A group of Buddhists announced recently that they were going to purchase 534 lobsters to return them to the sea. A group of lobstermen from Gloucester reportedly read about the designated site of the ceremony and followed the Buddhists — laying traps and capturing the lobsters and bringing them to market. This was viewed as really funny by the captain of the fishing vessel Degelyse — according to published reports. However, in an update below, Joe Ciaramitaro insists it is satire and not meant to be disrespectful.
The lobstermen then brag about destroying the purpose of the ceremony on their local blog, Goodmorninggloucester.org. Joe Ciaramitaro, who runs the blog, insisted oddly that “It’s really not meant as a slight toward Buddhism at all. We’re just having fun.’’ I would really like to know what constitutes a slight in Gloucester. I can now see what constitutes fun on the Degelyse. Here are some of the pictures.
Whether you agree with the monks or their faith, it is incredibly nasty and disrespectful to pull this type of stunt. In the video on the blog, the lobsterman taunt the Buddhists. I do not understand how adults could work so hard to be disrespectful to people in a religious-based ceremony. If this story is and these pictures are true, it is not just disrespectful, it is disgraceful. Even if satire, it released a torrent of anti-Buddhist mocking across the blogoshere.
Update: I reached out to speak with Joe Ciaramitaro who insists that they were just engaging in satire. He also noted that he is a practicing Buddhist. It is an ironic twist given the anti-Buddhist sentiment shown after the posting on this and other blogs. However, Mr. Ciaramitaro insists that his site often uses such satire.
Source: Boston.com
“Freeing lobsters off the coast of Gloucester is like dropping off a nun at a brothel.”
From Noreast.com
http://www.noreast.com/regionreports.cfm?Article_ID=4174&CurrentIndex=20
Yes,
So you’re position is “just because we were making fun of people’s beliefs, doesn’t mean we’re taunting them.”
You’re saying that singing “Getting Buddhist Money” isn’t taunting, neither is talking about how funny it would be to start dressing like a Buddhist monk this in a later post, “It would have been great if we had Tuffy dressed in a Buddhist robe and have incense burning at his house when she came to interview him. He could have pushed back the beaded entryway, invited her in and explain about his new-found enlightenment and then ask her if she would like to practice some of the stuff in the Kama Sutra. ”
You either don’t know what Taunting actually means, or didn’t bother to listen to what people were complaining about.
Not being forced to partake in other religions constraints isn’t the same thing as being free from criticism for being a jerk.
“The disrespect isn’t that lobstermen catch lobsters, it’s that they catch lobsters which are part of an religious ceremony, during that ceremony.
That is equivalent not to eating an hamburger, but to go into a Hindu temple and slaughtering one of the free roaming cows there before the eyes of the worshipers.”
1) It was a joke. As it turns out, no Buddhists were taunted or interfered with. No recently-released lobsters were recaptured.
2) Going out onto the ocean and trapping lobsters is not like going to a Buddhists temple and slaughtering sacred animals. Actually going to a Buddhist temple and slaughtering sacred animals is like going to a Buddhist temple and slaughtering animals. And going to a blog and torturing an analogy is crueler still.
3) Going to McDonalds and eating a Big Mac is just as disrespectful to Hindus as going out on the ocean and recapturing lobsters. Just like drinking milk with that Big Mac is disrespectful to Jews who follow kosher. Which is to say, it’s not disrespectful at all.
4) The point is that the non religious are not constrained by the views of the religious, and breaking someone else’s religious constraints is not being disrespectful to them.
The disrespect isn’t that lobstermen catch lobsters, it’s that they catch lobsters which are part of an religious ceremony, during that ceremony.
That is equivalent not to eating an hamburger, but to go into a Hindu temple and slaughtering one of the free roaming cows there before the eyes of the worshipers.
LK,
I linked to the cue…I could not find a Turley…I did see Blindfaitfulness though…
“I do not understand how adults could work so hard to be disrespectful to people in a religious-based ceremony.”
The next time you have a hamburger please remember how disrespectful you are being to the millions of Hindus in the world. Repent, thou blasphemer!
Taunting, though (if story is true), was pretty bad behavior.
This is interesting, There is a posting here signed Jonathan Turley and linked to this thread. That posting is actually the last paragraph of the Professors article.
Paul F. Frontiero Jr. above also posted to the below blawg.
I’m wondering if the Professor actually posted at the goodmorning glouchester site or not. I don’t see him posting very widely and never getting himself in a snit and posting elsewhere- not that I’ve ever done that either but, is someone maybe pulling a ‘lets you and him fight’ thing?
http://goodmorninggloucester.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/the-crew-of-the-degelyse-would-like-to-personally-thank-the-buddist-monks-who-released-lobsters-they-purchased-in-gloucester-back-to-the-ocean/
There’s a old saying, “GET A LIFE” don’t take yourself and your uptight opinnions too seriously.
namaste
1. There is a straightforward response: boycott seafood coming in through Gloucester.
2. It’s an indication of the quality of Gloucester lobstermen that they can only catch lobsters when informed in advance of their exact location.
3. With regard to the bigots who find the whole thing amusing, what would their response be to florist coming along to pick the flowers freshly laid at some Christian graves?
Thanks to the various posters regarding the many tenants of Buddhism, I need to do more reading on it.
Gyges, thanks for the book reference, I’ll see if the local library has it.
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OS, Uh huh.
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Because someone has to do it: Karma Chameleon
According to the blog, currently, the whole thing was a joke.
In western(ized) Buddhism there’s a school that says that karma really is another form of “you reap what you sow” in this life as opposed to something that controls a future life. E.g., if you go around expecting to see the worst in people then you will see the worst in people and you yourself will come across as one of those worst of people.
In this case I think another concept from Christianity also comes into play: “forgive our trespasses as we forgive the trespasses of others.” What they think is a joke is a trespass on the Buddhists and morally no different from the Kansas Krazies that disrupt funerals. That doesn’t give us a free hand to respond in kind… but human nature being what it is they’re certainly inviting it.
Sounds like to me it was a poor attempt at humor, nothing more. Lame for certain, but hardly newsworthy (even if it were true – which again, it sounds as if it was meant as satire and indeed not true). Dozens of stories daily about people doing things to mock religous symbolism… what’s so special about this?