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Showing posts from June, 2012

Verminweed

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I don't like it when people describe plants as weeds . When I was a kid I thought that weeds were actually a specific variety of plant - the evil kind as it were - and that we had to fight them at every turn to prevent them taking over the world as they strangled and replaced the good plants. Then when I discovered that it was only a human definition it felt incorrect to me, wrong, and I could no longer accept it. No plants are "weeds" - who are we to say they are? Similarly, the judgement of certain kinds of animal that some people make, calling them vermin or pests sits equally uncomfortably with me. Who are we to judge? Just because their behaviour doesn't fit in with our plans - with our own animal behaviour - doesn't mean they have any less right than we do to display it. A common instance of such unfair judgement is when you hear pigeons described as "flying rats"; the implication being that they are worthless vermin and that our natur