October 19 - October 28

Please analyze two of the following passages and respond to one classmate's response.  Responses are due October 26th.

Passages:

"I wish I could convey the perfection of a seal slipping into water or a spider monkey swinging from point to pint or a lion merely turning its head.  But language founders in such seas.  Better to picture it in your head if you want to feel it" (18)

"I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces.  Religion faces the same problem.   Certain illusions about freedom plague them both" (24).

"I have heard nearly as much nonsense about zoos as I have about God and religion.  Well-meaning but misinformed people think animals in the wild are "happy" because they are "free". (19)

“It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names” (25).

“And sometimes the class, as beaten down by the heat as he was, wouldn’t react either. Not a snicker or a smile. But I always heard the slur” (26-27).

"And so, in that Greek letter that looks like a shack with a corrugated tin roof, in that elusive, irrational number with which scientists try to understand the universe, I found refuge" (30).

"I notice something else:  his cupboards are jam-packed.  Behind every door, on every shelf, stand mountains of neatly stacked cans and packages.  A reserve of food to last the siege of Leningrad" (31).

“When Mr. Kumar visited the zoo, it was to take the pulse of the universe, and his stethoscopic mind always confirmed to him that everything was in order, that everything was order. He left the zoo feeling scientifically refreshed”(32).

"There are no grounds for going beyond a scientific explanation of reality and no sound reason for believing in anything but our sense experience.  A clear intellect, close attention to detail and a little scientific knowledge will expose religion as superstitious bosh.  God does not exist" (34).

"It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith.  Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them -- and then they leap" (35).

"The obituary of zoo animal that have died from being fed foreign bodies would include . . .
The cruelty is often more active and direct  . . . And there are indecencies even more bizzare: . . ."(36-37).

"DO YOU KNOW WHICH IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE ZOO?" (39).

"I learned the lesson that an animal is an animal, essentially and practically removed from us, twice:  once with Father and once with Richard Parker" (39).

" I would like to say in my own defence that though I may have anthropomorphized the animals till they spoke fluent English, the pheasants complaining in uppity British accents of their tea being cold and the baboons planning their bank robbery getaway in the flat, menacing tones of American gangsters, the fancy was always conscious.  I quite deliberately dressed wild animals in tame costumes of my imagination.  But I never deluded myself as to the real nature of my playmates" (42-43).

"I want you to remember this lesson for the rest of your lives" (43).

"I don't know if I saw blood before turning into Mother's arms or if I daubed it on later, in my memory with a big brush.  But I heard.  It was enough to scare the living vegetarian daylights of of me.  Mother bundled us out.  We were in hysterics.  She was incensed" (45).

"Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.  Every animal is ferocious and dangerous.  It may not kill you, but it will certainly injure you" (47).

"Memory is an ocean and he bobs on its surface" (53).

"It's a complete lie." (53)

"Only the trainer bettermake sure he always remains super alpha.  he will pay dearly if he unwittingly slips to beta . . . Social rant is central to how it leads its life" (54-55).

"It's a question of brain over brawn.  The nature of the circus trainer's ascendancy is psychological" (55).

"Socially inferior animals are the ones that make the most strenuous, resourceful efforts to get to know their keepers" (56).

"We are all born like Catholics aren't we -- in limbo without religion, until some figure introduces us to God?" (58).

"I am a Hindu because of sculptured cones of red kumkum powder and baskets of yellow trmeric nuggets . . .The universe makes sense to me through Hindu eyes" (59-60).

The truth of life is that Bahman is no different from atman . . . is the same thing" (61).

"The paths to liberation are numersous, but the bank along the way is always the same, the Bank of Karma, where the liberation account of each of us is credited or debited depending on our actions" (61).

"When I corrected her, I told her that in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims" (62).