Current Events
Luky has not written or dictated a blog entry for a few days. He wasn't being lazy - he was just preoccupied. For one thing, the weather turned and after a month-long mini-drought with a dose of Atlanta blistering heat the sky mottled and delivered a couple of days of cooling rain. Luky was very excited about that.
He's actually a precipitation wimp when it comes to rain - his ears go sideways and his tail tucks in like he's trying to protect any openings from getting wet. Oooo - look out - here comes a raindrop!
However, it's been so hot and dry that we both welcomed the chance to stand under the sprinkle, sans umbrella or slicker. The only downside is that he is forced to wait at the loft door for me to grab a towel and give him a wipe down before he crosses the threshold. I wouldn't care so much but those are HIS rules!
And then yesterday Luky wasn't feeling well. It turns out it was nothing serious, but he was moving slow and taking it especially easy.
I've given him a bit of a hard time about it because so much has been happening. I can't believe his fans aren't waiting for his opinion - new Supreme Court nominees, earthquakes, the globe warming before our eyes, Karl Rove back at the grand jury - all kinds of stuff. However, Luky's desire to engage anyone on such topics is extremely limited. He makes that clear as soon as I start listing them - he turns his head to the side and looks off in the distance (even if "the distance" is the barstool maybe a tail's length away - he feigns the look of scanning some far off glacial embankment for signs of prey).
"Okay, I get it, you don't care about Harriet Meiers. But what about abortion?"
I realize this is a loaded question for Luky - he's keenly aware that dogs are routinely aborted and euthanized at the whim of human disposition. On the other hand, he's not so lupomorphic that he doesn't recognize humans might have different values from canines and wolves. The problem with Luky (and I suppose this is true of all dogs and wolves) is that he generally distinguishes between knowable truths and everything else.
"Once you consider the obvious inconsistency," he says, "that humans are in the habit of creating lives they don't want; and perhaps worse, that the voices which come out loudest against treating those lives as 'unwanted' (i.e., by abortion) are the same voices that are most strident against educational programs which might teach about the making of life in the first place . . ."
"You always lose me when you start talking clinically," I say.
"In other words, the humans who are always screaming about abortion are typically the same ones who don't want you teaching sex education. And that sort of philosophical self-contradiction always leads to idiotic consequences."
"Okay, let's say I agree with you up to that point. The problem is, regardless of the idiocy that gets us here, we have to deal with the fact that lives are ready to come into the world and some of those are unwanted. That's where I think, as the saying goes, the rubber meets the road."
Luky snarls slightly and says, "No - that's just one of the real problems, there are too few Rubbers - meeting the road or otherwise." And then he lets out one of his chuckles in his peculiar lupine manner.
"That's when," he continues, "you (he means 'humans') typically try to determine the point at which a fetus actually becomes a unique puppy . . . I mean, human being. And the problem is your courts, your churches, your political parties, and all the other social groupings of mankind are lacking the humility to admit you do not know. To the contrary, you decide you can make that determination in advance of, and irrespective of, science."
"So, what are you saying? . . . that our laws should start out with a clause like, 'We don't know for sure, and we want the opportunity to change our minds if we discover differently in the future, but for right now we think that . . .'?"
"Heck no," Luky says. "You don't want law to start honoring truth at this late date!"
He's actually a precipitation wimp when it comes to rain - his ears go sideways and his tail tucks in like he's trying to protect any openings from getting wet. Oooo - look out - here comes a raindrop!
However, it's been so hot and dry that we both welcomed the chance to stand under the sprinkle, sans umbrella or slicker. The only downside is that he is forced to wait at the loft door for me to grab a towel and give him a wipe down before he crosses the threshold. I wouldn't care so much but those are HIS rules!
And then yesterday Luky wasn't feeling well. It turns out it was nothing serious, but he was moving slow and taking it especially easy.
I've given him a bit of a hard time about it because so much has been happening. I can't believe his fans aren't waiting for his opinion - new Supreme Court nominees, earthquakes, the globe warming before our eyes, Karl Rove back at the grand jury - all kinds of stuff. However, Luky's desire to engage anyone on such topics is extremely limited. He makes that clear as soon as I start listing them - he turns his head to the side and looks off in the distance (even if "the distance" is the barstool maybe a tail's length away - he feigns the look of scanning some far off glacial embankment for signs of prey).
"Okay, I get it, you don't care about Harriet Meiers. But what about abortion?"
I realize this is a loaded question for Luky - he's keenly aware that dogs are routinely aborted and euthanized at the whim of human disposition. On the other hand, he's not so lupomorphic that he doesn't recognize humans might have different values from canines and wolves. The problem with Luky (and I suppose this is true of all dogs and wolves) is that he generally distinguishes between knowable truths and everything else.
"Once you consider the obvious inconsistency," he says, "that humans are in the habit of creating lives they don't want; and perhaps worse, that the voices which come out loudest against treating those lives as 'unwanted' (i.e., by abortion) are the same voices that are most strident against educational programs which might teach about the making of life in the first place . . ."
"You always lose me when you start talking clinically," I say.
"In other words, the humans who are always screaming about abortion are typically the same ones who don't want you teaching sex education. And that sort of philosophical self-contradiction always leads to idiotic consequences."
"Okay, let's say I agree with you up to that point. The problem is, regardless of the idiocy that gets us here, we have to deal with the fact that lives are ready to come into the world and some of those are unwanted. That's where I think, as the saying goes, the rubber meets the road."
Luky snarls slightly and says, "No - that's just one of the real problems, there are too few Rubbers - meeting the road or otherwise." And then he lets out one of his chuckles in his peculiar lupine manner.
"That's when," he continues, "you (he means 'humans') typically try to determine the point at which a fetus actually becomes a unique puppy . . . I mean, human being. And the problem is your courts, your churches, your political parties, and all the other social groupings of mankind are lacking the humility to admit you do not know. To the contrary, you decide you can make that determination in advance of, and irrespective of, science."
"So, what are you saying? . . . that our laws should start out with a clause like, 'We don't know for sure, and we want the opportunity to change our minds if we discover differently in the future, but for right now we think that . . .'?"
"Heck no," Luky says. "You don't want law to start honoring truth at this late date!"
posted by RAM at 5:25 PM
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