Althouse: "The vegetables are alive!"

July 7, 2010

"The vegetables are alive!"

15 comments:

Moose said...: Key-rist.

The Japanese are really, really freaky.; 7/7/10, 12:01 PM
Joe said...: Tenno Banzai!; 7/7/10, 12:01 PM
rhhardin said...: The current national scandal is sumo wrestlers betting on baseball games.; 7/7/10, 12:10 PM
Kirby Olson said...: Jules champfleury was writing similar plays for the Feuilletons in the 1850s in France. In one, a carrot queen talked her people out of auto-genocide and suggested that they run from the garden, but another carrot said it was their nature to sacrifice themselves for man.

It's a funny theme. there's some new kind of ultimate vegetarian that won't eat anything that kills the plant itself. So they will eat a cucumber since they can be replaced, but not a carrot, since the carrot is itself the root.

I don't know the name of this new phenomenon.

It's a logical outgrowth of the need for young people to one-up one another on an ethical basis.; 7/7/10, 12:42 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Well, that was disturbing.

If you were trying to get children to eat their vegetables, I don't think that will work very well.

More likely to give them nightmares.; 7/7/10, 12:46 PM
Anonymous said...: Kirby Olson: It's a funny theme. there's some new kind of ultimate vegetarian that won't eat anything that kills the plant itself. So they will eat a cucumber since they can be replaced, but not a carrot, since the carrot is itself the root.

[...]

It's a logical outgrowth of the need for young people to one-up one another on an ethical basis.

"Ethical" is a bit noble for the kind of moral posturing you describe here, eh? One-upping the competition in the pissy little pieties of the day is a game for old ladies. When the young can't find better competitive outlets for the creative energies of youth than holier-than-thou, society is probably in a state of terminal stagnation.

But yeah, the Japanese are freaky. NTTAWWT.; 7/7/10, 1:03 PM
Balfegor said...: More likely to give them nightmares.

My vague recollection of this series is that it involves a "magical girl" who is an out and out sociopath. I'm not sure it was actually pitched at young children -- wouldn't be surprised if it was shown on late night TV instead.; 7/7/10, 1:11 PM
Wince said...: I was touched by how much vegetables of all different types really seem to care for each other, despite their differences.; 7/7/10, 1:19 PM
Bob_R said...: Yes, I love vegetable diversity - at least in a curry or other stew. And of course it is the same anthropomorphic "argument" made by the animal rights types - and yes I'm talking to all you guys who didn't want Althouse and Meade to turn the cute bunny into lunch.; 7/7/10, 2:42 PM
Geoff Matthews said...: Kirby,

The term you are looking for is fruitarian. There are some variations, but they take the personification of food too far.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitarianism; 7/7/10, 2:53 PM
Greg Toombs said...: I guess the potato had trouble keeping his eyes peeled?; 7/7/10, 3:38 PM
LonewackoDotCom said...: I've actually thought the same thing about ants, anthropomorphizing them and all. I just never made a cartoon about it.

P.S. Here's a Japanese guy playing Angels We Have Heard On High on a broccoli ocarina.; 7/7/10, 5:00 PM
Kirby Olson said...: Geoff, the oldest example of a fruitarian I have found in British American literature is in the novel SHE. In it, a fruitarian queen in darkest Africa has lived for thousands of years, but crumples into dust when she is rebuffed by an American explorer. Now what's the name of the writer again? It's been thirty years since I read that goofy book.; 7/7/10, 5:24 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Kirby,

H. Rider Haggard, I believe.

He also wrote King Solomon's Mines and invented Alan Quatermain.

Too bad he wasn't around to pick up the money from all the movie screenplays he spawned.; 7/7/10, 7:10 PM
Methadras said...: Japs are fucking weirdos. No furries were harmed in the making of that video however.; 7/7/10, 7:57 PM