I feel so sorry for the lobsters in the grocery store tank.

[Darth_Kitten]

:cry:

More little guys. :(

[dembotoz]

1. me too

i really do not like to be reminded of where the meat came from
that is why i like hot dogs.

[Pavulon]

2. More? or Poor

underwater spiders are oh so yummy.

[Darth_Kitten]

29. Poor............geez..........

:)

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. You probably wouldn't have enjoyed that Simpsons episode at all...

http://www.thesimpsons.com/episode_guide/1007.htm

"Lisa Gets an 'A'"
1007 AABF03
Original Airdate: 11/22/98

http://www.thesimpsons.com/episode_guide/1007.htm

A sick-day puts Lisa in a difficult academic predicament: She wants to do her best on a reading test, but didn't study at all when she was home. After consulting with Bart, she reluctantly decides to buy the test answers from Nelson and scores a perfect A+++. But when her high test score raises Springfield Elementary School's average and earns the troubled school a huge state grant, Lisa is plagued with guilt. Meanwhile, Homer grows attached to a lobster that he brought home for dinner, naming it Mr. Pinchy. When Lisa admits that she cheated to Principal Skinner, he is disheartened but still wants to keep the grant money. Skinner and Chalmers trick Lisa into thinking that she's turned down the school's grant, but secretly keep the cash. Back at home, Homer loses his beloved new pet when he gives it a hot bath. Heartbroken but hungry, Homer bids farewell to his crustacean friend by eating it.

:spray:

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. If you think they are too cramped, you should liberate them to your dining room table.

Thus ending their suffering.

Yummy!!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. what he said.

[littlebit]

10. Exactly..

[LeftyMom]

6. Perhaps you should talk to the grocery manager.

Give him this, if you can, the article comes from that hotbed of pro-animal literature, Gourmet. http://www.lobsterlib.com/feat/davidwallace/page/lobsterarticle.pdf

[bicentennial_baby]

16. Thanks for that!

:hi:

[LeftyMom]

18. No trouble. I think it's brilliant.

:hi:

How's this whole "LM needs a future SIL/DIL" thing? I'm not getting any younger, you know. ;)

[Wcross]

7. I have never seen anyone in the checkout line with one.

I have never seen a "meat managers special" sticker on any of them either. I wonder how long they can live in the tank before they die?

[Fredda Weinberg]

25. I had 'em this morning. It's my revenge on roaches

Joe knows just what size to pick and how long to steam 'em. Gotta love your fishmonger!

[BOSSHOG]

8. I would suggest you not

be around for the preparation of a crawfish boil.

[jobycom]

14. Crab gumbo ain't pretty, either.

Some ways of preparing it are downright barbarian. At least the poor little bugs get boiled before being split open.

[vixengrl]

9. Lobster internal monologue--

"This doesn't look like a pet store...but I could be wrong.

"Maybe some nice people will take me home for their aquarium. I could live that life. It'd be humdrum, but...oh look! These people want me!

"Wow, look at this nice car, I bet they have a good size aquarium. I hope the other marine-life aren't snobby. I've seen some crabs with attitudes....

"Neat, a jacuzzi!"




I have been especially uncomfortable since reading Charles Stross' "Lobsters" (well, actually the bit that got worked into Accelerando. Just *how* aware are they? I wonder. I first noticed grocery store lobsters in a smaller-box supermarket in Northeast Philadelphia--a neighborhood where buying lobster is probably not really big on too many lists. I wondered--since there really wasn't a lot of turnover--how (if) they were fed and such. Five or six practically on top of each other doesn't look cozy, just cramped.

[siligut]

11. What gets me.

If you watch those crustaceans in their pre-dinner state, they are still fighting for dominance, it is instinctive, but irony always interests me. I hate to watch when they are boiled to death on TV, I don’t eat them either, even though they are tasty with butter and lemon, it goes against my conscience.

[flvegan]

12. Worse off are the ones that have been bought by shopping douchebags

to take home to eat.

Yeah, I said it.

[jobycom]

13. Set them free! Break open the tank and let them escape!

They may be slow to run away, but once out the sliding glass doors and into the parking lot, they will sense freedom, and make a run for it. Trust me.

I avoid the meat section of groceries, anyway. After seven years of vegetarianism, it smells like a rotting animal on the highway to me when I accidentally pass through it. I don't remember it smelling like that when I ate meat, so either my body chemistry has changed or more likely I just have avoided the smell for so long that I'm not acclimated to it anymore. The same way I can't smell the tires at the tire shope where I work anymore.

Do you ever feel sorry for cows in pastures when you pass by them and go "mooo?"

[snailly]

15. My sister actually got fired for refusing to boil a lobster

She is the most sweet hearted person in the world and also the most naive. It was her first job at a supermarket deli at 16. She honestly thought the lobsters were there to attract customers. "Look at the cute lobsters! Buy the honey roasted ham!"
Then the inevitable happened. Someone wanted a lobster and they wanted it dead. Needless to say, she walked out and this has been a family story for 24 years. My sis is still as sweet but less naive.

[siligut]

17. I like your sister. nt

[vixengrl]

19. She sounds like a lovely person--

and principled.

[Darth_Kitten]

30. Awh.....what a sweetie.

:)

[Blue-Jay]

20. One day, I'll be murdered by mobsters and dumped into the ocean.

When I sink to the bottom, lobsters will eat me.

I'll call it even at that point.

[Fox Mulder]

21. So do I.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

22. I feel like a lobster in a grocery store tank.

sucks, yeah.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

23. You couls always buy them and set them free...

That's what a bunch of us did with terrapins that were being sold live at a market as a food product. I was in college, and a bunch of us bought the critters.

Of course, you'd need to live near the ocean...

[alphafemale]

28. Well, I hope you took the rubber bands off their claws.

Otherwise you just doomed them to be defenseless and starve to death.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

35. They don't put rubber bands on terrapin claws...

But it'd be a good idea to snip them off lobsters' claws before releasing them! :D

[HuffleClaw]

24. bottom-dwelling scum-sucking aquatic insects. yum.

just kidding. i won't eat lobster. or crab.

[DainBramaged]

26. Allergic, oh well.

Set them free, set them free. At least the fishermen who provide them make a decent living and aren't being pushed out by foreign interests.

[Skip Intro]

27. I do too. Imprisoned. Claws taped. Awaiting their fate to be boiled alive.

It's sad.

[Hand]

31. Here's a story about a lobster tank...

This happened in Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia. A friend had taken a group of Buddhist monks to visit this sightseers' destination and they were in the restaurant when one of them noticed the lobster tank and asked what it was (in Tibetan). After they explained what it was and what was going to happen to the poor creatures, he leaned over the tank and began reciting the OM MANI PADME HUM (Great Compassion) mantra over and over to give them a better rebirth. This in a deep, growling bass voice.

The tourists were mind blown. They truly had not expected to see a Tibetan monk reciting mantras over a lobster tank. Since then, there have been several mass purchases of lobsters from fishermen, followed by their return to the sea--claws and antennae intact and unbound. :toast:

[hedgehog]

32. But why would someone want to remain a lobster? Why not get it over with

quickly and move on and upwards?

[Hand]

33. It can be pretty subtle.

Lobsters that are captured and boiled will die in pain and confusion (to say the least); a lobster that's saved from the lobster trap and the attendant fear and panic may, in its way, experience the compassion of others and develop a broader consciousness, which helps when going through the bardo between death and rebirth. Similarly, any sentient being who hears the MANI mantra is (I'm told) immediately liberated from the lower realms of existence in their next rebirth.

That said, lobsters and many other animals don't get a lot of chances to improve their karma--it kind of comes with the territory in the animal realm. I've been told by some who would know that many lobsters are reincarnated lobster fishermen, BTW. It's kind of a vicious cycle. People who point to a lobster in a tank and say, "I'll have that one for lunch" are part of that same cycle--willing the painful death of another sentient being is pretty much the same as doing the deed yourself.

My teacher was once served lobster by some of his students, who later explained that they'd picked the lobster out specially for him. He was quite upset about that, and told them never to do that again--and added that he'd take on the karma of their actions himself and assume responsibility for the lobster's future rebirth. Since he'd gained a whole lot of merit over many rebirths, he could manage that without a lot of trouble, but he warned them that now that they knew what not to do, they were on their own the next time they came up with a dumbass idea like that. :rofl:

[applegrove]

34. So do I but I'll eat them. And one time I actually cooked them. My bad.

[triguy46]

36. Explain further...

How about chickens raised 5 to a cage and never outside?
Yearling steers on a feedlot?
Pigs raised on concrete?

None of this is pretty. Are you vegan?

[Darth_Kitten]

37. No, just a sucker for trapped creatures.

:(