Letters to the Editor
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get a grip
sure camel, post about any subject, I never suggested you or anyone else shouldn't. But at a certain point, the volley back and forth became more about the posters (I believe you used the phrase 'sliging mud at a poster'?) than about the dog issue, and I felt it was time for a proverbial slap in the face and a "get a grip!"
there's gotta be some famous line from a movie...
cher in Moonlighting
"get a hold of yourself" ?
ah, that's not it...
"forget about it!"
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A mash note to Cary
Once again, the explosion of disproportionate rage in response to someone who has, after all, written to Cary asking for help and advice is mindboggling.
So many letters responding to Cary's columns include smug little variations on, "It's a good thing I don't write an advice column, because I'd just pimp-slap this knuckledragging assbastard and tell him to get the fuck over himself." Indeed. It is a very good thing y'all don't write advice columns. It is a good thing, because y'all would suck at it.
One of the miracles of Cary's columns is his consistent, unwavering commitment to compassion and empathy--before he gets to the advice, he spends a couple of paragraphs examining the letter writer's problem from all angles, doing his best with the limited clues provided in the letter to crawl inside the letter writer's brain and look out at the problem through his or her eyes. He is consistently empathetic and patient with people who themselves lack empathy, who deserve no patience and no kindness, who are squicky and skeevy and who make your flesh crawl. And because of this extension of kindness toward those who seem so undeserving of it, he's able to then go on and tell their own stories back to them in language they recognize, and offer advice in words they can really hear. He takes them in as they are, warts and festering boils and all, and uses that to offer them the real possibility of becoming better, of moving in a different direction without destroying themselves, of writing different endings to their stories and the stories of those whose lives are entwined with their own.
It must be in no small part because of his commitment to compassion that he gets so many letters confessing to terrible ugliness -- the woman who dislikes her stepkids, the husband and father in love with a prostitute, the woman who can't stand the stench of dog piss one more day. They almost never write in to brag about their bad feelings and rotten choices; they feel uncomfortable with themselves, guilty, failing and failed, and they write to him asking how to deal with those feelings, how to make different choices. And over and over again, he does it.
And then there's the letters pages, where for every thoughtful response there are ten spring-loaded poison-tipped daggers full of judgment and scorn and contempt and an earnest desire for every imaginable kind of hell to rain down upon the advice-seeker. Often, the rage is understandable; sometimes it's justified; occasionally it's totally dead-on. The one thing it never is, is useful. It is, I repeat, indeed a very good thing that these folks aren't writing advice columns; they'd drive their correspondents to suicide.
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cosmicmojo
The line from Moonstruck is "Snap out of it!" Uttered by Cher, directed at the man who it turns out does love her best and is her truest soulmate. It's a funny, funny scene and a terrific line, but it's no small part of the point of the WHOLE DAMN MOVIE that in the end it turns out that she is wrong, wrong, wrong like a thing that's wrong, dipped in wrongness and served up on a bed of wrongitude. Which may not have been quite your intent in attempting to use that quote.
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Don't Assume
Anonymous
I too took care of our 17 year old dog when he was incontinent (which he was for the last two years of his life). He did have areas of the house in which he couldn't go (but he'd had those before incontinence). I love and am compassionate about them.
But I love people too and can see that a new mother deserves some slack.
The confining of the dog is one of the things I would think should be part of a heart to heart I mentioned. But I reiterate that the vitriol here is unbelievable.
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People and pets
I'm another animal lover who thinks it'd ridiculous to consider pets on the same level as humans. Like a previous writer said, if I had to choose between saving a drowning human and a drowning dog, I'd pick the human any day of the week. I believe human life is more valuable than a non-human animal's life. (As I type this, it sounds crazy that I would have to defend that belief.)
Judging from the letters, many of you disagree. If you're a vegan and PETA member and believe that pets deserve the same treatment as humans, you've got my respect. As a vegan you are demonstrating your values. I disagree with your beliefs, but I respect them.
As for the rest of you who think people should make the same concessions, decisions or life choices regarding pets as they would regarding other family members: how many of you are wearing leather shoes right now? How many eat meat? Fish?
And here's some questions for you: what do you think should happen to a pit bull that kills a person? Is it ethical to kill a dog to stop it from killing a person? Is it ethical to kill a rattlesnake on your property if you fear it will later bite someone? What about coyotes in suburban neighborhoods who kill cats? What life is more important?
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Depends
"Like a previous writer said, if I had to choose between saving a drowning human and a drowning dog, I'd pick the human any day of the week." For me, it would depend on the human, and the dog.
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Your pet's life or a stranger's? Hmmm.
Texlibris, I'm a vegan who would kill a dog or poisonous snake or person if necessary in order to save my beloved wife, cats, or an innocent third party if that dog, snake or person attacked them. However, I'd do all I could do stop the attack with killing the attacker. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, but hey, tragically sometimes it does and we must take a life to save a life.
Now, would I save my beloved cats or a stranger's life if I had to choose? The cats I've raised from kittens? These "lifeboat" situations are almost impossible to predict when not under that kind of emotional duress, but to be honest, I'd save my cats. I'd save my wife before my cats. I'd save my wife before someone else's cat, or someone else's wife. It's about who you love more.
Fortunately, in the case of the incontinent dog, the letter writer can restore her dog to full membership in her house (which I personally believe is the ethical thing to do) by taking measures described by other writers, or by accepting an occasional mess and smell, since life is often smelly and messy and imperfect, alas.
As an aside, I think it's perfectly defensible, if not optimal, for a person to wear leather shoes and still, for example, protest fur. Some things, like eating meat, are considered necessary or far more mainstream than other abuses against animals, such as wearing fur. It's no more hypocritical than driving a car but protesting a dirty power plant. In a non-ideal world, it's impossible to lead an ideal life.