Dobie

J. Frank Dobie worked in the English department in 1914, but three years later he went to war. After he returned from war he returned to U.T. and became editor of the Texas Folklore Society in 1922. Then in 1924, he published “Legends of Texas.” He became Chair of the English Department at Oklahoma State, but came back and in 1930, he taught a course named “Life and Literature of the Southwest.” He taught this class to over 1596 students. This class became ‘the most popular elective ever taught at U.T.” (433) Throughout his career, Dobie earned many academic honors including an M.A. citation that says “What he does not know about longhorns is not worth knowing.” (433) In the 1940’s the Regents took out “The Big Money” from the reading lists and they fired the economics professors that protested. This caused many students to protest along with Dobie, but Dobie got fired in 1947. Students didn’t believe that this was fair and they protested in front of his house, but that didn’t work. Dobie died in 1964, but many people remember him as a great person. Chancellor Ransom said that he thinks Dobie was “one of the greatest teachers the University of Texas ever had…” (433)

Dobie recognized that horses are still necessary in places like ranches. He doesn’t think that mustangs should be thought of as slaves to human beings. Dobie believed that “the true conceiver must be a true lover of freedom –a person who yearns to extend freedom to all life.” (466) In other words, Dobie believed that mustangs should be treated well and thought of as ‘the most beautiful,…spirited…, and…inspiriting creature ever to print foot on the grasses of America” (466)

It is said that the Texas longhorn has influence human beings immensely. “He (the longhorn) is…also a home lover and a persistent returner to his querencia, as the vaquero language calls the place where an animal is born or to which he shows a strong attachment.” (437) The story about Kerr, Maria, and Sancho is about how Maria finds a white and black bull calf. She raises him as a pet and grows attached to him. However, Sancho was a bit difficult and he gave the Maria and the men that were guarding him not to get out of the gate a hard time. Even though Sancho was known as a stubborn animal, he was also known as the gentlest. When compared to other animals such as cows, the longhorn proved to be a leader, loyal, persistent, intelligent, and strong. “He was one of the ‘walking Texas Longhorns.’” (445)

El Sueño de la Razón Produce Monstruos

This painting is part of Francisco Jose De Goya’s series Los Caprichos. Goya was a Spanish artist in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. His paintings inspired many artists in the 1900’s to draw about themes that were difficult to the public. Back in those days, people were extremely conservative and they wouldn’t dare to criticize the government or religion. Many of Goya’s paintings included themes like war and ethical corruption. I read about Goya in my Spanish literature class last year and I learned to admire him because I think it takes courage to question people’s ethics. It is even harder to imply new ethical beliefs. Goya is important to our class because ethics is one of the major topics that we’ve covered. However, I think that it is easier now to express our ethics and try to encourage others to think like us than it was before. This is simply because we now have freedom of speech and people are more liberal, especially here in Austin.

The painting’s title is, El Sueño de la razón produce monstruos. Translated in English this means, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. This painting was meant to be the opening to his collection Los Caprichos, but it was hidden because of the criticisms that it made of society and politics. This exhibition includes both reality and fantasy, which in my opinion make it magical. I learned that the painting demonstrates the cruelty of human beings. It is said that there are three categories which are: “the absurd and ridiculous, images of trauma, and the mutability of body and spirit.” The mutability of the body and spirit can also be compared to this class because we’ve been reborn and we’ve all slowly turned into better human beings. We’ve learned how to be leaders and how to be ethical.

There are also different kinds of animals in the self portrait. The painting includes owls, bats, a cat, and lynx. All these animals are referred to as daemons and monsters on the video below. The bats definitely add fantasy to the painting because of the myth that bats are vampires; the owl is always used in scary movies to represent something bad. I think that these animals represent society and politics and he is attempted to express how both society and politics trouble him. I thought that the image of the owl giving Goya the paintbrush was interesting because I saw it as a way that animals want somebody to speak to them whether they are beautiful animals or not. If animals were and still are being used to represent human beings, what does this tell us? It tells us that animals and humans are very similar to each other and that we can relate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StCDWenKKFw

Other links?

http://www.marxist.com/images/goya2/goya_sleep_of_reason.jpg
http://www.aucklandartgallery.govt.nz/press/images/yinkashonibarembe1.jpg
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/wp-content/blogs.dir/27/files/science-tattoo-emporium/sleep-of-reason-web.jpg

A Life Changing Experience

The memory of what happened five years ago still torments me to this day. I remember that sunny day when my mother went away to get more bananas. Shortly after she left, I was trapped in what I learned is called a net. Before I knew it I was stabbed with a shiny hard and cold shiny and from that moment on, I lost my sense of consciousness and my life changed forever. When I awoke, I found myself in a strange environment. Definitely not the kind of atmosphere I was used to, or the environment that I liked.

This environment was so different, cold, unattractive, and uncomfortable. I glanced around looking for my mother because I had hope that perhaps she had taken me to a better place while I was asleep. I also tried to convince myself that the stabbing was just one of those bugs my mother always told me to eat before they bit me. I turned up, down, and all around only to be disappointed when I failed to find my mother.

After a few glances I learned that this was not where I wanted to be. I found myself trapped in a hard and cold shiny box with gaps like the rest of the monkeys there. A hideous smell filled the air and it was difficult to breathe. I thought to myself, this is not how the jungle smells like and definitely not how it looks. There were no beautiful trees filled with bananas here or clean oxygen air to breathe. Even though all of these things seemed essential to me, what worried me the most was not finding my mother.
[1] Obviously my first instinct was to look for a way to get out of the hard and cold shiny box. I pushed it, jumped around it, screamed, and nothing I did opened the box. Then I thought that maybe the other monkeys knew how to get out. I asked them and none of them knew how. We all shared the same opinions about that place and none of us could escape from the box. I don’t think I’ve ever felt a greater sense of desperation in my life.

I wanted my mother more than ever and she wasn’t there to help me. All I wanted was to go back to my ordinary life. I wanted my mom fed me great bananas, cuddle with me, and tell me stories. I wanted to be taken care of and babied by my mother. I also wanted to have enough space to jump and a tree to climb. I was not prepared to go out on my own and find my soul mate. I was definitely not ready to live in a place like this with strangers who I couldn’t even communicate physically with.

As I thought about how miserable I felt, a noise interrupted my thoughts. An animal entered the closed place and starred at me. To be honest, this animal was not very attractive. His body was quite hairless; except for his head. He was wrapped in a strange fabric that seemed unnecessary. Now that I think about it, maybe the purpose of the fabric was to make up for his lack of fur. The unknown creature, let’s call him human, put his finger, which was quite similar to mine, inside the box where I was trapped in and wiggled it around. Curiously, I reached to touch it, but he took it out before I had a grasp of it.

[2] Days passed and more and more of these creatures entered and left the place. What I didn’t see coming was the decrease of monkeys that were with me. I saw the humans take them in the box, but most of the time they wouldn’t come back. At first I made myself believe that the monkeys were returned to their jungle with their mothers, but one day a monkey returned to the place and he was hurt. The monkey looked weak and unconscious. I didn’t want to think that the humans were bad because they fed us everyday, but who else could’ve hurt him? After we all asked him, he told us that the humans had maltreated him and made him do things against his will. Back then I was naïve about the cruelties that some animals can make, but I learned better than that, the hard way.

[3][4] After that day, more and more monkeys came back injured. In fact, some of them never came back. I highly doubt that there was a good reason behind that too. Sometimes the humans would even do terrible painful things to my monkey peers in front of us. There were times when they poked their eyes with those shiny pointy objects and other times they connected them to devices that hurt them and wouldn’t allow them to move. After watching all this I found it impossible to find a motive for these humans to hurt us so much.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had never seen any animal maltreat another this way. This was unethical and unfair. I had seen animals kill each other to survive in the jungle, but never before had I seen an animal hurt another simply because they could. I didn’t know what to think or do in the situation in which I found myself. I couldn’t escape and I knew that my death was coming closer and closer. By this point, being killed sounded like a better option because I didn’t want to be hurt pointlessly. I always thought that when I died I’d want it happen because I was old or because I was giving life to another animal by allowing them to eat me, but never to be experimented on and played with by animals who thought they were dominant.

I sat in the box replaying the last memories that I had with my mother, over and over and again. I did this for days to keep myself distracted and lose conscious of what was happening to the all the monkeys. I didn’t want to be next because I didn’t want to have a terrifying decease. I knew that the day of my death was approaching and I was afraid. In a way, I wanted to get it over with, but I also wanted to go back to the jungle and be free. Even though I knew that the second option wasn’t realistic, I still had hope. That hope kept me alive and encouraged me to eat the bananas even though they had a nasty taste to them.

Days passed by and I continued to eat the bananas. I also continued to be alive and that was something that surprised me. One day, I looked around and I noticed that there were only two of us left. The monkeys had been disappearing or coming back injured two at a time. What did this mean? It meant that that day was my day. It was my turn to be killed or seriously injured by those humans and I was afraid. That day was also the day I lost hope, but the humans never went to the place where we were at. We got lucky that day, but I knew that they would be back the next day and that my life would be over soon.

The day after I avoided not being mistreated, the most unexpected thing happened. While I was taking one of my many daily naps I was saved by a human. Yes, I know, right? I suppose that not all humans are the same. Anyways, the human walked towards the box and this frightened me because I didn’t see my changes of being saved this time. Luckily, my predictions were wrong because the human freed me.

At first I didn’t know what to do, but once I gained confidence I stepped out. After I was completely out of the box, the human put me inside a box of fabric and passed by a lot of humans. I know they were humans because I could smell them and oh boy do they stink. Before I knew it I was put in a moving device that made me dizzy, but by this time I trusted the human. I knew that he was my friend because he had saved my life by taking me out of that terrible place. Before I knew it I was in taken out of the moving device and I was back in the jungle.

[5] When I returned to the jungle I felt tremendously happy to be there. I never thought that I’d return to being free again, but I misjudged the humans. I learned that if not all monkeys are grumpy, not all creatures are bad either. At first I didn’t know what to do. I knew that I was free, but I didn’t know where to find my mother. The jungle is big and I didn’t know where to begin my search. First I ran to a tree and climbed it. Then, I jumped from tree to tree feeling the breeze of nature.

The breeze of what I called home and what I missed so much. Finally, I ate natural tasting bananas and began my search. I asked several monkeys and they directed me. After months and months of looking for my mother, I found her. That day was the happiest day of my life and will probably always be. Even though it’s been great to be back and free, I have to admit that it was difficult to adapt to this environment again. While I was trapped in that place, I developed nervousness that I still sometimes can’t control. My mother said that it will ease up eventually, but I’m still waiting. Even thought I’d love to forget about this experience, what I want the most in the world is for all the monkeys in the world to be free.


Word Count: 1,655



[1] http://gallery.photo.net/photo/6244992-md.jpg
[2] http://www.all-creatures.org/anex/monkey-cage-01.jpg

[3]http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Animal%20Testing/Vivisection/baby_monkey_injection.jpg

[4] http://farm1.static.flickr.com/83/249427008_3e5f0e05fb_m.jpg

[5] http://media.photobucket.com/image/monkey%20crying/heathhav/bush_monkey.jpg

Compassion

Since I was a child, I was told that I had to treat animals well. We always had a dog and I knew that I wasn’t supposed to ride my dog or pull its ears because it also had feelings. However, not all children are taught have compassion for animals. I’ve noticed that many people try to excuse the lack of compassion that kids have for animals by saying, “Oh, he’s just a kid”, but compassion is something that has to be embedded in an early age. “Nothing could more effectually tend to infuse benevolence than the teaching of little ones early to consider every part of nature as endued with feelings.” (349) I definitely think that the world would be a better place if people were taught to be compassionate for earthlings because in the end, we’re all here for a short amount of time and we all deserve the right to enjoy our lifetime to the fullest without being mistreated by other species. The way animals were treated in the west was simply terrifying. I cannot understand how a person could see the pain of these animals and enjoy watching the pain they were producing.

I found this reading assignment to be rather interesting because I had never thought about how religion affected people’s compassion for animals. Since I’m not religious myself, I assumed that compassion is something that is taught to people during childhood, learned throughout life, or even worse, never learned. I learned that most people have learned to focus on morality towards humans more than with any other living creatures. “Because these worldviews are largely anthropocentric, nature is viewed as being of secondary importance.” (369) What does this mean? To me it means that people have been somewhat selfish even in their teachings of faith for others. It’s great that people are taught to be compassionate to other human beings, but this shouldn’t be dominant. Since it is said that animals and humance are very similar, everyone, no matter what religion they are, should be compassionate for all living things equally. However, "those rare souls who bothered to notice maltreatment of animals felt uneasy not because the habit might extend to abusing human beings." (339)

I thought that what professor bump said about Judaism was very interesting. He basically told us that “Judaism values human life more than that of other living things, but at the same time stresses the special responsibility of human beings to work and look after the created other.” (371) I admire that Judaists value other living things as well and that they feel responsible for maintaining the wellbeing of all the living things on earth. I honestly think that since we are the only rational animals on Earth, we should do what we can to maintain stability and justice for all earthlings.

Links?
http://brebisnoire.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/dog-vivisection-mouchy-painting2.jpg
http://www.stenudd.com/myth/greek/images/aristotle.jpg
http://theology101.org/jai/Jainism.jpg

http://api.ning.com/files/Ij2-798Cl6ABEO3t0-YwoxJx*WvrIavVBhreKF8LJJkEqCL2d8-HMOu8-dPhpFWEzp0xYI4o6A*EYS74ItEgwUB4E9TQM560/compassion.jpg

Walk the Walk

Walk the Walk was interesting because we talked about the factors that make good people make bad decisions which is something I wrote about earlier. Before going to this workshop I thought that people did unethical things because they were bad people who were being selfish, but I learned that there are reasons for good people to do bad things. Some factors that might influence people to do bad things are when people think that they can defensively say that they’re boss made them do it. I realized that many employees might allow unethical things to happen in the companies the work at because their boss approves of them and because they don’t wan to lose their job.

Some other people might convince themselves that everybody does these things and that nobody is harmed by their actions, but it only takes some critical thinking to figure out that many people are affected by a simple unethical and selfish decision. Dr. Drumwright also talked about moral muteness which is when people don’t discuss ethics enough that they become unaware that they are doing unethical things or they don’t even question their own morality. We also discussed moral myopia which means that people choose not our ambition to be rich or be successful can blind us and we may do things that we wouldn’t normally do.

In the workshop we were given a situation in which we had to decide what we would do, who would be affected, and what factors would make us make those decisions. The scenario that my group had was about a UT student who was a senior who was struggling to pay for college and she got the internship that she always wanted. However, her boss asked her to make unethical decisions and she was debating whether she should make that choice or not. My group decided that if we were in her position, we’d try to reason with our boss or maybe asked if we could be assigned another task. We decided that customers, the company, our boss and our reputation could all be affected negatively if these unethical movements came to the public, but we thought that doing the right thing was more important.

I thought that Dr. Minette E. Drumwright was the ideal person to present information like this because she is a true leader academically. She has won school-wide awards here at UT, written books, taught in educations programs in various countries such as Mexico, Asia, and Europe, and she was recently an assistant professor at Harvard Business School. What qualifies her even more than all of those achievements is that she is currently researching about the social responsibility in business which we all know a lot of unethical things are done to be successful. She told us various stories about ethical and unethical behavior in the business world, but what impacted me the most was a quote that she told us by Elie Wiesel (a Holocaust survivor) and it said that “The opposite of love is not hate it’s indifference.” Then she applied it to the business world and said that the opposite of indifference is ethics.

Links?

http://stakeholder.bu.edu/2007/images/drumrightMinette.jpg

http://goldenkeyhq.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/ethics-sign1.jpg

Slavery

On Tuesday at our last LEAP meeting, the speaker pointed out that negative actions always make the headlines on newspapers. After saying that he said, “Every time I read one of these headlines, I ask myself, ‘Why did they do it?’” As I agreed with what the man said, I asked myself the same question and I wondered if they were afraid or karma. “If what goes around comes around, what do they get for their pain?” (310) Then, I thought about slavery and animal cruelty. Did these people ever feel the pain that they produced by killing animals and mistreating human beings? I honestly don’t think that they did. I don’t think that the price to pay for these injustices is too high for a man. After thinking of that, I tried to think of reasons why they did/do it. I came to the conclusion that people tend to ignore their values to satisfy society and do what they’re expected to do. In other words, society has shaped these bad people in the past and continues to do so. It would have been considered erroneous and it would be frowned upon for a white man to defend black people just like vegetarian and veganism is today.

It is important to remember that “…the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor.” (313) Social stratification encourages individuals to believe that they are have more or less value than others their according to their ideological beliefs. I think that this is another factor that leads to social issues such as slavery and animal cruelty. Both PETA and MLK have/had proof of this because they both support the statements that I made above. What I read on the manuscript for Earthlings and what I’ve read about slavery are very similar. Both animals and black people are/were threatened by people who thought they were superior than them, but because that exploitation is/was acceptable and normal, nobody was willing to stand up and defend their values. MLK stood up for blacks and stated that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” but what can animals do? PETA is their chance for change and their statements on the displays of experimentation, justification, and exploitation are all similar to MLK’s speeches. PETA and Earthlings are both trying to give animals a voice because they don’t want animals to be slaves to society like black people were in the past.

“Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is-whether its victim is human or animal-we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing a living creature.” (311F) When society accepts that what they are doing is wrong, they will finally be in peace with themselves and with all earthlings. Meanwhile, they will continually be unfair and selfish. Slavery and animal cruelty are simply too similar to differentiate. People need to understand that “They [animals] were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women and men.” (319) In other words, nobody was made to serve or feed anybody. We’re all here to live our lives, be free, live in peace and make the best of what we have because we only live once.

Links?

http://www.toppun.com/Martin-Luther-King/Injustice-Anywhere-threat-justice-everywhere_small.gif

Earthlings!

I had never heard of Earthlings before we discussed it in class and I was honestly afraid to watch it because I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to hold back my tears. I can sometimes be insensitive, but when it comes to injustice towards living individuals that can’t defend themselves, I am very caring. Even the introduction of the documentary made me feel compassionate for animals when it said, “…morally disrespectful treatment occurs when those who stand at the power end of a power relationship treat the less powerful as if they were mere objects.” (280-281) I think that the parts of the documentary that made me cry the most was where the part where the pigs were being hit. That just broke my heart because even thought the people say that the pigs were in pain, they kept hitting them and they also cursed at them like they had done something wrong.

I think that a German or a white person would have reacted the same way I did. Watching Earthlings was an eye opening experience that helped me realize the truth behind the daily meals that most of the U.S. population consumes, not to mention other countries that might eat more meat. A German or a white person could have also made a change. Even though it was frowned upon by society and quite unusual, they could have both decided not to be part of The Holocaust and slavery. The same thing applies to me, I can choose to be vegetarian and do something that is frowned upon by society, but I’d be following my beliefs. I think that the people who were or are part of such horrible injustices like The Holocaust, slavery, and animal cruelty are either heartless or are too afraid of being judged by others for following their beliefs that they decide to fit in and do what everyone else is doing.

When I read the screenplay, I knew that I had to expect gruesome images and that I was going to have a hard time looking at all of that injustice and pain. The descriptions on the screenplay made me feel ashamed and I was surprised to notice in how many ways animals are mistreated. Before reading the screenplay, I would have said that there are maybe three ways in which animals can be mistreated, but my calculations were obviously off. Even though I felt sad after reading the screenplay, the visual version of Earthlings was much worse.

I think that it was very brave of the makes of this this documentary to release all this information to the public. Since this country is known for doing the “right things” and Americans like to think of themselves as caring and fair, Earthlings shows the opposite. After watching Earthlings I asked myself “How free is this country?” I mean, people are free to express themselves and do whatever they want as long as they don’t break the law, but what about animals? If cruelty against animals is being practiced everyday in such terrible ways, the U.S. is not a free country. Maybe it is true that “freedom isn’t free?”

links?
http://www.allkindz.com/images/8585.jpg
http://www.neaca.com/images/Nazi_Grouping_.32_ACP_Pistol_.JPG
http://stateoftheart.popphoto.com/blog/images/2007/06/04/picture_2.png

http://alexve.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dontbeafraidofchange1.jpg

Racism...

I find it amazing that society looks at the events that occurred during The Holocaust and they criticize those who were part of it and didn’t do anything to make a change. The same thing applies to slavery. Many people feel ashamed for being born in the U.S. because of slavery, yet they go to a meat market and buy the biggest steaks they can find or they go haunting to entertain themselves. What does this tell us? This tells us that things haven’t changed and that we should be ashamed for contributing to animal cruelty. Yes, we’ve moved on from killing and mistreating people and we’ve given them the same value as we give ourselves, but what about animals? Animals are no different than us because “animals share with us the privilege of having a soul.” (311B). There is no reason to look at animals differently only because we speak a shared dialect and they don’t or because we are rational. Rationality is nothing, but judiciousness that makes us midjudge the value of other living creatures. We all must understand that “The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans anymore than black people were made for whites or women for men.” (Walker 314)

The PETA display had a great impact on me. I had heard of PETA before, but seeing the similarities shown on the posters between animals and human beings made me see animal cruelty differently. One of the displays said that animals are just like people and they showed how both people and animals have been experimented on, banded, exploited, and that there are no good justifications for any of these injustices. If I witnessed any of these injustices, I would try to find a way to defend my rights since I live in a free country, the sad thing is that animals can’t do this because they don’t speak English, they’re not human, and because there is no law that says that animals shouldn’t be killed to be eaten, used a coats, belts, etc. all over the country. Sadly, but truly “...we are surrounded by an enterprise of degradation, cruelty, and killing.” (311A) Furthermore, “As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace.” (Pythagoras 311B)

I think that the PETA display was close to MLK's statue becuase blacks were once treated unfairly just like animals are still being treated today. The quote on the statue,"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," is very similar to the quotes that were on the PETA display. Our exploitation for animals has made us all into tyrants and that is definitely something we don’t want to be. That is, if we honestly believe that The Holocaust and slavery were erroneous. Like Peter Singer said, “[The tyranny of human over non-human animals] has caused and today is still causing an amount of pain and suffering that can only be compared with that which resulted from the centuries of tyranny by white humans over black humans.” (319) The same suffering would obviously apply to slaves. It is important to know that a change can still be made; even one person can make a difference. “Little baby steps is what it will take [to stop animal cruelty],” is what one of the PETA representatives told me and I believe her. Change is in our hands and it is up to us. “The suffering animals currently endure at the hands of human beings in laboratories, on ‘factory farms,’ as pets, and in the wild, sadly parallels that endured by black people…”(321)

Next time you see that an animal can use your help, please remember that “A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is as bad as an act of cruelty to a human being.” (Mohammed 311C)

Links?
http://media.photobucket.com/image/peta/BloodyXbellum9/peta-1.jpg?o=17
http://media.photobucket.com/image/slavery/ashleyalder/slavery.gif?o=32
http://media.photobucket.com/image/cute%20animals/sarge0946/Animals%20Beautiful/ATT00000112.jpg?o=14
http://media.photobucket.com/image/animal%20cruelty/I_am_2_cute_4_u/animal%20cruelty/animal-2.jpg?o=23

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/images/Animal%20Humanities/PETAposters/MLKtower.jpg

PETA

PETA is well known across the country and I learned yesterday that it is known in other countries as well. I first heard of PETA when I decided that I wanted to become vegetarian and I searched for information. That year I signed a petition and I received stickers in the mail. Since that I’ve been receiving information about PETA, but I never felt like signing petitions was enough. I’ve always wanted to change the world and this seemed like a wonderful opportunity. However, I got too caught up in my life and forgot about this goal.

It was very convenient that professor Bump took us to see the PETA/SACA display because it helped us be aware there are students at UT who are actively working on improving the lives of animals and doing what they can to prevent cruelty to animals. This display was appropriate for our class because people’s ethics allow them to mistreat animals when in reality they should be treated just like any other human being. I admire these people and I want to become one of them. I wrote down my information on a list they had and I can’t wait to get information and get involved in this student organization. I will finally begin working on my goal and make a change.
The displays that were shown yesterday were impressive. The purpose of the gruesome pictures was to give people a visual of how animals are mistreated and I can tell you that they did this effectively. The message that they were trying to get through was to show people that animals are just like us.

One of these pictures said “They’re just like us” and when I read this, I automatically thought of Lewis Carroll. Like PETA, Carroll wanted people to treat animals as well as they treated people. This is why he gave the animals human traits in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. However, Carroll wrote his book a long time ago and I don’t think he had a great impact on how animals were mistreated. Instead, people focused on the symbolism in the books and they tried to justify his reasons for writing what he wrote. On the other hand, the main focus of PETA is to save animals and inform people about animal cruelty.

I spoke to one of the girls in that were giving out freebies to people and I asked about how SACA (Students Against Cruelty to Animals) is involved in the community and she seemed so optimistic about making a change. She told me about their meetings on Tuesdays and how they are trying so hard to even make a small change. I admired that she was realistic about the changes that she can make as a student and still remained optimistic to take those “baby steps” to ultimately make a bigger change.

Animals in Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland and through the looking glass wouldn’t be the same without the animals. The animals in both books have personalities and feelings. I believe that Lewis Carroll wanted to stress this in both books because we often overlook animals. Many people don’t show sympathy or empathy for animals because they think that animals don’t have feelings or personalities because they don’t speak our language.

It is obvious that “… in Carroll’s eyes, pain is in no way justifiable. The seemingly never-ending torture of a creature is the true crime.” (Unknown author) I think that Carroll had the animals talk in both books because he wanted people to see what animals would be like if they could talk. This was possible because Carroll made it realistic by assigning the animals personalities that determined how they acted towards Alice. This also allowed the readers to understand that animals have feelings too and that they don’t like being mistreated. In chapter two when Alice is talking to the mouse about cats he says, “As if I would talk on such subject! Our family always hated cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me hear the name again.”(26)

“From the very beginning of the book, Alice’s journey is typified by movement away from the ordered world of human society, and into the chaotic world of nature. “ (Daniel) The Alice book is a good example because of the different personalities that the animals have and the ways in which they respond to Alice. We all know people who are always in a hurry like the rabbit, people who shouldn’t be in power like the queens, victims of society like the mouse, etc. I think that it was very clever of Carroll to give realistic personalities to these animals because after reading this, hopefully people can begin to see animals as living individuals who need to be treated fairly and with care.

Even though Carroll focuses on the animals in the Alice in Wonderland book, he talks about plants in Through the Looking Glass. In chapter two of Through the Looking Glass Alice shows her concern about the plants by asking, “Aren’t you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody to take care of you?”(158) This shows that Carroll also cared about nature and thought that people also had to take care of it.

I don’t think that Carroll ever thought that his book would become so famous that it would be read all over the world and he didn’t think of how the views of animals differ in many cultures. In some cultures it’s okay to eat cows; in others it isn’t and so on. After reading the Alice books I have learned to think of animals from a different perspective because the only thing that differentiates us from them is our rationality and our language.

Links?

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28885/28885-h/images/p0030-dormouse.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a7/Movie_alice_in_wonderland_flowers.png

http://popcritics.com/movies/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/alice_in_wonderland.jpg

A Change for Lefties

[1]

Left-handed people are challenged everyday by the way the world is designed. Today, most gadgets are designed for the majority of the population, right-handed people. Unluckily, devices for left-handed people are limited, difficult to find and unaffordable to some people. Some minor challenges left-handers face include using right handed scissors, writing utensils, guns, guitars, motorcycles, notebooks, knifes, doors, etc. These right-handed items go unnoticed because society has grown to believe that “that’s just how things are”.[2] However, not all these challenges are minor. For example, left-handed people in the U.S. drive American vehicles which have the steering wheel on the left side of the car and the gears on the right side. As a result, traffic accidents occur because we, left-handers, are required to use our right hand to switch gears. Tell me; do you still find it surprising that “two thousand five hundred left-handed people die each year directly as a result of using products designed for right-handed people”?[3]

These challenges may seem irrelevant to most right-handed individuals, but I think it’s become a hassle more than ever. This is because the population in the world is increasing significantly which means more lefties. Nowadays, “…as much as ten to fifteen percent of the population is left-handed”.[4] If statistics say that the left-handed population is growing, shouldn’t left-handed objects be more affordable and common? I believe that part of the reason for this lack of left-handed gadgets is because nobody has spoken up.

Ever since I began school, I’ve stood out from my peers because I’m left-handed. In Pre-K, I had a difficult time learning how to write and it took extra effort for me to cut straight with right-handed scissors. As a little girl, I didn’t know that all these items were designed specifically to facilitate tasks for right-handed people, but I knew I was different. Nonetheless, I’ve always preferred to think of myself as gifted because I’ve had to adapt. By living in a right-handed world I have been forced to exercise both of my hands more than others. This leads me to believe that if I could write neater with my right-hand, I’d be convinced that I’m ambidextrous. Luckily, being ambidextrous or ALMOST ambidextrous is applauded by society today.
Though, this has not always been the case. [5]

Left-handers were discriminated long ago. In the medieval times, lefties were seen as “evil” because “the scriptures say [that being left-handed] is of the devil”.[6] They believed that “the word ‘left’… [came] from the Anglo-Saxon ‘lyft’, meaning ‘weak’ or ‘broken’’.[7] A more recent example would be that decades ago “…teachers in America used to slap the wrists of students who attempted to write with their left hands”.[8] On the other hand, there are also positive myths about lefties.

One of them is that “…being left-handed means having a dominant right side of the brain… [and] have slight advantages in baseball”.[9] Having a dominant right side of the brain gives lefties an advantage because the right side of the brain works more with emotions, wholes and relationships among the parts, simultaneous and holistic thinking, and it also deals with synthesis.[10] Whatever the myths are or were, the world still hasn’t been fixed for lefties. Surprisingly, even in such a diverse university like UT, there are insufficient accommodations for left-handed people.

When I began school here at UT, I expected to see many accommodations for lefties, but I was [11] disappointed. On the first day of school, when I was seated in the Will C. Hog building I noticed that there are three hundred and sixty-five seats, but only fourteen of those desks are have the arm tablet reversed. If ten to fifteen percent of the U.S. population isn’t right-handed then the rationality is incorrect in this hall.[12] This was when I decided that something needs to be done. Lefties in this university need a leader to make the changes and that is me. According to Covey, “the leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, “Wrong jungle!”[13]

Undeniably, the advantages of being a UT student are the limitless resources available to me which I could only benefit from. What will also contribute into helping me become a leader are the courses that my major requires. In order to attain a psychology degree, I am required to take various social science classes such as sociology and psychology. These classes will allow me to understand human behavior. Understanding human behavior will help me be an ethical leader, how to approach the issue, and how to approach human beings.

My UGS class, Leadership, Ethics and Animals, is focused on leadership and it will help me become an ethical leader and allow me to be “reborn” again discover who I am. Knowing who I am will help me decide what I need to do in life and my strengths and weaknesses. In this class I’ve learned that “…if we don’t develop self-awareness…we empower other people and circumstances outside our Circle of Influence to shape much of our lives by default”.[14] It has also been very informative about the resources available like writing centers that I most likely consult when I begin working on my goal. Furthermore, this class will make me a better writer and reader by implementing and challenging my reading and writing proficiency everyday of the semester.

Mr. Bump has stressed throughout the semester that writing is an aptitude that can facilitate life for people and make a great impact in society. The writing class I take will confidently allow me to improve my writing skills. Skillful writing will help me persuade people and make a change. Good writing and good reading are correlated and that class will also help me become a better reader. Literacy will unquestionably be helpful when I begin working on my leadership vision because if I can read and write well, I can communicate with people. Better developed writing skills will allow me to communicate with people nonverbally and make a greater impact. Other classes that will help me enhance my ability to communicate with others are the foreign language classes that I am required to take. Learning another language will make trilingual and I will be a better-rounded individual.

However, not all the classes that I am required to take will make me a better-rounded person or help me reach my goal. I must also take a U.S. history class, two math classes, three biology or physics classes, and a visual and performance arts class. Even though these classes are irrelevant to my leadership vision, I ought to take them if I want to become a psychologist. I will not allow obstacles to stand in my way of becoming a leader in my community. I will take these ineffective classes as soon as I can and constantly remind myself that “…education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them”.[15]

[16]

My college experience will definitely play a big role in my aspiration to make a change at UT. I will join the Student Government, and express the needs of left-handed students. I also want to hold a leadership role such as president or vice-president before the end of my junior year in the Student Government. Even though I have everything planned out, things don’t go our way all the time. That is why I believe in always having a backup plan because we never know what might happen. My plan B is to begin my own organization for lefties in the university. I highly doubt that it will be difficult to find at least two other lefties who share the same ideas as me and pay the ten dollar fee to start club. Starting a new club will allow me to unite all the left-handed people who would like to make a greater impact. I believe that by actually seeing all the lefties unite, the university will become aware of the amount of lefties in this university.

[17]

After achieving my goal of beginning a club or of becoming a leader in the Student Government, the next goal would be to work with the members and inform people about our everyday struggles. I will also inform people about “International Left-handers Day” which not a lot of people know about.[18] After informing people, the next step to that would be to bring this up to the university and hope that changes are made on campus. By January 2010, I should be able to become the voice for lefties or establish and promote my organization.
By next March, I will be educating people about how left-handed people are challenged and affected everyday. After doing this successfully, I will hopefully grab hold of the attention of whoever can add more lefty desks and a change will be made. The more supporters I have, the easier it will be to be heard. With the help of others, I am hoping to see changes on campus by next fall.

Making changes on campus will be a stretch goal that will lead me to making bigger changes in the future. Possibly, after achieving this, I will make change the world for left-handed people. It would be wonderful to one day create or influence a national organization that will support left-handed people and help them survive in this right-handed designed world. For the moment, I’m willing to focus on making a local change and doing my best to accomplish my goal the best that I can. I will constantly remind myself that “Men [and women], whose minds are possessed with some one object [or leadership vision], take exaggerated views of its importance, are feverish in the pursuit of it, make it the measure of things which are utterly foreign to it, and are startled and despond if it happens to fail them.”[19]

Word Count without Quotes: 1,436
Word Count with Quotes: 1,654




[1] http://www.onehandedkeyboard.com/imagesfolder/leftkeyb.gif This is a picture of a left-handed keyboard.

[2] Richard Cussons, "Coping With Being Left Handed." Ezine Articles. April 20, 2006, http://ezinearticles.com/?Coping-With-Being-Left-Handed&id=182113.

[3] Kevin McCarthy, “How many left handed people die each year from using right handed products, ChaCha your mobile BFF, February 19, 2008. http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-left-handed-people-die-each-year-from-using-right-handed-products.

[4] Richard Cussons

[5] http://radioinsidescoop.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/left-handed.jpg

[6] http://radioinsidescoop.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/left-handed.jpg
[7] Richard Cussons

[8] Richard Cussons

[9] Richard Cussons

[10] Stephen R. Covey. “Principle-Centered Leadership, 1990.” Leadership, Ethics, and Animals: A Signature Seminar, Ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2009), 225.

[11] http://www.css.washington.edu/pdf/classrooms/101389.png

[12] Richard Cussons

[13] Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (New York: Free press, NY, 2004), 100-101.
[14] Stephen R. Covey

[15] Paul Newman. “The Idea of a University, 1852.” Leadership, Ethics, and Animals: A Signature Seminar, Ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2009), 170.
[16] http://centex09.texasultimate.org/_/rsrc/1237387108165/sponsors-1/new%20SG%20logo.jpg

[17] http://www.leftorium.com/images/leftorium_400.jpg
[18] Richard Cussons

[19] Paul Newman

L.O.U.D.D.

L.O.U.D.D. was very interesting. The event was based on two of the topics in our class, leadership and ethics. Our spokesman was Dr. Gonzalez and he spoke about how our country is so hungry for leadership. He pointed out that “everything that happens around the world will affect us and that we should be aware about everything going on globally and locally”. After this statement I thought about how I had been ignoring that fact all my life and how important it is for me to be a leader in today’s society.

At the event we were all given name tags that also contained the two sessions that we were assigned to attend. I was assigned to go to an ethics session and a sustainability session and they were both interesting. However, the ethics session was my favorite. We started the session by circling things that we value on a paper we were given that included such values as achievement, accountability, advancement etc. After that we were asked to partner up with the person next to us and discuss our values. I learned that we don’t all have the same values as I had assumed at the beginning of this exercise.

After doing that we saw a clip of What Would you Do? At the beginning of the video a well dressed woman fell in the middle of a busy street in New Jersey and many individuals stopped to help. Then they changed the experiment by replacing the woman with a homeless man and not a lot of people stopped to help. The purpose of the video was to make us think about the assumptions that we make are influenced by our ethics. Another video that we saw was about teenagers who cheat in high school. The video had many statistics about students who cheat and lie, but ironically all 93% of the students who cheated said that they were satisfied with the ethics that they demonstrate and that they didn’t think that they were doing anything bad. After watching the video we discussed about how ethics were implemented a lot more in past generations and that is part of the reason why we prefer to think that we are doing the right thing because we assume that somebody else might be doing it more than us. Another reason for this is because we try to make up explanations for acting inadequately.

I’ve always wanted to be a leader because I think that it’d make me feel good and because I want to help others, but after listening to Dr. Gonzalez’s speech, I learned that leadership is no longer an option for all of us, it’s now a necessity in our everyday life. I also learned that not everybody else believes the same things and because of that we have different values which make our code of ethics differentiate when we compare them to somebody else’s. I always assumed that ethics was based on recognizing what is wrong and right and doing the right thing, but there’s a lot more to that.

This is the shirt they gave us for networking

with others. I love free t-shirts!