Oh Alice, What Will You Teach Us Next?

I believe that Carroll supports equality amongst humans and animals in his classic children’s story Alice in Wonderland. Although Alice considers talking animals quite strange at first, she does treat them all with respect.

Many critics, including our student essay sample, claim that Carroll does not portray an equality between the two species because of the “Walrus and Carpentar Story” that the Tweedles tell Alice. I do agree that Alice “focuses on the Walrus and the Carpenter’s feelings – not the Oyster’s,” (534). However, I believe that Carroll rhetorical purpose was for his audience to learn through Alice. In this story, Alice is able to see the wrong in the Walrus for eating “more than the Carpenter” and in the Carpenter for eating “as many as he could get” (513). Alice leads her audience to understand from this story that “They were both unpleasant characters” for eating the oysters who befriended and trusted them. This is the correct message to send to a young audience so that they understand the ill actions of the Walrus and the Carpenter are bad while also not scaring them from eating anything at all.


Carroll also shows this equality in the dinner Alice attends with the Red and White Queen. When she is served mutton and introduced to it by the Red Queen, Alice asks the mutton “may I give you a slice?” (515). The Red Queen supports the equality between animals and humans by stating “it isn’t etiquette to cut any one you’ve been introduced to” (515). The sane issue arises when Alice is served pudding and tries to eat it. The pudding responds “What impertinence. I wonder how you’d like it, if I were to cut a slice our of you, you creature!” (516). I believe that this statement leaves the reader with the idea of equality and that we are not any better than the food we eat. Although it does leave an older reader to question what we are allowed to eat in order to survive, it does teach a young reader the necessary respect we should have for fellow animals.

Aside from what we are allowed to eat, Carroll suggests an ethical equal relationship with animals through Alice’s many encounters with them. She uses appropriate etiquette with the mouse in the pool of tears when she says “Oh I beg your pardon. I quite forgot you didn’t like cats” (469). When she meets the caterpillar, she addresses him as “sir” (479) and asks the despicable Duchess “Please would you tell me why your cat grins?” (483). Throughout Alice’s encounters, Carroll gives a great deal of importance to manners, a valuable lesson to teach a young audience. Through his eloquent words he is also able to show the distinct difference between good and bad. The animals are portrayed as good and intrigue Alice whereas human characters such as the Duchess and the Red Queen are considered bad figures. To further prove this fact, Carroll portays Alice shaking the shrinking Red Queen, but only after she has been identified as a bad person.

Therefore, I believe that Carroll effectively teaches his young audience to respect the animals we coexist with. Additionally, he shows the distinct difference between good and bad while showing the importance of using polite manners towards them both.

A Reaction to Earthlings

I have never realized the power of images and movies until I watched part of the documentary entitled Earthlings. The written screenplay does absolutely no justice the emotional power that these horrifying images evoke from the viewer. Whoever said, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” might want to reconsider their math after viewing this film.



When the film began discussing pets, I thought that as an animal lover, I would feel happy about being a pet owner. However, I began to feel ashamed as I saw that people who chose to take pets in their homes ignored the assumed responsibility that they would care for these animals. My family has always gotten pets from breeders who gave us their AKC certificates. I felt really naïve to find out the reality of puppy mills. I had no ideas dogs were kept in unsanitary cages with no veterninary care for the sole purpose of reproducing as many puppies as possible. The thought of humans taking advantages of dogs reproducing puppies is absolutely sick. The screenplay only says “one dog circles his kennel endlessly; another’s eyes are swollen,” but the image of what these suffering dogs look like turned my stomach in all kinds of unnatural directions (569).


I thought the film would give its audience a break to catch our breath, but it just got worse. The film moved to killing the excess dogs in shelters. The images of cats dying is horrific and the narrators words behind it saying “ in a gas chamber, animals are packed very tightly and can take as long as 20 minutes to die” (571). Moving to slaughter houses, we watched multiple cows die while hearing “the captive bolt gun, which was designed to reduce animals unconscious without causing pain, fires a steel boat, that is powered by compressed air or a blank cartridge, right into the animal’s brain (574). At this point, we had watched forty-five minutes of horrific animal torture and had fifteen minutes left. I decided to close my eyes and just listen to keep my stomach from emptying its contents on the floor. However, hearing the words was still incredibly powerful. I had a test the next period and I wanted to be able to sit for the midterm exam without running to the bathroom so I began reviewing my notes in my heads. That did not work either. I found myself fixed on the screen with a dropped jaw until the bell rang. Needless to say, I was a little late to my midterm via a trip to the ladies restroom.


Afterwards, I began to consider whether I should become a vegetarian. The more I thought about it, that didn’t seem a practical solution either. Americans will never stop consuming meat. However, they can consider the amount of meat they are consuming. If they do not consider the cruelty that the factory farms inflict on the animals that they eat, maybe Americans should consider their own health. The portions that steak houses serve are outrageous. No one can eat a 16oz steak and feel well or be healthy afterwards. America’s obesity problem could originate with its large portions, the dependence on large quantities of meat, and the obsession with fast food restaurants. Another issue to consider is the amount of meat that these factory farms produce that go to complete waste because of the American cultural thrive on convenience. We have hundred of grocery stores all over Austin that have meat that goes to complete waste after a while. Do we really need all of these grocery stores? If we were to remove one quarter of them, think about the decrease in wasted meat would be.


I think my personal feelings would be similar to that of a plantation owner hearing of the true conditions his slaves were endearing. They know that the slaves have a hard and unjust life but they choose to not let it bother them. After seeing visual evidence depicting the reality, this plantation owner may not be the same again. Whereas I have considered ways to correct the issues that were presented to me in Earthlings, the farmer would continue on with his heavy heart because Southern American culture would tell him nothing was wrong. Today’s culture encourages reform and I believe that we should grab that spirit and run with it. One person can make a difference with the power of their words and voice. I believe it is possible to reduce the amount of wasted meats in today’s grocery stores so that fewer animals will have to suffer the conditions of factory farms. I also believe that as humans, we should pay higher prices for meat so that these animals can have some kind of quality of life. The USDA should consider it their ethical duty to strictly monitor slaughtering practices so that the animals experience a painful death. One last grudge, just because a slaughterhouse is Kosher does not mean it should be exempt from any of these laws. It only gives them a greater outlet to make more money by inhumanely slaughtering animals in cost cutting ways.

The distruction of Alice in Wonderland for a Young Audience

After reading our selection of the Alice in Wonderland books from our anthology, I went to the Scottish Rite Children’s theatre to see their performance of the stories. I was quite surprised that they left out many of the famous lines and scenes in addition to adding a modern twist to it.



As an avid Alice in Wonderland reader, I did not appreciate the structural changes the play took because it took the English culture and language out of the story. I do not believe disco lights and the theme song of “Secret Agent Man” during the set changes were at all appropriate for the story of Alice’s adventures. T he sequence of stories in the theatrical story was also much different than the text. Finally, the play seemed to cut out all the great imaginative animals that it could.
The play opens with Alice falling asleep amongst the audience who is listening to a history lesson from the teacher, “Mrs. Crabbypants.” Mrs. Crabbypants awakes Alice and informs her that she should tell the class (the audience) about her dreams that were more important than her history lesson. The first inaccurate portrayal thus begins with Alice being trapped in a small room. There was no white rabbit to drop “the kid gloves and fan,” while she was trapped in the room nor did she ever cry or ask the famous question of “who in the world am I?” (466). Instead, she spoke to the door that told her to drink the bottled potion on the floor so that she would be small enough to fit through the door. As she does this Alice, is now small enough to fit through the door and enter her wonderland. The play skips Alice’s confrontation in the pool of tears with the easily offended mouse, the caucus-race, and the scene at the rabbit’s house. To my surprise, the scene with the caterpillar’s advice and famous question “Who are you?” was omitted as well (479). The play went to a scene with the White Rabbit calling Alice by the name of “Maryann,” the rabbit’s maid, and asking her to find his gloves so that he may go play croquet with the Queen.



After the White Rabbit runs off because he is “terribly late,” Alice runs into the Tweedles. I did not think the modern spin of the Tweedles playing Guitar Hero was an effective twist, even for a young audience. The Tweedles never tell Alice the story of The Walrus and the Caterpillar, they only tell her they have never seen the White Rabbit and leave the stage to play more Guitar Hero. I do not think teaching children those classic stories from our past contained videogames. It just seems like a valid excuse to encourage them that playing these games for hours upon end is acceptable and has been a cultural norm for decades. Shouldn’t Alice’s stories encourage kids to wander into their own imaginations rather than into the living room’s Xbox?




The play then moves to its third scene involving Alice and the Cheshire Cat. Although out of sequence, this scene did remain true to the text. Alice asked it “but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!” (487). Alice then falls into the fourth scene showing the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.

The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party scene only had a few mistakes in its representation. The famous riddle, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” was asked and Alice still had trouble allowing the Mad Hatter and the March Hare to allow her to join the tea party. When they were discussing the Mad Hatter’s watch, he screamed “it is the fourth of the month” followed by the Mad Hare’s response of “Two days wrong.” In the text, Alice guesses the date is the fourth and the Mad Hatter sighs by saying “Two days wrong” (490).




The fifth and final scene occurs on the croquet field where Alice has finally found the White Rabbit. After meeting the Queen of Hearts and begging to keep her head, Alice is asked to be a jury in the case of a man stealing the Queen’s tarts.” Alice asks the victim questions to prove that the Mad Hatter stole the tarts and not the victim. The stage then goes dark with the irritating “Secret Agent Man” theme song and Alice is back in her history class just as she was an hour ago.

At the play’s conclusion, I asked one of the actors why so many famous lines and scenes were omitted. His answer was that they were trying to appease a very young audience who would be relating to the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland rather than the actual text. So we are now a digital culture who does not appreciate the value of a classic children’s tale. Children are expected to grow up learning morals and ethics through the screen of Disney movies. I do not believe that at twenty-one years I am considered old, but I do remember reading the Alice books as a child and was rather scared of the Disney movie. Why is it this generation of children must now be deprived of a classic book in exchange for Disney’s adaptation? What are these children to think in one week when the new Alice in Wonderland movie comes out with even more contradictions to the text and previous movie? My advice to the parents of today: try reading stories to your children rather than buying the DVD version. You might actually bond with your child and encourage them to remember these tales with your voice in their head, not a famous actor.

Eating Animals? Kosher?

After watching the first few sections of Earthlings in class Tuesday, I left the class in complete horror of seeing the reality of slaughterhouses and puppy mills. As an animal lover it was next to impossible to watch the graphic gassing of dogs or the astonishing inhumane slaughter of cows and pigs. As a person on a no carbohydrate diet, my meals mainly consist of meat. I didn’t know whether to hate the inhumane slaughters or myself for purchasing their meat.



However, the assigned readings gave me another outlet to channel my anger and disgust. I believe that it is impractical to reduce meat consumption in the United States. Yet, it is practical to ensure humane slaughter and the USDA should seek reform.

The Humane Slaughter Act (HMSLA), originally passed in 1958, is in need of further enforcement and reform. In 1978, “inspectors were given the authority to stop the slaughtering line when cruelty was observed. However, the USDA eventually stopped authorizing USDA inspectors to stop the line, since doing so incurs considerable cost of time for the industry” (689). Even though President Bush pushed the enforcement of this act through his Farm Bill, it has still not been enforced, as it should.

The documentary Earthlings, shows that the slaughterhouses operate on the principle of financial profit at any cost. Slaughterhouse workers “are expected to slaughter one animal every three seconds – and are penalized when they slow down” (690). A greater problem with the HMSLA and the United States Department of Agriculture is considering “properly conducted religious slaughter as humane and allows Jewish and Muslim slaughterhouses to forgo stunning” (696). Therefore, for the sake of religious affiliation, these animals are forced to suffer a cruel death where kosher workers are “ripping the tracheas and esophagi out of fully conscious animals, dumping them out of pens into pools of their own blood” (696). The entire idea of kosher meat is despicable.


Kosher slaughterhouses employ illegal aliens “nearly 400 workers, mostly Guatemalan” and practice inhumane slaughter to reap incredible annual profits and revenue. Because of their faith, “Agriprocessors had a second plant in Nebraska, run in partnership with the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and annual revenue of $250 million” (698). It is absolutely disgusting that the Jewish families can be proud of the profits they bring home to their families. That profit was earned by employing illegal workers, teenage workers, and primarily cost saving and inhumane methods of slaughter made legal because the USDA considers religious slaughter acceptable.

The Slaughterer explains that Yoineh Meir was only able to slaughter animals based on the Jewish idea that “Men cannot and must not have more compassion than the Master of the Universe” (915). His family of women enjoy his great income for slaughtering animals, and have no idea what kind of moral and ethical problems their breadwinner is having with his profession based upon murder. Yoineh has dreams that “cows assumed human shape, with beards and sidelocks, and skullcaps over their horns. Yoineh Meir would be slaughtering a calf, but it would turn into a girl. Her neck throbbed and she pleaded to be saved” (915). The inhumane requirements of Kosher slaughter eventually drew this religious man mad. He ran through the town screaming “Father in Heaven, Thou art slaughterer and the Angel of Death! The whole world is a slaughterhouse! (916). Yoineh Meir was found dead in a nearby river the next morning. As a slaugterer, he felt compassion for these animals. However, his religious faith prevented him from seeking a humane way to do his job and eventually led to his death.


Other issues with the HMLSA is that “it only focuses on the last few minutes of the animals lives and has no effect on how they are treated beforehand, even as they are going to slaughter” (690). Even worse, “the Humane Slaughter Act specifically mentions only cattle, calves, horses, mules, sheep and swine” (688). Because of the way chickens are treated to conserve as much money as possible, “a fourth of all chickens have stress fractures. It’s wrong. They’re packed body to body, can’t escape their own waste, and never see the sun. They feel their slaughterers” (612). Earthlings show us that “milking cows are kept chained to their stalls all day long, receiving no exercise. Pesticides and antibiotics are also used to increase their milk productivity. Eventually, milking cows, like this one, collapse from exhaustion. Normally, cows can live as long as twenty years, but milking cows generally die within four” (573). The USDA must reform this act to include all animals that undergo slaughter of any kind and to consider the lives of these animals. If we must consume meat for our diets and breed these animals for that reason alone, we must give them a fair quality of life.

A Place Called Earth

My assignment for the Mars Statesman was to investigate a human environment and report back to you, our valued citizens, on the possibility of establishing contact and eventually settlement on the planet Earth. To my surprise, I landed in a large green area on a cold rainy day with the homo-sapiens walking around with big round black covers over their heads and big packs on their backs. I decided walk up the multitude of slippery steps to a large building bearing the title of "Natural History Museum," to investigate these homo-sapiens further.

It seems that these people enjoy collecting the remains of past organisms and displaying them with pride in their artificial recreated environment. I am not sure if they are teaching their younger homo-sapiens how to kill other organisms, or to educate them of the past, but each remain seems to have an explanation written near it explaining its significance. The building had four floors that represented four times in Earth's history. Interestingly enough, it seemed to mimick the rock strata layers that many of these fossils would have come from.

The first floor holds fossil evidene of land and sea creatures who occupied the land before the evolution of the homo-sapien. The second floor shows fossils of a later age. Among them, an impressive bone structure suspended from the ceiling entitled the "pterosaur" with a wingspan of forty feet that lived in this region about 65 million years ago. The fellow homo-sapiens seem to enjoy looking at these bones and reading about them on their placks. They do not look at them vengefully as if they were the remains of something they would like to hunt, but admiringly as if they respected the great giant beast.

To my great horror, the third floor held stuffed animals of Earth's current animals. The homo-sapiens on this floor looking at them seemed to be much happier looking at animals they could relate to. The placks informed viewers of where these animals lived and how their evolutionary sucess either ended or failed. I am not sure why it is necessary to kill other animals so that they could be stuffed behind glass for small homo-sapiens to look at, but they are another species. Yet again, they do not look upon these animals with a superior attitude, but that of extreme interest.

The fourth floor shows interaction with homo-sapiens with animals, specifically an organism called the chimpanzee. Because of the genetic discovery of DNA, whatever a scientist is, claims that homo-sapiens share a common ancestor with the chimpanzee approximately 5-6 million years ago. Further more, they believe that the homo-sapien species originated in Africa about 1-2 million years ago.

From my account of this "Museum" I now know that the species homo-sapiens have not inhabited Earth for a long period of time, certainly not as long as we have lived on our planet Mars. In their natural environment outside the building, there are not very many animals roaming around as the depictions in the museum show. Rather, there are mainly homo-sapiens, large buildings, and hard pathways with box like figures on wheels that move about them. I believe that this "Museum" is to preserve the way certain animals once lived, before and during the reign of homo-sapiens. The museum held remains of animals that no longer roam Earth. I am not sure if this is due to the invasion of the homo-sapien race or of a different climate. From this account, I do believe that homo-sapiens would be interested in contact with us concerning a settlement because of their interest in science, the future, and preservation of the past.

Diminished Ethics

The Article entitled "Group Dynamics: Compassion vs. Peer Pressure, Sadism" clearly illustrates the current human sentiment towards nature in general. As a species, the article shows us as sadistic individuals creating entertainment that causes physical and emotional harm to other humans and animals.

Compassion is defined as "the feeling or emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve it" (188). I think is it horrific that the 1964 monkey experiment showed that "87% [of the macaque monkeys] preferred to go hungry rather than harm their fellow monkeys" (201). After reading this section of the article, the reader is encouraged to feel great empathy and respect for the monkeys. However, the next section referring to the compassion of humans through the Yale Millgram Experiment of 1961 and the Stanford Prison experiment of 1971 show nothing but outright hubris for each individual.

In the Yale Miligram Experiment teachers were instructed to shock their learners in increasing increments of fifteen volts for every wrong answer. This experiment found that "the percentage of participants who were prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, 61-65%, regardless of time or place. Before reading this article, I held the assumption that humans were rather ethnocentric towards other species. I also remembered back to thinking the shocking experiment that occurred in the movie Ghostbusters was humorous. However, since ethnocentrism is defined as a "view of things in which one's own group is the center for everything, and all others are scaled and rated with references to it," then how do we classify the emotional view humans currently utilize (196)? We do not even respect ourselves as a species since we have no problem inflicting pain on others. Thus, the relationship between humans and animals is clearly defined as "enthusiasm for inflicting pain, suffering or humiliation on others," or sadism (201).

Check out this Ghostbusters Scene: its the comical version of the experiment. Yet, it still shows the human lack of compassion for romance and entertainment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xU_5s3O2iM

Gerrard's article on "Ecocriticism" will give anyone a different outlook on the human relationship between animals and the environment. Prominently is the idea that "environmentalism and animal liberation clearly conflict in both theory and practice" (170). Environmentalism focuses on "inanimate things such as rivers and mountains" and minimal emphasis on "the individual organism" (171). This idea really makes environmentalists seem shallow and missing the greater part of what we assume to be their job, caring for the animals that live in these environments which they seek to protect. He also points out the cultural attitude people have towards animals by using them as symbols. He claims that are use of "therianthropicallly" the "combining human and animal characteristics for purposes of mockery, whereas the lion and the eagle were 'theriomorphic' images of Britain and America" (171).

These readings will certainly give the reader a different outlook on our treatment of fellow humans and those of other species. However, there is one idea of hope that seems to shine through the disgusting prior acts of our species. It is Jeremy Benthem's idea of Utilitarianism and most importantly, his principle of equality that states "everyone is entitled to equal moral consideration, irrespective of family, race, nation or species" (169). If Utilitarianism was a popular and successful form of law for Britain in the 1700's, maybe we are getting to far ahead of ourselves as a species and should look back in history for clues to cohabit the earth....

Dreaming of a Totem Animal

Figure 1: Thinking about the connection I had with my horse, I’ll Be Sensational, during our World Championship run, led me to believe the horse was my spirit animalDuring class, we listened to a spiritual guidance to find who our totem animal would be by going through a mental journey. I kept thinking that I would want a strong and fierce animal that was a dominant leader watching over me since I am an endearing person. However, I also thought about my individualism and independence. I enjoy ceaselessly working at accomplishing my prestigious goals, but there is also a relaxed part of me that enjoys pajamas and a cup of coffee. Since I have shown horses my entire life and love them more than I have ever loved anything, I was certain that this would be my totem animal. Yet, the rules of totem animals state that “lifelong power animals are usually wild, not domesticated animals” in addition to the fact that “the animal chooses the person, not the other way around.”[1] My next attempt at trying to find my totem animal was to flip through zoology books and see which animals I had the strongest attachments to. This activity yielded the possibilities of a hawk, a wolf, a lion, and a bear. After trying so hard to find my totem animal that day, I realized that I never gave the totem animal a chance to find me. With a heavy heart, I went to bed with Dorothy’s words of “lions, and tigers and bears!” running through my head.
That night, I had the strangest dream of my life. I have been known to have some pretty wild dreams that shock my friends and family, but this one was emotional rather than epic. I dreamed that I was riding my favorite show horse through a heavily wooded area at dusk, with a sense of urgency to arrive at a destination I was unsure of. As the sun sunk mercilessly out of sight, fear gripped me with the thought that I was lost in the woods alone, as sweat began to bead on my skin. Suddenly, the path that I seemed to be following ended with three possible roads to take. I was unsure of which path to take, growing more and more anxious of the trouble I was in, even though I was still unsure of my destination. I felt my face begin to boil and every hair on the back of my neck rise as I heard a deep loud roar from the heavy woods. Then there was a deafening squawk, causing my senses to go wild. I did not know whether to blindly pick a path and run, or stay and allow my imagination to identify and face the mysterious sounds.
Figure 2: The black bear is a dominant leader in his habitat that teaches us there is a time to be playful and a time to be assertive. While I sat in the saddle trying to decide what to do, my horse unexpectedly jumped sideways and let out a scream of panic. I noticed a rattlesnake had come across my path and seemed to be herding my horse backwards. The mysterious noises were getting louder and louder, until a hawk swooped from the treetops and ripped the snake from the ground with its powerful talons. As it flew away, the hawk looked back and winked at me with its right eye, the very same way that my dad does. While I was admiring the graceful bird fly away, the roaring grew louder and obviously closer. A big black bear appeared in front of the three-way split and immediately changed its disposition from fiercely intimidating to gentle and majestic. I did not fear this bear, but rather kept strong eye contact until he turned and walked a ways down the middle path. I decided to follow him down the middle path, until he returned to his cave. The dream ended with me somehow falling out of the sky and back to my old friends’ favorite hangout at Baylor University.

I immediately awoke in a panicked cold sweat. After looking around, I realized I was in our RV, surrounded by my favorite stuffed animals. I grabbed my backpack, ripped some paper from my notebook, and wrote down the dream before I forgot it. The next morning while I was drinking my coffee in my riding breeches with my mom, I began telling her the dream. We both thought it was a bit ironic that we were at a horse show in Waco, Texas, where I used to go to school. I decided that my totem animals were the hawk and the bear since they had both found me in my dream. The hawk protects me from the sky, whereas the bear guides me from the ground. I immediately felt very lucky at the thought of possibly having two totem animals. A part of me was still sad that my totem animal was not the horse. Then, I realized that the horse was in my dream as well and decided that maybe horses were just an innate part of me, and that I needed the characteristics of the other animals to make me complete. I also began to wonder if there was significance to the bear being in my dream while I was in Waco. These thoughts led me to realize that I had not talked to my Baylor friends since I transferred to The University of Texas last year. After my competition that day, my three best friends from Baylor met me at our favorite creamery on campus, and we talked about everything we had missed from each others’
Figure 3: The totem animal of Baylor University, the fighting black bear. “Sik em bears!”lives. On the drive south on Interstate 35, I thought back to the dream and thought that maybe the middle road that the bear led me down was the balance that I needed in my life. I believe the middle road proved that the past is equally important to the future, and that we will only find the middle road if the past and future are respected in balance.
According to Steve Framer, the bear is your totem animal if “you’re assertive, and confident with a strong presence. You need reclusiveness for your creative spark, and typically emerge from these periods with new ideas and projects. Winter is definitely a period to honor your need for quiet, solitude, and alone time, whereas spring is a time to act on the opportunities before you. You’re very independent, preferring to do things yourself rather than asking for help. You are a survivor.”[2] I found these descriptions from Framer very reassuring as these characteristics were innate features of my disposition. As an advertising major, creativity is our entire focus and primary asset to succeed in the courses and the career. When I hit a creative block, my favorite thing to do is curl up in my favorite chair in my fuzzy pajamas, a cup of coffee, and the month’s bestselling “beach read.” I usually come up with fun creative ideas that I include in my ads as I read these books and write them down for later use. As far as independence is concerned, friends have called me stubbornly independent, because I refuse to ask for help, no matter how difficult the task or panicked I might be. My dad has always called me a survivor, because I will work however hard is necessary to accomplish my goals. I feel that if I know I tried everything in my power to succeed, I will know I deserved what I earned, or that it was not meant to be.
Figure 4. Pooh bear shows us the necessary diligence to taste the honey of life. Andrews reminds us that “Honey is the natural sweetness of life. It is a reminder for those with this totem to go within to awaken the power, but only by bringing it out into the open and applying it will the honey of life be tasted.”[3] I thought this quote accurately described my incessant motivation and desire to set and accomplish goals. Right now, I believe that my honey is the potential future to land a job in a prestigious law firm and have a family to go home to at night. In order to accomplish this, I pull the power within myself to wake up at five in the morning to study a little harder before a test, or make that extra trip to the library for the extra resources that polish a paper. I believe that college is a privilege and rewarding to those who put their best work into it.
Figure 5 The famous red tail hawk always appears calm and in control. The hawk is said to give its person “natural and unforced leadership,” that encourages others to seek this person’s “guidance through trust and affection.”[4] I believe that I get the desire to effectively lead others from my hawk spirit animal. Whereas the bear gave me the qualities of a leader, I believe that the hawk pulls these qualities together to create the necessary wisdom to effectively lead. They are said to symbolize great “creativity, vision, and focus.”4 I believe that the hawk guiding me from the sky gives me a broad view of things that I would not learn from ground. Its wisdom, from being able to see all, gives me the wisdom to lead and identify with a diverse group of people.
The story of my life has always been trying too hard. I spent two days trying to find and talk myself into believing I had the qualities of virtually every spirit animal. While my totem animal is not the horse, I still feel as though it is a part of who I am in this world. However, the Bear and the Hawk symbolize my disposition and innate desire to accomplish prestigious life goals. With their guidance, I am determined to become a successful equine lawyer, practicing in Austin upon graduation from the University of Texas Law School.




Word Count: 1756
Word Count Without Quotes: 1612

List of Illustrations
Figure 1: Author’s personal picture.

Figure 2: http://lifeonthefarside.blogspot.com/2008/06/you-and-i-both.html

Figure 3: http://www.sportslogos.net/logo.php?id=4674

Figure 4: http://www.uslaw.com/library/International_Law/Isnt_funny_bear_likes_honey.php?item=82357

Figure 5: http://www.chattanooganaturecenter.org/what-to-see/animal-ambassadors/red-tailed-hawk/
[1] Ted Andrews, Animal Speak. (St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 1993), 10.
[2] Steven Farmer, Animal Spirit Guides. (New York: Hay House, 2006), 28.
[3] Ted Andrews, Animal Speak. (St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 1993), 252.

[4] Suite 101.com, “Totem Hawk,” http://discordianism.suite101.com/article.cfm/totem_hawk_spirit_guide.

Death in the Afternoon for an Emotional Experience

Hemingway Death in the Afternoon defines a moral act as something "you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after" (703). In terms of the Spanish bullfights, Hemingway attempts to prove in his short story that the slaughter of innocent animals has value to the audience by providing them with the extreme "feeling of life and death and mortality and immortality" (703). In response to the animal lover's dismay, Hemingway argues that "the bullfight is a Spanish institution; it has not existed because of the foreigners and tourists" (705). Therefore, Hemingway supports killing innocent animals for entertainment and cultural value as the Zulu tribe in South Africa does in their cultural celebration of the new harvest called Ukweshwama.









In my opinion there is no justification for killing another living being for entertainment in a stadium. I am quite certain that men can find other ways to prove their strength and courage within their culture. Hemingway believes that "the tragedy of the bullfight is so well ordered and so strongly disciplined by ritual that a person feeling the whole tragedy cannot separate the minor comic-tragedy of the horse so as to feel it emotionally" (705). Thus, the horses are only part of the whole experience and if we are shocked by their death, we have thus been blinded of the emotional purpose of the bull fight that is to feel the emotions of life and death.









Every year, approximately 50,000 bulls will die in bullfights across Europe to prove the courage of one man and to entertain the masses (Lopes). Hemingway fails to mention that the "business of the horses" is not a simple death, but a painful one where the have been gored by the bulls horns. Maria Lopes writes in her article, Horses - The Forgotten Victim that "The horses are blind-folded to prevent them from becoming terror stricken at the charge of the bull. It is commonly believed that their ears are stuffed with cotton wool to prevent them from panicking and their vocal cords cut to stop them screaming with fear at the bull's attack."







The emotional experiences that Hemingway claims have good value are compared to having an ear for music and a palate for wine. He believes that in order to enjoy the whole experience we can not focus on a single instrument in music or a particular taste of the wine because it will ruin the experience of the activity as a whole. I find it ironic that both his supporting elements do not include the death of any living thing for entertainment. Hemingway also states that the "horse tends to be comic while that of the bull is tragic" and compares the horse's death to that of a "awkward bird" (704). Check out the video below and see if you feel that the horses appear to be "pelicans" with the blinders we put on them and the sounds we take away from them.





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







It is interesting that across the ocean in America that we can realize the Longhorn's "social factor" and "economic agent" without brutally killing it for entertainment. Rather, The Longhorns is a story about how an animal used as the primary factor in an agricultural business can have a deep emotional connection with people - alive. Part of the "walking Texas Longhorns," Sancho was a Longhorn who was driven to Wyoming, only to leave the herd and return home to the Gulf Coast region because he identified the land and the people as home. Rather than sending the Longhorn back to Wyoming, he "lived right there on the Esperanza, now and then getting a tamale, tickling his palate with chili peppers in season, and generally staying fat on mesquite grass until he died a natural death" (300).

Contrastingly, American can also be charged with breaking the spirit of the once free Mustangs. By putting them through "the process of breaking" they lost their spirits and freedom to the men who desired to ride them (315). According to Dobie, "Only the spirited are beautiful" (314). As someone who personally shows horses for pleasure, I find it hard to believe that breaking these animals is ruining their spirit. Horsemen are merely training them to do something different. In return, they are provided with shelter, food, proper farrier care, and veterinarian care. In the expansion west with our steam engines and later the settling of these lands, the Mustang would not have survived. Their continued existence in addition to many other breeds of horses, is showcased in equestrian competitions.

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