A Big Fish in a Small Bowl

The first thing that comes to mind when thinking of a fish bowl is gold fish, furthermore a Beta fish or even a small bottom feeder catfish or starfish. The great Orca Whale doesn’t come to mind when thinking of the category of a fish bowl, yet that’s where they are in SeaWorld. Since carnival show times and even earlier animals have been considered entertainment for human consumption. Even though the conditions can be harmful and downright abusive people don’t seem to be too concerned with that.

On September 13^th 1916 Mary the Elephant was hung with a crane for killing an assistant trainer who had been hired just the other day. With peoples outrage over the public death of a person, the owner of the carnival decided it would be best to execute her. There are even pictures of it, and over 2,000 people came to see her public execution. 

Similarly the 2010 death of trainer Dawn Brancheau who was killed by Tilikim an Orca who has been involved in two other incidents before that. One in 1999 where a man visited the park the day before and somehow got past security to enter the Orcas tank after park hours, he was found dead and naked on Tilikums back the next morning. The first incident took place in 1991 where tilikum and two other pregnant female orcas were in a tank and Keltie Byrne slipped into the tank while being a part time trainer for sea world. The orcas drowned her and kept her away from the life ring thrown her way. Tilikum is still performing today.

Unlike Mary the elephant Tilikim hasn’t received much outrage at least in the over the top sense that the people of Tennessee were. The outrage has come in the form of a movie called blackfish which brings to light the conditions of these Orcas in captivity. It claims insanity to the Orcas who are acting aggressively toward people and their trainers. Although there hasn’t been much done to take steps to change it. Because its now an industry, drawing in thousands upon thousands of visitors. What people don’t realize is that Orcas are not entertainment. They are not show dogs, they aren’t meant to be kept in such small living spaces while being forced to do tricks for an audience of careless faces every day.

Tilikum isn’t the only aggressive Orca in captivity, there are many accounts that not only stem from seaworld but other parks as well. Going all the way back to 1967 to the present you can find incidents involving Orcas and aggression toward trainers and visitors. http://www.orcahome.de/incidents.htm this website gives a comprehensive list of incidents and their locations.

Seaworlds response to the criticisms in Blackfish and what the Orca project stands for were sort of fleshed out in a long article on their main site, which can be read here http://seaworld.com/truth/truth-about-blackfish/

The whole article is basically spent saying that everything in blackfish is false, while they never really address the aggressive behavior or history of aggressive behavior of captive Orcas. 

Penguins are not a Sin

In America and even all around the world there has been a lot of tension about same-sex couples. Even though slowly more and more states are making it legal there is still a pretty big group of people who won’t accept same-sex couples in any shape or form. It’s usually based on some flippant religious view or backwards reasoning. One of the biggest reasoning’s would be the concern “how will we explain this to our kids!?” well honestly if same-sex couples, and LGBTQIA rights weren’t constantly jeopardy, then it would be normal. Why can’t it be? Some people claim it to be unnatural. When in reality it happens in nature all the time.

George Murray Levick a British arctic explorer who was able to study the penguins in the Scott Antarctic Expedition of 1910-1913. Who made notes in his journal about these Adélie penguins and how he began noticing homosexual behavior between the males. These studies weren’t released to the public for fear of shocking the public. Even in captivity penguins have formed same-sex relationships. Two penguins in Wingham Wildlife Park became surrogate dads to a chick this year, although they had already bonded years ago.

The children’s book And Tango Makes three written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson that was published in 2005. It’s about a similar situation as the one in Wingham Wildlife Park. Where there are two male penguins who act as a couple and raise a chick together. In fact it’s based on a true story of the real penguins Roy, and Silo from the Central Park Zoo. Yet this book is banned because it has a homosexuality theme. It’s actually a really charming story and it’s really sad that people are being close minded. I think what’s really telling is that it is in fact a true story and it’s also not all that rare for penguins yet we still have people challenging it.

I believe people are so stuck in this old wrong and worn out illogical view of judgment and hate that they can’t see past it. It’s all about love and kindness for goodness sake, and yet one of the things parents are fearing the most is if their child is gay. Why is love being treated like such an awful thing when on the opposite end hate is being praised.

Sarah Yeost Pederson the Op-Ed editor for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote a short article called A Family of a Different Feather on her thoughts of the banning of And Tango Makes Three. She describes a situation with her daughter who had a classmate that has two moms. She explained how helpful the Tango book would have been to show her daughter in this time.

I think tango is a very helpful book it takes steps to normalizing homosexuality, making room for more acceptance and kindness. 

"With his cruel bow he laid full low The harmless Albatross."

We are a throw away generation. The perception of the quality of life is spent on temporary things, convenient things that we can all so easily forget about in a moment. We do not realize how great the consequences of this are. How much they have effected life in many forms. http://vimeo.com/25563376 this video has a huge impact on showing in a very blatant form that there are huge consequences to this mass consumerism. Chris Jordan makes a reference to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This well-known piece of literature describes the consequences of the unnecessary murder of an albatross and the consequences that ensued afterwards. Just like in the tale this can all be avoided. Nature doesn’t have to be ruined and animals don’t have to die. There is no justification, it’s just bad habits and absent minded decisions that are to blame. Which is basically all of us, we are all to blame.

I will admit I harbor these bad habits, I’ve grown up this way. I just throw away whatever without even thinking about it. In fact I didn’t think about these consequences much until recently watching this and seeing it completely without any sugar coating. For me I need to have the courage to not be absent minded about this. I need to know exactly what is happening, why its happening, and how I as an individual can be a part of the change. To begin I have found some really good facts from http://www.reuseit.com/facts-and-myths/impact-of-plastic-waste-on-oceans-beaches-and-the-environment.htm

“• Plastic bags are among the top two items of debris found most often in coastal cleanups. (Ocean Conservancy)

• Plastic bags wrap around living corals, quickly "suffocating" and killing them. (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

• Plastic pieces outweigh surface zooplankton in the Central North Pacific by a factor of 6 to 1. (Algalita Marine Research Foundation)

• Plastic pieces can attract and hold hydrophobic elements like PCB and DDT up to 1 million x background levels. As a result, floating plastic is like a poison pill. (Algalita Marine Research Foundation)

• Approximately 500 nautical miles off the California coast sits a growing "plastic island," a gargantuan patch of floating plastic trash held together by currents stretching across the northern Pacific almost as far as Japan. This "plastic island" is made up of about 7 billion pounds of plastic garbage, and measures about twice the size of Texas.

• Each year, enough trash—most of it plastic—floats down the Los Angeles River to fill the Rose Bowl two stories deep. (Los Angeles Times, "Altered Oceans")

• Of 500,000 albatross chicks born each year on Midway Atoll, about 200,000 die of starvation. Adult albatrosses mistake plastic trash for food and end up feeding it to their chicks. (L.A. Times)

• On a single day in 2007, nearly 400,000 volunteers around the world picked up more than 6 million pounds of trash. A majority of the items were single-use disposable plastic items, such as plastic bags and Styrofoam containers. (Ocean Conservancy International)

• Since water keeps the plastic cool and algae blocks ultraviolet rays, "every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere." (Research Triangle Institute)”

And these aren’t even the tip of the iceberg in comparison to all the environmental turmoil we are causing.

We have become less efficient as a society in regards to consumerism, its more about the market and selling things than being efficient.

I believe the reason there hasn’t been much of a change yet is because of all these big companies. They know what’s going on but they don’t want to lose money by raising much awareness. I know that different companies have made their products recyclable. But it’s not advertised very much. None of the things that are happening are widely known by people. I know if I were to bring this up to my parents right now they would probably scoff in disbelief and I feel like they wouldn’t care.

Ultimately we need more awareness about this. That’s where the courage comes in, it’s making people aware and showing them exactly what’s happening. But I know that the change starts with me, just like with everyone the change will start with them. 

Democrats Vs Republicans and the Unpopular Opinon

Upon reading http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/12/the-great-fragmentation-we-are-all-weirdos-now/ I found I could pin point all the positive experiences I have had with technology. Everything on how weird sub cultures are being created just made me think about how many times I often feel I am in my own little estranged world feeling a little lonely because things I’m interested in aren't in the interests of anybody around me. But being able to find blogs dedicated to Twin Peaks, or even find people that are also interested in medical anomalies and various preserved things floating in jars of formaldehyde has been really great for me to kind of accept myself as a person. Mainly because in my family I’m the weird black sheepish one. So I’d have to say the internet has definitely helped me embrace all my weird and become more of an individual about who I am, although I've always steered towards that outlook, high school is a very conformist environment  and that was pretty tough to take head on and come out in one piece.

The other thing this article talks about briefly is political parties “A society in which people accept that their personal views generally are and will remain minority perspectives, rather than seeking to impose “normal” beliefs and tastes on any who don’t fit in, is enormously healthier, both culturally and politically.” The two political parties we have republican and democratic are treated with the, if you’re not one then you’re the other kind of attitude. Which makes politics very black and white instead of an expanding or growing thing. I feel like most people who associate themselves with a certain party vote just based off the parties’ beliefs rather than their actual personal views they may have. These factions have also created a social and political divide between the people and their cultures. Democrats and republicans have been taking stabs at each other using many different outlets, including popular TV shows. An example of this would be the Simpsons episode The Kid is Alright, where Lisa ends up becoming friends with a new student who also runs against her in a second grade representative election and this girl turns out to be a republican and they quickly turn into rivals. Similar situations have happened in other shows that have that underlying republican vs democrat message.

Today’s very tech centric generation I feel has sort of created an environment to break the two main political parties up into fragments. Instead of having two blanket opinions set out for the general population these fragments would create more of a diverse voice, and promote discussion on topics instead of where we are. which is basically people on a one sided view of either sides of the same wall. From these fragments I hope more acceptance for different perspectives comes through. Everybody has a different perspective and stance on a situation we are not surrounding a single wall but multiple walls with many different sides. The “popular” opinion trope in society I hope will be worn down to nothingness in a few years. 

The Pressure to be as Efficient as a Machine

In this generation technology plays a huge role in peoples everyday lives. As the years go by the amount of technology in classroom settings and learning environments has increased. Although technology has been very helpful in a lot of aspects including education, the increased focus on experimenting with technology in the classroom can be very disrupting and take away from the actual learning process. One Valencia student told Jeff Selingo who wrote the article “Did Anyone Ask the Students?” said that online classes are pretty much like paying to teach yourself. In my experience with online classes I’d have to say that the comment was pretty much on point. The online classes’ I've taken just seem to leave me to my own devices with very limited guidance or communication. Although I have no qualms about reading information and having discussions through text I couldn't help but feel lost in these situations.

I also remember throughout my earlier education (elementary, middle, and high school) different technological changes would be made at times with very little warning or discussion. All it really did was waste a huge chunk of time trying to figure out how to work some very complicated thing that supposedly was going to revolutionize learning. When all it really did was confuse everyone. I did somewhat appreciate the implementation of laptops at the high school level though. They had a purpose and made typed essays and homework easier to access. Yet the mass regulations and complications with maintaining the laptop and abiding by the school rules proved to be a huge hindrance to their effectiveness. And not to mention the absolutely ridiculous and unorganized way of handing payments for the use of said laptop. Which amounted to more than it was actually worth and made it hard for students who couldn't constantly pay the annual and minor fees.

Along with technology there has also been a stigma with certain degrees and how students should choose them and why. I know people judge art degrees, and well basically anything that doesn't have to contribute to societies working jobs. But not everyone is built for that or even interested we shouldn't force people into being miserable the rest of their lives. Why does it matter anyway? I don’t feel like anyone owes society anything or why anyone really cares. In the long run it doesn't matter I’d rather spend my time doing what I love and fulfilling my dreams instead of worrying about how acceptable as a worker to society. It all depends on the individual’s wants, goals, and aspirations. There are plenty of people who choose a degree for many different reasons. It could be passion, it could be the money, the interests, and it could be about a million different reasons depending on who you’re talking to. I think everyone should respect that a little more.

With all this technology and pressure to be not only efficient but faster too, it all seems really overwhelming. And I’m probably not the only one to say their needs to be some changes with the education system and how they address actual student’s interests.  

The Effects of Being Wrong

Confirmation bias is basically all about having that feeling of fitting in. its where our “open-ness” on subjects stops. Where you ask? Right when somebody starts stating opinions that are the opposite of our own. http://io9.com/5974468/the-most-common-cognitive-biases-that-prevent-you-from-being-rational this website provides a really good description of confirmation bias as well as 11 other biases worth taking a look at. This description brings up a very good point about an effect of this bias “It's why we only visit websites that express our political opinions”. This is very true for most people especially for members of political parties. The GOP rarely looks at the other viewpoints of political parties. We have all seen the political advertisements on TV. They are very accusatory, one-sided, and totally entitled to their bias. When elections come closer and closer it all just seems like the dialogue of bickering siblings between the parties

“I’m right”

“No, I’m right”

 “I was right first”

 “As if”.

Political parties are so inclusive and they come attached with a million stereotypes all against each other. These stereotypes can be found even in modern entertainment today, but to be realistic political parties’ have pushed their influence in entertainment since these factions began their existence.

 These influences definitely effect the way citizen’s in the US have discussions or even try to be more forward thinking about the issues that the US is facing. People can get so stuck in this singular political party centric view that they lose what the real issue even was about. Just to stick with following the political party to constantly confirm all their beliefs.

No one is really exempt from this mindset even if it isn’t pertaining to political parties. Nobody wants to be wrong. Being wrong is one of the most uncomfortable feelings and if you’re like me and you over think EVERYTHING a million times over you will fester in it forever. I think that this gross feelings comes with the stigma attached to being wrong. Making a mistake, being wrong, or doing or saying something that isn’t immediately agreed with can make you feel like your “dumb”. That’s a very powerful word and with all the negative connotations on it and explicit synonyms that even contribute to ableism. It effects our outlook on ourselves, and in my opinion it brings us back to being a child in the worst sense. When we were always looked down upon, even in classrooms and the feedback we would get from taunting classmates. I think all of that together just strikes a huge nerve with people, and could absolutely be the root of this whole confirmation bias problem we have.

We need to teach our youth that it’s ok to be wrong, parents should be examples of how to handle it. Because at this point generation after generation just keeps spreading this mindset over and over again of not owning up to mistakes and treating people who have made them with more sympathy and understanding. I believe that treating the youth of today with respect would be a great solution to all these problems.

 If we are constantly keeping ourselves within our own safe bubble of right-ness we won’t ever grow. We would all be more progressive as a society if we could have more real open discussions. And realize that’s its completely okay to be wrong, to make mistakes, and to change your mind depending on the different information you allow yourself to be introduced to. 

Censorship is a Tool of Communism

The Mexican-American studies and curriculum in schools in Arizona are being banned under the HB2281. This house bill challenges any curriculum that “Promote the overthrow of the United States Government” Or “Are designed primarily for people of a particular ethnic group”. John Huppenthal the superintendent for Arizona’s public instruction has targeted Mexican-American curriculum in Arizona, more specifically in the Tuscan school District. He has even gone as far to place blame on universities for teaching this “bias” to people and wants to dismantle that curriculum as well because he claims its creating a bias against America and attacking patriotism.

                But isn’t the patriotic mindset considered a bias? It focuses on one viewpoint and leaves out others. It wouldn’t be off-base to say that History taught in America has a White man bias. So why isn’t that being challenged? Where is the logic in it? Wouldn’t it be considered more un-American to continue banning anything that remotely criticizes American government? Censorship is extremely undemocratic and any “founding father” we praise or who even had a hand in the constitution would be appalled at the censorship taking place. That’s what they fought for, for the freedom to criticize and speak. Hupenthalls incredibly racist and uncomfortable feeling toward Mexican-American curriculum is so ironic. Every statement he makes trying to back up his point of view just further proves himself wrong. He doesn’t want any bias being taught in school when in all reality the world is a bias. Literally everything and everyone has a bias. There is no way to truly be unbiased. He wants no discrimination yet he is discriminating against a certain group.

                Antonio Estrada the director of the Mexican American studies program at U of A told fox news “…Academic freedom will be lost if these programs are not sustained at the university level.” Which was a very strong statement being provided by someone who will be effected by the events that play out due to Huppenthalls decisions.

In my opinion Hupenthall is promoting communism in the sense that no one is allowed to have a voice. That criticism, freedom of speech, freedom of education, and discussion should not exist. His views are extremely dangerous to an already fragile system that’s slowly teetering toward more rights of the people in the US to be taken away. He talks of patriotism and how he feels these programs are a danger to it when the real danger is taking these things away. Just because you try to cover up things that happen it does not mean that they didn’t happen. The sooner people like Huppemthall realize this the better. We need to have these discussions, they are taking away peoples culture, and rights.

Paycheck Fairness Act

The paycheck fairness act was introduced to the senate on January 23^rd of 2013. On September 15^th the republican senate blocked the bill. What made them do this? Upon further investigations into the actual bill in question the description from https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/84 which provides us with the actual bill explains it to be almost like an amendment of the  Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. From what I can read it does a lot of reinforcing for sex discrimination and shows progressive elements of closing the gender wage gap.

                 What the GOP’s concerns are in their statement from https://www.gop.com/misleading-paycheck-fairness-act/ that even starts off to be pretty inflammatory with a title like Misleading Paycheck Fairness Act. You almost don’t even have to read it to know what their opinion is on the Bill, almost. The first complaint can be found in the first paragraph that accuses the bill of not having “real solutions that focus on job creation and opportunity for women” they worry that this bill will cut flexibility and bonuses. Now lets go back to the actual bill a big thing I found that disproves their first statement about it not focusing on opportunities for women “Authorizes the Secretary to make grants to eligible entities for negotiation skills training programs for girls and women.” Programs for women? That help them? To have more oppurtunities? They must’ve just looked that whole part over. Or – in my opinion did they look over the whole entire bill and pay more attention to rumors? Which is what it sounds a lot like when you start comparing and contrasting the GOP statement and actual summary of the bill.

                “It’s been against the law to pay a woman less than a man with comparable experience in the same job since the Equal Pay Act of 1963.” yes, but there is still a wage gap between men and women. The very definition of amend is to “make minor changes in (a text) in order to make it fairer, more accurate, or more up-to-date.” Which is what this bill is all about. Its making solutions and regulating issues within the work force that holds employers more accountable for sex discrimination.

                They also make a very brash statement suggesting that a wage gap doesn’t even exist “The difference isn’t because of their genders; it’s because of their jobs. The “Paycheck Fairness Act” wouldn’t change that.” Firstly there is absolutely no evidence to back up their claim. Luckily I have some evidence to debunk it. 

Here is a graph from http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/engineering-pay-gap-glassdoor-reveals-many-women-engineers-earn-less-than-men/ showing the average pay for female and male engineers. Where women are only earning 97.6% of what men earn in the engineering field. This is only from the 4,700 salary reports on glassdoor.com. you can also see as the experience years increase so does the gap.

                Furthermore what this bill would prevent is cases like Melissa Nelson a dental assistant from Iowa who was fired by her boss for being too attractive and a threat to his marriage. The court ruled it completely constitutional for him to do this despite his grotesque remarks about his lack of control and policing of her body. 

Touchstones: Speaking My Truth

“You are invited to say what is in your heart, trusting that your voice will be heard and our contribution respected. Your truth may be different from, even the opposite of, what another person here has said. Yet speaking your truth is simply that—it is not debating with, or correcting, or interpreting what another has said. Own your truth by remembering to speak only for yourself. Using the first person “I” rather than “you” or “everyone” clearly communicates the personal nature of your expression”

This particular touchstone spoke to me the most because to me speaking my truth is one of the hardest things to do, because it’s usually met with a backlash of criticisms and people policing my feelings. My truth isn’t a statistic nor is it factual. I can’t base it on hard evidence but only claims to my personal experiences of how I view the world. Feeling opposite is a really difficult thing to push through. Even though I enjoy having discussions and being critical of what I see, read, and witness every day. I still get a huge gut wrenching feeling when I’m about to share any opinion I have. 

The first thing I read out loud in my English 102 class was a section of one of the ancillaries we had to write, in this moment I have forgotten the context of my writing but I do know that I was so nervous and effected by this overwhelming feeling of self-doubt.  I was shaking and finding it hard to recite my own words. The line “own your truth” is something that really struck me with this one although it’s a very short statement it’s a very powerful one that suggests confidence in your words.

Often I find that I want to shut myself in because of the way I feel. Being alone is a much safer environment to have your truths and be unmet with judgment. A line in Sylvia Plaths’ Apprehensions reminds me of my struggle with my truth and harboring it alone “is there no way out of my mind?”  But often I feel like I would be living the same year over and over again if I stuck to that mindset.  To me this touchstone is everything I need to work on.  I am always apprehensive about what I say or do even though I consider myself to be a very open kind of person. Or at least I always work toward being open with different subjects although I can be very passionate by nature.

I guess the most I got out of this touchstone is that finding your confidence is a key factor towards finding a space to work together with people comfortably and productively. Without confidence the focus can be lost any point or context in our words comes across less rich if we lack the backbone to stand for it. The fact is everyone sees the world through a different lens. People have different truths because they are different people. But it isn’t impossible to sit in a room with people and appreciate their words, and more importantly their truth.