CHESSBOARD MADE OF BUTTERFLY WINGS . . . . (memoir)

I have a Chess board of butterfly wings on the white squares. IT was purchased in Brazil sometime in the nineteen thirties. Given to me as a prsent in a book store where I buy used chess books.

That's awful. You may want to find matching human skin chess pieces. Other beings are not toys.

                                Sharon

     This was a present. I didn't kill anything.

              It was made in the 1930's.

              Why are you so negative?

Negative? You're showing off a board made of insect limbs. Not everyone finds it funny, endearing, or pretty. Are you really suprised someone would hate the idea of it?

Firstly, this board was made in the fifty's. So the kind of practices in making chess boards are no longer existant there. Honestly, your taking this too seriously (Holocaust-kind of seriousness). Very nice memoir denver! If I had a beautiful chess board, I wouldn't use it as much either

Hi Pave S

Thanks for your input. I know I have stuff around the house that came from many living things. Let's see . . .

My piano has ivory key boards from elephants. I got the piano when I was a teenager in the 50's. My 120 bass accordion has ivory keys, it was made in Italy, I got it in 1951. My dad bought it for me.

I always wear leather shoes, beacuse they breathe and aren't as hot as canvas or plastic.

Oh. Oh. the major thing that I do it eat. That covers alot of live stuf. My home is made mostly of wood. My clothes, cotton, wool and some man made materials.

By the way every year we go see the millions of Monark butterfly that return to a little city near San Luis Obispo, California. They swarm around the same big giant trees every year. What a beautiful show it is. I don't know why they come, maybe it a mating thing.

               I guess I better quit.

                     Bye for now.

                        Denver

The pictures appear to be of two different chess boards.

No, they are the same (compare the two).

That's funny. I'd like to hear from the OP.

Actually MyCow can fly is correct. I tried to take several photos of the board with the built in web cam on my Acer laptop but I could not it make work and make photo presentable. It is a different photo.

When my son show up after the Holiday hea is going to shoot it with his cell phone. I don't have a cell camera. I have deleted that photo.

So, you removed one picture because it turns out, it wasn't of your board.

The photographer of the remaining picture and owner of the chess board thought it was made of glass. The photograph was only titled "Butterfly Wings Chessboard."

As far as cost, it was purchased at a garage sale.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cynmat/4096883368/in/photostream/

I cannot believe that Trysts and I would actually agree about something, but yeah, I am with Trysts on this one.  Judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable members.

Do you two kill mosquitos when they are flying in your room. Do you eat chicken, beef, seafood, etc? Do you own anything made out of leather? If you do then both of you should just get the hell out.

What a beautiful board! I would find out how much it costs if i were you..

and ignore trysts.. (btw is tryst a girl!?)

How enlightened a thinker you must be.  Without even addressing what I do or do not do, by your logic, a parent who smokes would be hypocritical in telling his or her kids not to smoke.  A parent who did not attend college must never encourage his or her kids to work towards a better future, because that would be hypocritical, and they should, what was it now?  Oh yeah, "just get the hell out".

What you say makes a lot of sense. You are comparing a parent to a child for knowing what's right and what's wrong. 1) That arguement does not work at all, the situation is completely different (I'll try to explain but if you can't see how this is so, you just can't). 2) Are you saying it's fine for you to criticize this person for using a chess board made out of butterfly wings, yet it is not okay to do so for someone who kills animals to eat or use them for leather materials such as couches. Or even kill an insect for no purpose except for mere irritation (ie the mosquito)? As of the parent, the first situation is indeed hypocritical. I don't think a parent has any right to tell their children (of age) to not smoke if they do so themself. For college (that just doesn't even fit the context). Plus the two examples you gave are advice based on a person's future. What you two are doing are telling this person that he is being ethically/morally wrong for finding beauty in a chessboard made out of butterfly (living things). I understand having such a stance, but only if you cannot deny that you do not do similar things such as eat food from live animals or even use a leather couch made out of a live animal, too.

And sorry if you got the impression that I automatically assumed you did the above. But as you did not deny it, but instead argued against my arguement, it should be obvious that you do do at lesat one of those on the list.

You are the one who seems unable to grasp the common theme, which is the ability, or inability, for someone to give good advice, or valid criticism, without following it himself or herself.  Using butterfly wings for a chess board is an issue, whether that issue is raised by someone you consider pure or not.  Likewise, a soccer coach who smokes must still tell his players not to smoke.  Political games are played by all political parties; this does not in any way trivialize the valid criticism of the games one party plays by a competing party (even if that competing party engages in the same sort of games).

First of all you need to stop your references to advice, as you are not giving this person advice, you are doing nothing but criticizing him for his purchase (where is the advice?) If I were to tell you eating chicken is evil and wrong, yet I eat it myself do you seriously not find anything wrong in that? If I find it evil / wrong then why would I do that? As you can see you are using a bad example again: a soccer coach that smokes must advice his players not to smoke because it effects the performance of their game, while if the coach smokes it does not change his ability in coaching. If a fellow player told his teammate not to smoke, yet he does so himself he obviously does not really feel that strongly about no smoking.

I can sort of agree/disagree with you about giving advice and not following it yourself completely. But if I would completely disagree with the ability to criticize someone for something you would call ethically wrong if you do not follow it yourself. How can you say killing innocent babies are wrong and evil if you can do so yourself? How can you say having a butterfly board is wrong if you can kill insects, or use material made out of animals / insects yourself. Your basically saying that having a butterfly board is wrong, while having one yourself. Why do you have one if you think it's wrong?

You can of course argue about the necessity / "cuteness" of the live animal you are killing. You need to eat to survive. But now you are prioritizing yourself over the animal, saying that you are more important, therefore you can eat them. If you really felt that animals deserve the moral respect, do not eat meat and especially do not use any products produced by animals at all. Butterflies are more beautiful and maybe more pleasurable to humans than the ugly mosquitos that bite you.I hope you can see the hypocrisy in that.

 There's another image of the board entitled "Sir Knight."

This really isn't a debate about how the board was made. I was just pointing out the hypocracy of the two arguing that killing butterflies to make a chess board is wrong. I seriously could not care less to say whether or not it is right or wrong. I just hate it when people act so disgusted and shocked about an action by a person when they do so themself. The OP was doing nothing but pointing out an interesting purchase and wanted to show it to rest of the community. I understand people feeling awkward about certain topics but something like this is not enough.