Althouse: At the Dogs-Are-Human Café...

October 23, 2013

At the Dogs-Are-Human Café...

... Oh! The humanity!

9 comments:

Heartless Aztec said...: Scientists say that dogs understand human speech and contextual clues better than chimps and other primates. By way of example, a dog will get the ball when you ask him to ( or a myriad of other commands) - apes just look at you like you're stupid to even ask. Which of course you are...; 10/23/13, 12:21 PM
lemondog said...: A favorite paragraph:

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.

Henry Beston - The Outermost House 1925; 10/23/13, 12:32 PM
Almost Ali said...: Today it was a 13-year-old boy, walking down a street in his neighborhood - but carrying what appeared to be an AK-47 (it wasn't) - and the cops, out on routine patrol, wasted no time killing the youngster on the spot. Even handcuffing the bullet-riddled corpse before emerging from their adrenalin-induced trance. To realize what they had done, or not, and the stories they’d have to tell.

Last week it was Police suspend 63 officers over deadly chase - surely you remember, an unarmed couple collectively shot 48 times (out of 137 shots). In other words, a turkey shoot.

But details are sketchy regarding the shooting-death of the 13-year-boy, other than that he lived in a poor neighborhood, and was apparently Hispanic. But even these small details are important because if the boy had been walking in another neighborhood, say a better neighborhood, the police no doubt would have held their fire. Especially since the boy was walking along minding his own business, and not aiming, or lunging, or otherwise threatening the public or the police officers. And now he’s dead.

The news report indicates the lad’s mother identified the body. Imagine her grief. She’ll never again hear his voice, or see him smile. Now he's just a memory.; 10/23/13, 3:39 PM
MadisonMan said...: I'm sure the police will self-investigate and find they were not to blame.; 10/23/13, 4:34 PM
traditionalguy said...: Semper Fidelis is the dog's gift.; 10/23/13, 4:59 PM
Fritz said...: That dog is thinking about rolling in a dead fish.; 10/23/13, 6:15 PM
Tim Wright said...: To tell you the truth, my first reaction to the photo of this dog was, "What a beautiful face."

Tim; 10/23/13, 6:29 PM
David53 said...: Yep, that's a great dog photo.; 10/23/13, 6:56 PM
Fiftyville said...: Not to take away from horses, but the outside of a dog is the best thing for the inside of a human.; 10/23/13, 11:57 PM