The other day I told my dad I'd recently seen here in Seattle a male couple pushing a little dog down the street in a baby stroller. He refused to believe me. No matter how many times I said, "Look - I know I'm often pulling your leg, but this time I'm not!" he refused to believe me. The old man has lived through the Spanish Civil Wars, communism, forced to witness the firing squad assasination of all the priests in his grade school, later had to flee Castor's revolution, and is a scholar of Western history and particularly the fall of the Roman Empire ... but even he has his limits. Either that or it was too depressing.

Why don't they just let the dogs loose to roam the streets? That way it'll be just like it was in 455.

While I cannot condemn this overly-solicitous concern for the wellbeing of animals, I would note that there are millions of actual human children, in Africa and elsewhere, who could use some attention and concern - particularly those orphaned by AIDS.

The amount of willful ignorance and childish self-centeredness that it takes to treat an animal as if it were a child, while actual children suffer and die, is sickening to me.

I'd rather feed some street kids dog stew.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 27, 2005 3:48 AM

perhaps the dog was incable of walking, or maybe the lucky canine had inherited wealth and the two men pushing it were employees. let's not be so quick to condemn these people without knowing all of the facts. on a similar note, i once saw noam chomsky pushing a "pig" around in his office, but he wasn't using a stroller.