no butterflies in this cocoon!

I can see that several of us were most moved by this article. Lupton's piece was especially intriguing to me due to the Australian perspective. There are so few cultures in the world that resemble the American one as closely and so reading about a phenomena we as Americans share with Australians from the perspective of an Australian provided an interesting anthropological view. I had never considered cars as an extension of myself before either. Being a student of animal husbandry in a different life, I am often reminded of the sentiments of one particular professor who was constantly reminding us as students not to anthropomorphize animals. She felt strongly that animals do not experience emotions the way that humans do. This has been a struggle for me over the years and to date I am still not sure I believe it. I could not help thinking about this reference while reading "cocoons". As she points out the constant anthropomorphizing of cars through advertising, media and pop culture. I wonder if people feel about their cars the way that I feel about animals? Something about that feels so creepy. At the same time it helps me have some perspective about the ways that our culture acts out so fiercely around car culture, car care, car protectiveness and car sensitivity. While reading this I remembered how Cathy taught us to read the auto finder as though we were visiting Earth for the first time. If I were to examine the concept of road rage in the same way I would assume our society was vicious and delusional with a lack of boundaries and moral obligation.