Are all earthlings made equal?

 Genesis 9: 9-10 
“I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you-the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you-every living creature on earth.”

To degrade humans to animal status, to debase a religious group's struggle, to justify the comparison between animal slaughter and the holocaust is insulting. The parallel was purposely controversial to try to prove a point, to elevate the status and seriousness of animal cruelty, but also lessen the status of the Holocaust to the Jewish people as a community.  Yes the holocaust victims were treated like animals, but what makes it so horrendous is that they are PEOPLE. "People are conditioned to be indifferent to the animal suffering that is part of our network of social institutions (Sztybel, 226)." But people are NOT conditioned to be indifferent to the suffering of their own.

Racism is NOT the same as Speciesism, and it would be a bold statement to say such. I guess both groups were seemingly innocent, tortured, and left to suffer until systematically killed, but at least the killing of animals serves a purpose for man kind. Animals provide food, clothing, entertainment, pets, companionship, intrigue, and they are killed because of such things. Even though the carcasses may be tossed aside, unlike the pile of pigs, the pile of human beings is obsolete. Using human skins to make tallows, or hair to stuff pillows, or carcasses for scientific research is not because of the natural urge to survive, it is purely extra and unnecessary. 

What Humans Want.

"In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment."  Charles Darwin

Circle of life is a natural occurrence. Other animals are carnivores as well. It is natural; the essence of survival. An animal from a different species, carnivore, powerful, wouldn't blink twice if the opportunity arose to eat a human. I don't necessarily understand why the top of the food chain shouldn't use the position wisely. Furthermore, to answer the question proposed by the narrator, "What can we learn about animals by viewing them in captivity?" The same way we study humans in isolation. It is not ideal because culture and interaction with others are not seen, but one can learn a lot about animal behaviors and such.

Conversely, the method of getting non-vegan food has been portrayed as immoral and inhumane. Even though the clips dated back to the 90s, I doubt conditions have drastically changed.  Those participating are pure cowards. Beating the helpless. Abandoning morals. Inflicting suffering by torture. Endlessly. But people don't want to think about that because people don't want to know. Because if they knew, they might just feel something. "You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity." Ralph Waldo Emerson "Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility" George Orwell. "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved..." Charles Darwin.  So yes, ignorance is bliss, it's a cop out, it's a shield. 

Suddenly human kind doesn't seem so kind.  

BUT..."If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons."  ~C.S. Lewis. Does it make it okay because we torture our own species as well? We are just as cruel to one another as we are to other species. Does that make it acceptable? 

No, because the animal is not a criminal, not guilty of charges, and not a threat.

But there are HUMANE ways to fix this and still be carnivorous:

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

Part 2

First response to Earthlings

 I was surprisingly content with being sick after I started watching this documentary because I would not have wanted to watch it with anyone else watching me. My emotional and physical response to this graphic movie shocked me. I was shaking and sobbing and shielding my eyes like a small child watching a horror film. The pets section horrified and aggravated me to the extent that I could feel my blood pumping increasing my pressure. I relate to the puppies bodies being treated as garbage, worthlessly thrown into a truck in piles. I finally see the parallel to the Holocaust, and honestly it is hard to ignore. Murder is murder. "So beneath the many differences, there is sameness. Like us, these animals embody the mystery and wonder of consciousness (Narrator)."

  The food section made me rethink my eating habits, and I am going back to being a vegetarian, only eating organic foods. I am shocking at what our fellow earthlings can do to our other fellow earthlings. Has habit hardened people's hearts to such a point that watching a being suffer doesn't raise a flag? One think I really don't understand is the lack of attention given to the circle of life, natural competition, and the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest. Not all animals can or should be saved. What about over population? What about disease? From just watching part 1, what is this documentary trying to achieve? Are they trying to evoke empathy and thus catalyze change? Or are they simply trying to be controversial for media attention? What can we, the watchers, realistically do? Why bring such attention to something we are seemingly helpless to fix?

I still think of "earthlings" in terms of Sesame street's song "We are all Earthlings" copy and paste url:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttwP02WXB0I

Lyrics: Some of us have feathers

Some of us have fins

Some of us are furry

And some of us have skins

We swim and hop and slither

And leap and soar and run

And we all live together

On a planet of the sun

CHORUS: We are all earthlings

We are all earthlings

Spinning around together

On a planet of the sun

We live in the desert

We live inside a tree

We live high in the mountains

Or deep beneath the sea

We live in tents and cabins

In houses just for one

And all we live together

On a planet of the sun

CHORUS

Floating down a river

Swinging through the trees 

Climbing up a mountain

Going with the breeze

All of us can have a happy healthy place to be

If we can float and swim and climb in earthling harmony

CHORUS

Maybe ignorance is bliss.

Rawr

My Beautiful Family
Rhona, Rachel, Tracy, and Ron

Hunting with Kyle (boyfriend)

About My Wandering Eyes

I was always the kid with the wandering eyes. Not out of genetic malfunction, but out of curiosity. My eyes wandered around my surroundings so I could soak in all the details, the action, and the stillness. And I thought that was how everyone lived, until my great-grandmother passed away. I remember everything about the funeral: the burnished charcoal coffin, the pink lilies, and the ants that kept crawling over my open-toed-dress shoes. I remember the smell of my mother’s perfume and the humidity on that hot summer day. I remember the grimy residue of fun-dip on my seven-year-old fingertips. I was scared, I was confused, and I was lost. But while I was observing the crowd around me, my mom told me to stop staring and pay attention to the Rabbi. I wasn’t staring. I was just observing what everyone else wasn’t. I couldn’t accept the death, so I watched what I could take in at the time. I just needed to remember the tears falling down my families’ faces, so after the funeral I could contemplate reality. So, that day I decided not to listen to my mom.

            My eyes remember what I see, and my senses provoke my thoughts. My thoughts record my memories and help me understand what is not right in front of me. I could not accept the death of my great-grandmother right away, so year by year my mind pieced together what I had observed and helped me to comprehend what I couldn’t have before. My mind pieced together the lilies, the perfume, and the scorching heat into one painful yet descriptive memory, which I could finally come to accept.

            Embracing my wandering eyes transformed me over time into a writer, a realist, and a dreamer. By observing the world around me, there is always a person to base a character off, or a feeling screaming to be written down. There are stories everywhere to contemplate different perspectives, beginnings are readily available, and endings can always be re-written on paper. Day after day, wandering eyes keep me from confusing my reality with reality in front of me. Because my spin on reality is written through my stories with my name in the upper right-hand corner, or through the words I speak. I took the lilies from the funeral, and wrote a character named Annie to plant them in a meadow so they could continue to grow. I absorbed my families’ tears, and wrote an onomatopoeic poem about the sounds of rain. But, just as it does not allow me to confuse realities, it does not make me blind to the possibilities I can’t see. The best aspect of writing is making up what isn’t really there, and by knowing what is there, I can make what isn’t right in front of me just as real. I wrote my great-grandmother into a spirit following the Messiah back to Israel, even though my eyes never saw it, I knew that is how she would have wanted it to be.

Soaking in the smells, tastes, and sounds inspire my memories and my writing, but my eyes make me see. By seeing all the wonders I have come to appreciate the small details like the residue of fun-dip, as well as the larger aspects like the importance of family. And by embracing life, contemplating it, and re-telling it through stories; my eyes continue to wander.

I am a newbie to the blogosphere so I'll do the best I can to keep y'all intrigued. "I wouldn't be an American if it wasn't for Texas" -George Strait. My family: my mom is from South Africa and she is an artistic photographer, my sister- Rachel- is 16 smart, athletic, and 3 inches taller than me. Last but not least my dad- Ron- is the most sincere sweet human being I've ever known, and a very successful cosmetic dentist. 
Things I love: photography, poetry, writing, reading, and my dog Blakely. Things I don't like: cottage cheese, itchy sweaters, people who say "what not", and hypocrites. I am a junior, 20 years old, English Major and Government Minor. I am a huge nerd in terms of school, life, and especially writing. 

My history with animals: I have always had a pet dog at my parents house, as we are avid animal lovers. When I was 14 I decided to become a vegetarian for almost 2 years. I became a really picky eater and red meat grossed me out. After 2 years, I started to dwindle with my decision because it complicated everything and I had malnutrition. When I came to college I joined PETA and Green Peace for a while. I got caught up in the hippie vibe of Austin, and loved the passion around campus. I had never hunted until I started dating my current boyfriend freshman year. Now, I'm getting kind of good at it. I'm not sure how I feel about suddenly, drastically, changing my views. I respect environmentalists and carnivores alike. My view of nature, death, life, is very influenced by the poem "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant pasted below:

16. Thanatopsis

TO HIM who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides	5
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images	10
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around—	15
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice—Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,	20
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go	25
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.	30
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world,—with kings,
The powerful of the earth,—the wise, the good,	35
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move	40
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,	45
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings	50
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings,—yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first	55
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe	60
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come	65
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—	70
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take	75
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch	80
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

"No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky" -Bob Dylan

A picture of my converse with pigeons befriending my feet in Italy last summer.

"If you can't convince them, confuse them" Harry S. Truman

 

A picture of my classmate in France in front of a projection of Louis Daguerre