As with many of you, I’ve been worried about the toll that Hurricane Sandy has taken upon animals, especially in New Jersey and New York. And I couldn’t help wondering: will the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) have the gall to raise money off this disaster, after their widely publicized disgrace in the wake of Katrina?
No need to wonder.
Animal lovers across America have been all but crippled with loathing this week. The rage has been boiling over everywhere I turn on the internet: in chat rooms, on Facebook, on bulletin boards.
You would have to have something deeply wrong with you not to be thoroughly disgusted at the prospect of Michael Vick taking in a pet dog. Decent people feel that this man — who did not merely run a dogfighting ring, but personally hanged dogs, drowned them and beat them to death — should be prevented from getting anywhere near an innocent creature.
Big-hearted people tend to have warm and truly fuzzy thoughts about the Humane Society of the United States.
This is, after all, the organization that operates shelters nationwide and saves hundreds of thousands of animals. This is the selfless organization that stands up for the voiceless and abused. Although there are countless alternatives, this is the charity you should be sending your money to if you care about pets.
They say that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. What this quip fails to acknowledge, however, is just what an achievement the camel is. No mean feat to design one.
Wikipedia is a camel.
I’ve always been a fan of Wikipedia. Detractors argue that you have to double-check everything you encounter there. I see this as an argument in its favor: you should double-check any fact, encountered anywhere, but only Wikipedia comes with this useful caveat branded on its communal forehead.
Animal rights activists, opposed to the No Kill movement, recently threatened to kill Nathan Winograd’s beloved pet dog. The threat appeared on a Facebook page entitled “I Hate Dog Breeders.”
Nathan Winograd is of course the leading voice for the No Kill movement. His campaign to end the unnecessary killing of shelter animals has inspired all sorts of slurs, one of which is that he is in the pocket of the puppy mill industry.