Since there is a dearth of responses to my more prosaic pennings, I have decided to post a question of the day from my book of questions, in order to provoke ponderation:"For an all-expense paid, one-week vacation anywhere in the world, would you be willing to kill a beautiful, rare butterfly by pulling off its wings? What about stepping on a cockroach?"
I asked this question of my first two classes today, and with only three exceptions, they said an enthusiastic "YES!" to the ripping of the butterfly. I was a little bit surprised (but not, sadly, much), so I gradually upped the ante from the butterfly to tearing the legs off a frog to popping the head off a canary to breaking the neck of a bunny rabbit to stomping on a kitten to gutting a puppy.
Believe it or not, a lot of kids would break the neck of a bunny rabbit, and a few would stomp a kitten, but not one would gut a puppy. Apparently, gutting a puppy is just too much for their violence-saturated little selves to take.
