1/11/2006: Cattle sacrifice

[busterb]

Indonesia Has the largest Muslim population in the world of any country, nation.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Cattle, goats, camels, maybe a mother-in-law or two, slaughtered and eaten in the spirit of Abraham's willingness to slaughter his son if it's God's will.
A very old custom that results in some grisly pictures because of the number of animals sacrificed in one day.
But it's not a senseless slaughter like honor killings or terrorists attacks. The animals are eaten by the celebrants including the people too poor to have an animal to offer up.

[Troubleshooter]

All of these backwater cultures need to get with the program so they don't have to linger on these archaic rituals. Once they are advanced enough socially and technologically they can just concentrate on killing other people exclusively like us.

[capnhowdy]

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

All of these backwater cultures need to get with the program so they don't have to linger on these archaic rituals. Once they are advanced enough socially and technologically they can just concentrate on killing other people exclusively like us.

funny but frightfully true angle on the discussion, TS.....

I feel better now that I know they eat the animals. I always thought an animal that was sacrificed was holy in some way and therefore not suitable for consumption. Don't ask me where I got that lame ass idea.

[Trilby]

I saw a McDonalds sign in Detroits Muslim section (granted, it was on the Net, but, still.) Right beneath the 'billions and billions sold' message was this: Halal McNuggets. I think in the US 'Halal' is just another marketing strategy.

[busterb]

When I was married to a lady from Sumatra, and was working in OKC. She came up to spend a few days w/me. We went to a flea market where you buy ALMOST anything. She got a few pigeons, to eat. Wtf I know. Anyway I came into kitchen later and she had damn bird in sink trying to cut it's throat, feathers and all. Knife was just sliding over feathers. I thought that shit had went on long enough, so I pulled it's head off. Boy did it hit the fan then. Opps forgot the part about Halal

[mrnoodle]

I really find it odd that so many people are put off by pics of dead cows. Maybe it's just the environment you've been raised in. We always knew where meat came from, and what it took to get it from the hoof to the plate. Yet suddenly (and this is not intended as an insult in any way) people are acting like they've discovered some new horror that shows our "inhumanity".

Tain't like that at all. We're meateaters by birthright and/or evolution. Vegetarianism is the result of an overworked psyche. Eating meat and pretending it didn't come from an animal is even worse. I'm beginning to think that what the citybred call "civilization" isn't anything more than a useless vanity -- a modern day version of the powdered-wig foppishness you see in those movies about Victorian England.

listen to me babble. time for lunch.

[lawman]

When I was in Nepal back in 2000, I picked up a Khukuri - the large one that they use for beheading cows for some ritual. One clean blow, I've seen it - it's pretty amazing. Sharp as a razor, I have to put it away when I have parties at my house (well, I didn't the first one, now I have to!)

http://www.khukurihouseonline.com/Content/Catalog/Browse/ProductDetail.php?PID=ed3d2c21991e3bef5e069713af9fa6ca|5748

well that link wasn't clickable, maybe this will be:

http://shorterlink.com/?5ALRBY

one interesting feature of this blade is the half circular notch just in front of the handle on the live side of the blade, the combination of the notch and the spike jutting out from the middle of it causes the blood to drip off the blade, and not get onto your hands, both dangerous (slippery) and messy!

This site has more info and a pic of a cow losing it's head:

http://www.nepalesekhukuri.com/khukuri.html

and poking around, another pic, of a pig I think:

http://www.nepalesekhukuri.com/sacrifise.jpg

[Troubleshooter]

It's not a question of killing cows to eat. I don't have a problem with that. It's more the point of the ALLAHU AKBAR! *CHOP*CHOP* problem. If you need to eat, kill the fucking cow as quickly as possible and move on, don't just cut its throat and leave it thrashing about as it bleeds out because the invisible man in the sky says it's what you're supposed to do.

[mrnoodle]

I find the ritualistic aspect weird, myself. But the overriding question is this: If there's nothing wrong with killing the cow and eating the meat, why should there be anything wrong with, say, hopping 3 times in a circle, yelling abracadabra, then killing the cow and eating the meat? It's kind of the same thing with hunting -- people graciously allow us to kill our dinner, but only if we don't enjoy it too much. Cuz that would be "sport", and as Bambi taught us, killing for sport is wrong.

I say let every person render their protein in the manner they see fit -- without guilt or the need to hide where civilized people won't see us and get a tummyache.

[BigV]

Like the scene in Apocalypse Now where the bull is slaughtered in one stroke, eh?

[capnhowdy]

BigV.....

insert link, please.

[BigV]

***Spoiler Alert***

The scene is well described in this excerpt. To provide context, I have included the lead up to the scene. I was unable to find an image of the scene. For those who have seen the film, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The scene outlined below is the very climax of the film, the very end. Highlight at your peril.

I have included a link to the page from which the material was copied, as well as a link to the first of several pages that describe the movie.

Accepting the inevitable, Willard is poised to kill Kurtz as an act of mercy. In a climactic moral battle that rages within himself (in voice-over), he questions his own commanding officers. Though secretly identifying with and admiring Kurtz, Willard understands that he must perform his God-given duty as an officially-sanctioned assassin - who makes no judgments about his orders:

They were going to make me a Major for this and I wasn't even in their f---in' army any more. Everybody wanted me to do it. Him most of all. I felt like he was up there, waiting for me to take the pain away. He just wanted to go out like a soldier, standing up. Not like some poor, wasted, rag-assed renegade. Even the jungle wanted him dead, and that's who he really took his orders from anyway.

He slips off the boat and approaches toward the sacrificial temple. Waiting in his temple headquarters, Kurtz allows Willard to carry out his sacrificial mission that night. Willard's head rises up out of the steamy primordial depths of filthy water as he begins (and ends) his quest, to seek out his prey for the slaughter - the imposing, bullish Kurtz. Lightning strobe effects and the frenzied rhythmic sounds of the Doors' The End accompany the stalking and slaying of Kurtz with a machete.

Come on, baby, take a chance with us
Come on, baby, take a chance with us
Come on, baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus tonight...

Kurtz is reading into a tape recorder in his quarters, faced sideways before the golden light of his inner sanctum.

We train young men to drop fire on people but their commanders won't allow them to write 'FUCK' on their airplanes because it's obscene.

He turns and permits his own sacrifice when he sees Willard approaching. It is a ritualistic slaughter, brilliantly cross-cut with the brutal sacrificial killing of a carabao/water buffalo by the natives as a ritualistic sacrifice to their gods. As he dies on the ground, Kurtz mutters a few final, dying words, accepting the evil present in the human soul:

The horror. The horror.

[The words duplicated the last words in Joseph Conrad's story upon which the film was based, Heart of Darkness.]

The old king/chieftain of the people is sacrificed, in order for the land to become liberated. As Willard exits from the compound, his eye catches one of Kurtz' type-written documents, where he reads "Drop the Bomb - Exterminate Them All!' scrawled in red ink across one page. For a brief moment, he sits at Kurtz' desk, contemplating the opportunity to take the Colonel's place as a new god and king. The subservient villagers bow down to their new powerful god-like leader, and although he is tempted, Willard refuses to bask in their reverence. With the bloody machete and Kurtz' papers in hand, Willard is given a path through the awed, native throng. They lay down their weapons as he passes. [This climactic scene has a surprising, uncanny resemblance to an unlikely film, The Wizard of Oz (1939). The hero, who has journeyed to a strange land, is worshipped by the local people after vanquishing their god-like leader and liberating them. The Wicked Witch of the East is eliminated, as are the Wizard and Kurtz - who are similarly bald, oppressive, and usually hidden from view).]

With his bloody mission accomplished, Willard guides stoned-out Lance to the patrol boat so that they can begin their return journey. They retreat in the gunboat as the natives close in on them on the banks. As they pull away, a cleansing hard rain begins to fall and static-filled radio transmissions from Almighty play on the soundtrack. Willard abruptly shuts off the radio (preventing an immediate airstrike?). During a series of slow dissolving images, Kurtz's last words are echoed again.

A. The film fades to black. [The end credits roll and are played silently against a black background. These credits were added to the film's 35mm screenings.]

[capnhowdy]

From Ultra Hal's Lexical dictionary:

2 senses of whet as a verb

Sense 1
whet, quicken
-> stimulate, excite, stir
=> masturbate, wank, fuck off, she-bop, jack off, jerk off
=> masturbate
=> horripilate
=> work
=> fellate, blow, go down on
=> thrill
=> whet, quicken
=> disgust, revolt, repel

Sense 2
whet
-> sharpen
=> strap
=> edge
=> strop
=> whet
=> hone

[xoxoxoBruce]

I've never been in favor of book burning but Ultra Hal could change my mind.