Poop on a Stick!

[shanmonster]

That was one of the quickest dentist visits in a long time, and a rather illuminating one, at that. While reclining in the chair in a somewhat inverted position, my laboured asthmatic breathing eased itself into normalcy. Considering stress is one of my asthma triggers, I doubt the dentist himself was my panacea. Instead, I think it was the reclining with my head down position. Then again, it could have been the freezing. That stuff always fucks me up and makes me feel high. Hmm...

So no more dental work, barring accidents. I am supposed to get a sleep guard, though, because I've been grinding/clenching my teeth in my sleep, which is what's been causing all this damage in the first place. The shitty news is that all this dental work has chewed (heh) through all my dental insurance coverage, and I can't afford the retainer. Neither can I afford new glasses (my lenses are screwed, and really difficult to see through), because they're not covered by insurance at all. Gah!

doyce sent me a link about how a 115-year-old harpoon tip was found in a whale. The article has an excited tone, because now we know that whales live over a century. I think this is a hasty assumption. I think this doesn't prove whales are old, but that 19th-century whalers have developed time travel technology.

And a recent conversation with chernobylred led me to Hello Kitty Hell, which features all sorts of ridiculous paraphernalia, including Hello Kitty red wine. Yuck!

This story pisses me off. A woman is charged with stealing three rolls of toilet paper and may go to prison for three years. The police chief reacts with stellar maturity by laughing because her last name is Butts. Get it? Three years for toilet paper. No wonder the American prison system is so overburdened.

Comments

[andrewrotch.livejournal.com]

Harpoon tips are recycle-able, unless they're the exploding kind. ugh.

Two neat dental terms I learned of necessity. The grinding together of teeth when sleeping (somewhat common): Bruxism; the involuntary grinding of teeth when awake: Bruxomania!

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

Did you read that article that maybe I
posted about the 20-something Ontarian
who had like two teeth left? The point
of the article was how health care
should be extended to dental, and how
he could get services for final care,
but not for preventative care.

Poor whale. It possibly survives har-
pooning, lives over a century, and
*still* gets butchered by a bunch of
fucking savages.

And yes, the American prison system is
*full* of poor people in jail for stupid
and victimless crimes. In the meantime,
the real criminals run the nation...

[silverfae.livejournal.com]

a bunch of fucking savages

wow. Pretty harsh words for people who survive by the land and take all the parts to good use, not to mention need that to survive and have a long cultural history for their hunt.

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

I think most humans are fucking savages.

However, as for the Inuit, I would call
needing whalemeat to survive pretty low-
tech and savage -- not that I think they
need whalemeat to survive any longer.

And I don't think chasing whales in motor
boats with exploding harpoons and .50 cal
machineguns is very historic.

[silverfae.livejournal.com]

It's a hot-button issue, for sure. And I perhaps have a knee-jerk reaction to anyone who feels that any cultures' historically and spiritually significant traditions are not worthy, just because someone else in another country engages in a different sort of slaughter or has the front page on what's right or wrong. Activists are often not seeing the whole picture, imo.
I didn't read anywhere in the article where the Inuit who caught and killed that whale were using modern methods as you describe, but why the hell shouldn't they, if it's more humane and a quicker kill than traditional and dangerous harpooning?

[cryduchat.livejournal.com]

Yes, I saw the whale article too. Ahhh, killing whales to discover that they live a long time sounds like the very definition of human civilization to me!

[silverfae.livejournal.com]

The whale was killed by the Inuit people, who discovered the artifact and handed it over to biologists. These people have a right to that killing, as it's needed for their survival. Better that than to have it just die of old age, rot, and feed no one.

[cryduchat.livejournal.com]

Ah, I will freely admit that I know nothing about Inuit tradition. However, the article I read said they were using guns similar to the bomb lance and carved that sucker up with a chainsaw.

To clarify, whales do not cease to be lucrative members of the life cycle when they die. You could argue that our depleted oceans need their resources just as much as depleted societies who rely on tradition.

That being said, it is nice to see that they rely on strict regulation of whaling. It is not nice that the old giant had to go down b/c native Alaskans choose not to partake in our agricultural surplus. If you are interested in the deplorable evolution of food production in civilization, I suggest Jared Diamond's "Collapse".

[silverfae.livejournal.com]

I'll give that a look, thanks.
um, wouldn't Alaskans partaking in our agricultural surplus involve using vast amounts of fossil fuels to transport said surplus to them?

And if chain saws are available, why should people use handaxes? We carve up beef with chain saws, what makes this any different.
It's my understanding also that the idea behind the bomb lances is to kill the whale quickly, rather than have it wander through the ocean wounded. I wouldn't want to try and track one of those suckers.

[silverfae.livejournal.com]

oh, and yes, the whaling is highly regulated, unlike other countries who are simply killing them off willy-nilly (no pun intended).

Part of the reason these people still rely on whalemeat is because of the dwindling resources of fish they also survive upon. *That* is a whole nother issue, the over-harvesting done by commercial fishing.

[miraba.livejournal.com]

So, how rusty are your shotgun skills? *hunts for her boyfriend's sword*

http://myelvesaredifferent.blogspot.com/2007/05/blog-like-its-end-of-world-bliteotw.html