution.

I don’t want to go “home” when I know deep down that I am actually leaving it.

I took all of the pictures in this post and added frames using Adobe InDesign.

When Ethics is Taught by Capitalists...

Is a life without pain any more of a life than one without pleasure?

I read this article the other day and was truly amazed that this is even a consideration. People are so cold sometimes, most times, I suppose. It still amazes me that there is such a disconnect between the individual in modern society and other living beings on this planet, both human and non human.

Pain free animals? You have got to be kidding me. Couldn’t we just strive not to hurt animals? Making them not feel pain is in many ways a higher level of cruelity than inflicting the pain to begin with.

From the Article:
"If we can't do away with factory farming, we should at least take steps to minimize the amount of suffering that is caused," says Adam Shriver, a philosopher at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. In a provocative paper published this month, Shriver contends that genetically engineered pain-free animals are the most acceptable alternative (Neuroethics, DOI: 10.1007/s12152-009-9048-6). "I'm offering a solution where you could still eat meat but avoid animal suffering."

The fact that this “philosopher” just assumes there is no alternative to factory farming makes me wonder how much research he has done. He acts like there really is no other choice but to torture animals, and that to ‘improve’ this ‘unavoidable’ situation he wants to genetically take away the ability to feel.

Perhaps looking at the human equivalent of this phenomenon will shed some light. Let’s take a look at Gabby Gingras. Here’s a CNN article on her.

From the article:

She has a disorder known as CIPA -- congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis. Although she can feel touch, her brain doesn't receive signals that she's experiencing pain, and she hardly sweats. If Gabby broke her leg, or put her hand on a hot plate, or if her body was overheating, she wouldn't know.

It is an extremely dangerous condition, and very rare. Gabby's doctor, Dr. Peter Dyck at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota, estimates there are only 100 documented cases of CIPA in the world.

"Not being able to feel pain is a terrible disadvantage," Dyck said.

Steve and Trish Gingras first noticed something was wrong when Gabby was 4 months old. She was biting her fingers until they bled. By the time she was 2, her teeth had to be removed so she wouldn't hurt herself. Now, she must eat very small bites of soft food -- and like everything else she does, she eats with gusto.

The problems with not being able to feel pain start small but grow into a huge issue. At least in Gabby’s case her parents can communicate with her and when she was 5, in 2006, she understood (at least to an extent) her condition.

Taking away an animal’s ability to feel pain is a danger to both the animal and to the handlers of the animals. Lameness will be much more difficult to detect in animals along with other medical conditions. I have no idea how the lack of pain would effect birthing in mammal breeds.

There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better. --Oscar Wilde

All of those practical problems hold nothing compared to the fact that removing pain from any living thing is fundamentally wrong and not humanity’s right. Humans would never truly know if the animals’ ability to feel pain was gone. I had a discussion with a woman that lives and works on a dairy farm a little over a week ago and she was convinced that non-modified cows do not feel pain. There is no limit to the ability of people to blind themselves to things when they choose to. Genetically eliminating the ability to feel pain will probably do nothing more but increase the unfit conditions that are factory farms.