Now, don’t get me wrong – I love animals. To use the old joke, I love them baked, boiled, or fried – or even all three. Of course at the same time, for the past four years as a college student I feel I’ve almost been a vegetarian because I mainly consist on cranberry juice, plain ramen, and EZ Mac. No meat to be found there, of course! At the same time though, I’ve always kind of felt that some vegetarian arguments to be kind of iffy. Fellow animals are our companions on the earth, some of their species are our friends, but of course some are universally disliked (many more parasitic-types) and what classifies which animals are worth more? I mean, if you’re a vegetarian, you have to understand that in the “perfect non-meat-eating world” you’re going to be growing huge swaths of grain as well…what about all the little bunnies and chipmunks and other adorable little animals that are getting run over and gruesomely converted into blood mulch? (Now imagine them with Disney eyes; “I’m sorry Thumper, your mother can’t be with you any longer”). I don’t know what vegetarians think about that, but I hope at least a chipmunk has the same moral value as a steer, as they’re both pretty adorable in my opinion. The steer drools, though; off with his head!
Of course, the environmental arguments are a lot more solid, in my opinion. Everyone knows it takes far more energy/water to make a pound of beef versus a pound of grain (2500:1 gallons) and the land useage used by cattle in particular is just enormous. I can have a lot more respect for the vegetarian idea if that’s one of their principles. In fact, that might be the sort of thing that drives me to at least try tofu more often.
But primarily, I’ve always been a pragmatist. Dr Patricia McConnell, a radio show host and zoologist that I’ve been listening to my whole life, as well as a former professor of mine on Human/Animal bioethics, sums it up best…”Animals deserve welfare, but they do not deserve rights.” My mother, a veterinarian, kind of raised me the same way. You treat animals properly, you don’t support factory farming, and buy local when you can. But beyond that, what is there? Animals shouldn’t be eaten on principle of they deserve not to be eaten? To borrow (and slightly modify) from Ben Franklin (I’m doing a lot of borrowing tonight, I believe) – “If God made animals not to be eaten, why did He make them so darned delicious?”
Which brings me to my experience in Witte Hall this afternoon, surrounded by people who would rather eat brussels than beef.
I was honored to be part of the University of Madison’s contingent to the Midwestern Campus Antiwar Network Conference. I just got back a few hours ago from a weekend of networking, activism workshops, and as pictured here from the front page of the Daily Iowan student newspaper, a 2 hour rally/protest. I really enjoyed the entire weekend, but the greatest part was not necessarily the workshops and knowledge I gained from the two days, but the new friends that you can’t help but make when you are with them nonstop for almost 40 hours straight. I personally led a workshop myself alongside an activist from the University of Cincinnati and the two of us handled “Media Skillz/Website” quite admirably. Although we didn’t have as big of a group as the policy-based workshops, our skill-based shop answered a lot of questions and afterwards, another activist from Iowa came up and we chatted about the site and he put some links to us around on some sites he manages.
Madison hasn’t had a good protest since our Halliburton protest around six months ago, and trust me, I was sorely feelin’ the need to take the streets once again. When so much of your time in an activist organization is taken up with meetings, bureaucracy, designing and maintaining a website, and the like, you sometimes loose sight of the power of the people en mass! It was especially rewarding for me as we were reaching the end of the circle through Iowa City’s campus area, and we came across a bunch of students crossing the street. We were in the middle of the “Whose Streets? Our Streets! Whose War? Their War!” chant, and since I was definitely losing my voice at the time (still hasn’t come back to me unfortunately), I went up to the group and proclaimed loudly that it was YOUR streets, and THEIR war! They looked at each other uncertainly, and I gestured for them to join us in our march – and they did!
There’s nothing more relaxing and focusing than a protest, in my opinion. All the tension and anxiety and anger that you get from months of researching and studying an illegal war and the various factors that lead into it really raise the blood pressure. But you get out there with hundreds of other activists into the bright sun, cheering, shouting, briefly dying-in – well, the adrenaline of any sporting event has NOTHING on the feeling of empowerment, love, hope and energy. You’re able to come back to your chapter then with all these great ideas, great new friends, and have a revitalized outlook on building the movement right here in Madison again.
On a technical note, I’ve loved the fact that in the past 4 hours already a dozen new subscribes have created accounts on the website and the forums are a hopping hive of activity. Activism and technology combined – could I ask for anything more? 🙂
Someone told me about the online movie “Zeitgeist” several months ago, but since it’s a pretty long film, I never got around to watching it. However, that changed this evening, when a couple friends of mine and I sat down and learned about what the filmmakers term, ‘the three largest conspiracies ever told.”
The Christian Church
The September 11 Attacks, and who caused them.
The “man behind the curtain” – the elite group of men that control international economies, war, and everything down to the clothes that Brittany Spears wears (apparently).
The movie is so frightening, so terrible, that you won’t want to believe it. Everyone you know, the majority of people I know, will decry it as a typical conspiracy theory. As a Christian, the first half an hour, on the fallacy of the Christian Church bothered me. I’ve seen the documentation on the similarities between Christianity and preceding religions before, and I have always taken such ideas with a grain of salt…I mean, no one “tells me” what my religion should or shouldn’t be, not that I listen. It’s a personal choice of mine, and if I personally choose to believe in the triune God, that’s my choice.
Moving on. I’ve already of course looked up the first site I could find against the movie, and I encourage you to watch the film, and then do the same. In this day and age no one should believe anything right away. Zeitgeist gets you going. It got my friends and I too. But, as this article dryly mentions, do your own searching and find out their facts for yourself.
Click the image below to their page; give it a watch with some friends or family members, and talk about it. Regardless of what you eventually end up thinking, it is true that this nation can always use more intelligent discourse onto the state of humanity. If nothing else, I applaud Zeitgeist for starting that conversation.
I’m taking a bioethics class this semester, and I have to say it’s one of the most interesting classes I’ve taken during my four years at college. A few weeks ago, we discussed the repercussions of cloning, whether for medical reasons or for social reasons. One of the philosophers we studied that week (although I can’t recall his name at the moment) continuously drew references to Aldo Huxley’s “Brave New World” which I had never read before. “Brave New World” has always been looked upon unfavorably as an example of what happens when technology goes too far, but after reading the arguments in the course, I wasn’t too sure of this. I decided I should give this oft-cited book a read before deciding what I thought of such a “new world.”
After reading the book, however, I found myself even further drawn into the argument that “Brave New World” is not a dystopian future at all, but instead a perfect world, a perfect place.
So, after months of preparation, an online application, and a telephone interview, Teach For America invited me to one final interview to see if I’m up to snuff for their teaching program. It was about 4-5 straight hours of presentations, group projects, and interestingly enough, a mock lesson that each one of us was supposed to conduct. There were ten other seniors in the room with me, besides the two young TFA instructors who were reviewing and taking notes on us, and I was amazed at how well we all did.
I spent a lot of time (4-5 hours) last night rehearsing and practicing for my lesson plan. I highly doubt that real teachers do it this way, but for a faux-teacher like myself, I found that writing down a script, and then reading it over and over again helped my memory retention for my chosen five-minute lesson plan, the “American System of Checks and Balances.” You might find this kind of silly, but before I went to bed last night I recorded myself reading my prepared lesson at a rate and pitch that I thought would be relaxing and measured, giving myself exactly 4 minutes, plus 1 minute to complete the quiz/worksheet that I had prepared for the 10 other students in my “classroom.”
Here’s a copy of the practice speech that I fell asleep listening to on repeat. Keep in mind that I was orienting the language to be suitable for 7th graders, and I had to try to get as much in within 5 minutes as possible. In the shower this morning, I read the lesson several times to the wall as the hot water hit me. I was so relaxed, so ready to go, so pumped at the thought of giving my presentation, that I found myself half-wishing I could give my lesson from the comfort of the shower. However, figuring that they probably wouldn’t rate that as “Business-Formal Attire” I suspected it wouldn’t go over too well, and I reluctantly exited, with plenty of time before the day’s 9:00AM scheduled start.
For comparative purposes, I had my recorder in suit breast pocket while I did my speech. You can obviously tell that being in front of people (especially being judged in front of people) makes my speech patterns a little flustered and nervous, something I’ve been working on correcting for a long time. I’ve gotten a lot better though; when I would do presentations in 4-H as a kid, sometimes stuttering would get the better of me, which rarely happens these days. Unfortunately, I didn’t budget my time as closely as I hoped, and I missed out on talking about “Judicial Independence” which I thought was particularly interesting in the years since the Bush v. Gore case. Didn’t get to show everyone my nifty worksheet that I designed either; ah well.
Following all of our lessons (which were great; it was like being in middle school all over again with all the simple handouts everyone got from everyone else) we had our face-to-face interview. My interviewer, Jessie, was very nice and really did a good job of encouraging me to just speak my mind on her questions, which ranged from my reactions to hypothetical school policies, previous experience in leadership roles within the Campus Antiwar Network and within the Division of Information Technology, and my goals as a teacher for TFA. She also reassured me that a lot of people go over their time a little bit (there were two others in my group besides me that did) – the main thing is just hearing how we comport ourselves in a public speaking situation.
In a few weeks, I should find out whether or not I passed and am an “official” TFA corps member! Listening to that audio transcription of myself, I wince a little bit, but I suppose everyone winces when they hear themselves give a speech that didn’t go anything but perfectly. All in all, it was a good day – I look forward to hearing TFA’s results!
UPDATE 4/22/08: Well, apparently TFA and I are not compatible, according to lovecalculator.com and this rejection email they sent me. 🙁 Sad, but I’m not upset with them; I know that they have an acceptance rate of 17% or something and they have to choose on talented candidates all the time. Besides, this will give me more time to hopefully focus on being the best possible candidate for Habitat For Humanity. I hope other people have better luck than I – and don’t forget to practice! 🙂
UPDATE 10/21/09: As this is my most popular blog entry by far, apparently there are a lot of you out there that want more information on the TFA final interview! Well, if you’ve read this far, you already know that I wasn’t accepted anyway, but I have some advice for you that I wish that I had known before I went in.
Practice in front of an audience of your peers – in “costume”! I can’t emphasize this enough; it’s the big one. It’s one thing to practice in front of your housemates or your mirror or your dog, but it’s an entirely other thing when a bunch of people in business suits are staring expectantly at you, and you know they’re all after the same job you are. You need to be able to do this speech backwards and forwards, and in general, you should practice like your speech is 4 minutes long. Trust me, that extra minute will come from you pausing nervously, clearing your throat, and stuttering. Or maybe that was just me…
Bring something cool to show off. Make yourself stand out. I liked the other presenters who brought M&M’s and used them to do counting exercises, or did biology of a dinosaur with a cheap little plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex. Remember when you were an elementary or middle school student and you really thought a teacher did something neat or unexpected? That’s what your interviewers are looking for – your peers to smile appreciatively and really be interested in your topic, not just you to run the presentation like you’re a CEO at a seminar.
Good luck, and thanks for making this blog post so popular! Even though I didn’t make it into TFA, I became a teacher for Iraqi refugees for a year, and now I teach Western students computer lessons. It’s funny the directions that life takes, and I sincerely hope that if you’re set on TFA, and you’ve made it this far to the final interview, that this is the job for you!
It makes me so sad to see the old Ogg Hall in Madison coming down, floor by floor, brick by brick. Everyone always teases Ogg Hall…”it smells bad” – “the rooms are dumb” – “it’s ugly looking,” etc etc. However, everyone who’s ever lived in Ogg Hall knows that it’s a personal experience your freshman year, and no other dorm can ever replace it. Take Sellery for example, which I lived in sophomore year (it’s dimly visible to the crumbling right side of the West Tower pictured here). It was an okay dorm, but the construction of the replacement Ogg across the street meant loud noises all year round. And we got off on the wrong foot when the hot water in the showers didn’t work for the first two weeks.
I’ll add more pictures of Ogg’s slow descent to earth as the workers busily tear it down. Darn them, they wouldn’t even let me keep my old door to my room. 🙁
Now, don’t get me wrong – I love animals. To use the old joke, I love them baked, boiled, or fried – or even all three. Of course at the same time, for the past four years as a college student I feel I’ve almost been a vegetarian because I mainly consist on cranberry juice, plain ramen, and EZ Mac. No meat to be found there, of course! At the same time though, I’ve always kind of felt that some vegetarian arguments to be kind of iffy. Fellow animals are our companions on the earth, some of their species are our friends, but of course some are universally disliked (many more parasitic-types) and what classifies which animals are worth more? I mean, if you’re a vegetarian, you have to understand that in the “perfect non-meat-eating world” you’re going to be growing huge swaths of grain as well…what about all the little bunnies and chipmunks and other adorable little animals that are getting run over and gruesomely converted into blood mulch? (Now imagine them with Disney eyes; “I’m sorry Thumper, your mother can’t be with you any longer”). I don’t know what vegetarians think about that, but I hope at least a chipmunk has the same moral value as a steer, as they’re both pretty adorable in my opinion. The steer drools, though; off with his head!
