Eight

This set of readings was easiest to connect--probably because it's for 7th graders and thus is age appropriate--but it had a huge impact nonetheless. The article about feral cats, rikki tikki, and primal compassion really humanize these creatures and make you feel bad about the way we treat animals in general. However, when I watched and read these pieces two thoughts came to mind. The first of the Crocolide Hunter Steve Irwin, who devoted his life to these animals and always pushed the line with them--insisting that they were friendlier than we thought...then he got killed. The second thought I had was of a man who made a documentary about living with grizzly bears. He claimed that he had a way with them and that they were not really harmful (essentially) and ended up getting eaten alive by one. Whenever I start to feel bad about the way we treat animals I just realize that some--maybe not all--animals really can't be tamed. I think about the mongoose story and realize that he is inclined naturally to kill cobra--it wasn't a personal feeling of gratitude towards the owners was it? I think maybe some animal lovers might argue that animals are just like humans in that they are loving and caring up to a point--when our bases actions come out and we forget to do those things. Maybe they would argue that when these animals kill these humans, that it's like we just pushed the boundary--just like when we push boundaries with other human and they snap and shoot someone. Some might even say that humans are worse than animals because we shoot arbitrarily. They argued these points in Blackfish, reporting that the whale's reaction was expected giving the living conditions.

Of these articles and pieces, I thought that the penguin book and the Chipotle commercial were the most moving and controversial. About the children's book I have really only one comment: why is the sex of the penguins or any other animal in the zoo for that matter, mentioned at all if they didn't write the book in favor of human gay relationships. I am not in favor of barring the book nor am I against the book at all, rather, I think that their choice to even write the book reveals that they were in favor of that argument (which they claim that they were not doing.) Overall, I think that the issue of whether or not this book is appropriate for schools is really difficult to argue in the context of our class. To talk about it would be fruitless because to say that you don't support gay people is like saying I hate babies. "We wrote the book to help parents teach children about same-sex parent families. It's no more an argument in favor of human gay relationships than it is a call for children to swallow their fish whole or sleep on rocks.

The chipotle movie had a way of moving you but my rebuttal is that it too is a corporation in this business to make a profit and this video really helps show that: http://youtu.be/nYZgWYZlAZU