Minutus

No, Shannon, you're right: the request didn't specify the manner of obtaining the sample; it entirely neglected to specify any concern as to the source of the blubber and the means of obtaining it.

But if you'd to treat the request as innocent on that basis, then you'd have to regard them as innocent too of collusion with the killers who bought lampshades that Nazi workers made from the skin, or soap they made from the body fat, of Jews killed in the name of science and of the fatherland's betterment. And I'm sure you'd abhor that idea.

There is no innocence from such collusion in failing to specify how the offending corpse parts should or could be obtained; such failure merely demonstrates indifference.

But you have gone further than to mindlessly regard a request for ill-gotten gains as one worthy of fulfilling without looking beyond your nose at the ethics of fulfilment or request.

In stating that the heartless cruelty of the manner in which the blubber would be obtained is unworthy of discussion, you have effectively defended the whalers' butchery as unworthy of criticism and lauded their commerce in death as worthy of your support.

You have made clear both the spaghetti that passes for logic in your contemplation of serious discussion and your wilful ignorance of the most basic ethics. I've no doubt that this was not your intent; but it is what you have done. Congratulations.

When you decide that your highly evolved brain can be put to worthier use than to make hypothetical defences of indifference to senseless bloody slaughter, please do re-enter the conversation. I've no doubt that you can do much better than this.

Kind regards,

John
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"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd."

-- Bertrand Russell

Aside from Johns take and the points well positioned and argued by others here (Dr. Roz.) I think it is relevant to take the whale out of it's subtext culturally and scientifically. Firstly our "perception" is that the whale is a highly evolved animal with an above average iq. Secondly there are peoples all over the world who culturally hold specific animals of all types, in very high regard, irregardless of what we/they perceive the animals IQ to be. So for sometime now there has been, for westerners mostly, this single criteria that determines how we treat any given animal(s). If it is "perceived" by us to be above average in our opinion, it should be treated in a different manner, i.e not hunted etc. Although this preserves these 4-6 animals, it does nothing to save the other countless sentient beings, as we do not have the capacity to understand through our, at best, misplaced and arrogant supposing of what a higher functioning animal is.
For example, this morning I attended our flower and vegetable gardens after the rains from Tropical storm Alex had passed. I was awe struck, as I often am, at the largesse of the tremendous amount of highly concentrated biodiversity right here. I have various aphids that are being eaten by lady bug larvae, by praying mantis, by numerous types of caterpillars. And working in perfect sync with the aphids are acrobat ants, which are feeding a sweet sugary substance to help them grow! The ants want the aphids to tear into the sunflowers so that another substance will leach from the plant which they eat! For me this is just as fantastical as swimming with dolphins, whales and and watching gibbons teach their young the arts of survival.
I guess the point that I am trying to make is that if we "perceived" -everything- with the same reverence that we treat just a few animals with, we might just be able to change/save the world. I think is is safe to assume that we are not capable of knowing wether or not a tick, flea, ant or mosquito has a "higher functioning intellect". But what could we change if we just "made" such an assumption and did not let our arrogant limitations of assuming some animals are not worthy of discussion, stand in the way?
This has serious ramifications for Homeopathy yes. And I will not repeat what others have already added to the discussion with regards to it, but I will add that we are able to grow the MM without ill consequences to any specific animals.
Besides since Homeopathy is just "energy", we don't even need the base substance, right? Can't we just meditate on whale blubber or panda pancreas? I for one will be dreaming about dolphin snot tonight.

Best regards, Rik
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, SOULA KALLINIS wrote:

Or just pull out your radionics machine and make the remedy.
tanya

John,
Thanks for taking the time to make the points I would have liked to make and/or didn't think to make but was too rushed to do so. The whale saving group happened to be on CNN/Larry King Live show on Thursday discussing the oil spill and the whales. http://larrykinglive.blogs.cnn.com/2010 ... -live-127/
One only has to spend some time reading the info and watching some of the episodes to become enraged. It's upsetting not only how the whales are killed but how the Japanese behave to other humans though we see this behavior with other cultures when a livelihood is at stake. Elephant, tiger, etc. killers don't care much if a human has to die to accomplish the task, neither do those destroying the rainforests.
The local whales may face a worse fate with the oil spill and we could blame BP on that though many other greed factors come into play. Seems too much USA anti-BP rhetoric has gotten British retirees upset who need the BP dividend, so Obama was asked by your PM to tone it down. So, nothing is fair is it?
Today reports are the oil tar balls will hit Key West, Miami and Ft. Lauderdale in a couple of months. That's when you'll hear an outroar when prime beach real estate is affected!
For those of the astrological bent, the BP oil spill occurred during one of the most severe Mercury Retrograde periods of recent times along with the still "unexplained" stock mkt flash crash and Goldman Sachs SEC investigation. Expect the spill to end near/during the next one beginning August 21, 2010 which will be of medium severity. This corresponds to when BP expects to finish the relief well.
And there may be a stock market crash 7/6/10, if you're invested.
Susan

Actually, John, I'm simply bowing out of the discussion, because I've got too much else going on. So y'all have fun without me!

Richard, thanks for rounding out the discussion in this way. Assumptions convenient for justifying whatever we wish to do are always at hand; our responsibility as true scientists, as true skeptics, or even just as true stewards of the ecosphere is rather to take a precautionary approach to such important matters as the infliction of unnecessary suffering.

I hope you enjoyed your dreams!

John
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"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd."

-- Bertrand Russell

Hi, Susan --

Thanks; yes, the behaviour of poachers in general toward human as well as nonhuman animals is hardly irrelevant, is it, to the question of the ethicality of using what they slaughter. Yet there are none so blind as those who will not see where their dinner comes from. It is a milder form of the same reticence to take responsibility for the consequences of one's preparedness to pay the hangman that allows people to eat in good conscience the bodies of pigs and chickens whose entire lives consist of the tortures of straitening confinement and isolation, whose diet consists of contaminated chemical muck, whose lives are maintained by continual drugging, and whose deaths, rather than being a mercy, make a horrific end to a story steeped end to end in blood, gore, and depravity.

Even some homoeopaths remain blind to such realities and would consider them irrelevant to their choice to obtain and consume the consequently available body organs, muscle, and fat as food or as medicine. And they indulge that blindness though homoeopathy be almost unique in two things: the vast range of illnesses in which even one well-proven medicine may be suitable; and the opportunities, as Liz has reiterated, that exist to contribute meaningfully and substantially to the indications for most of our materia medica through provings of those not yet adequately proven.

The additional boon of our ability to use forever the one original sample of medicine obtained from mineral, plant, fungus, bacterium, or animal without the uncertainties that inhere in obtaining further samples is merely the icing on the cake.

If we are to be part of the solution rather than extend the problem, we must take account of the effect of what we do, right from the decision to forgo provings in favour of pioneering a new "medicine" obtaining which increases rather than decreases the demand for heartless slaughter.

Cheers --

John
Hello: I wonder if there is anyone who could send me some whale blubber, I am looking to make the remedy and do a proving. But am unable to locate a very small quantity. If you could assist in any way please let me know. I need about 1 tsp.
Thank you
Soula Kallinis in Toronto, Canada

This is well and truly off topic....

So what do we do with the inherent cruelty and disregard for suffering that exists in nature?

I have recently stopped living on acreage and returned to a more suburban life, and with some relief that I now no longer forced to witness the cruelty and suffering that was taking place all around me.

I think of having to listen to the distressing cries of ducks and ducklings each night as foxes moved along the creek bed mauliing those they found (and not for food), domestic dogs turning into pack animals to hunt (again, not for food) flocks of goats and sheep, kookaburras lining the trees to swoop down and carry off the newly hatched chicks of the peafowl that tried to share our property to the obvious emotional distress of the mother hen who was more than a nervous wreck each nesting season.

And this is just some of it. I think Rik has already spoken a little of what happens with some of the insects sitting on our plants. At least in suburbia I don't have to witness these 'atrocities' that nature is more than capable of inflicting.

It really is as if the Christian teaching is true that creation is also groaning inn bondage waiting for its time of release.

OK, I'm depressed now and leaving.
John Harvey wrote:
Hello: I wonder if there is anyone who could send me some whale blubber, I am looking to make the remedy and do a proving. But am unable to locate a very small quantity. If you could assist in any way please let me know. I need about 1 tsp.
Thank you
Soula Kallinis in Toronto, Canada
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Kind regards,

Fran Sheffield
Homeopathy Plus! (Tutorials - Remedies - Immunisation)
http://www.homeopathyplus.com.au
Do No Harm Initiative (Free Information on Homeopathic Immunisation)
http://www.d-n-h.org
Homeopathy for Autism (Guidelines for Treatment - Search for Practitioners)
http://www.homeopathy4autism.com

Hi Didi Ananda : Specifically whale blubber came up in relation to a client, as part of a dream. I tried to locate the remedy, and I thought I came across that it existed as a remedy in Norway, but could never locate. The client has had many other remedies that have helped, but there is a part not affected so far. There is something about the blubber that insulates them in the cold arctic waters and I think whale blubber holds a lot of toxins, they have even found fire retardant in it.
Regards
Soula

Hi Soula,

Perhaps if this is the basis for the search it's worthwhile reviewing the case itself, the deviations from health and the area which is stuck, to base the prescription on symptom similarity rather than something that came up in a dream. The remedies we have already have a much broader scope than those we assume and prescribe for. Would you be interested in posting something of the case here?

Regards,
Vera
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Vera Resnick
Classical Homeopath
054-4640736
e-mail: vera.homeopath@gmail.com
www.jerusalemhomeopath.com
www.materiamedicastudymethods.wordpress.com