Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/04/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Suggestion: start a website called proandconpets.com. Start a second one called myopiniononglobalproblems.com. And continue this over there. My sincere condoleances to the first poster, though. > From: "animal" <s.jessurun95@chello.nl> > Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org> > Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 00:41:06 +0200 > To: "Leica Users Group" <lug@leica-users.org> > Subject: Re: [Leica] Slides the cat has gone to kitty heaven > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Adam Bridge" <abridge@mac.com> > To: "Leica Users Group" <lug@leica-users.org> > Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 6:58 PM > Subject: Re: [Leica] Slides the cat has gone to kitty heaven > > >> On 4/15/04 <sam@osheaven.net (Sam)> thoughtfully wrote: >> >>> To some, the death of a pet is akin to the death of a child, and to >>> others the emotional resources and money spent on animals is a scandal. >>> If the time and energy spent taking care of pets was expended on >>> visiting the abandoned sick and aged, or the money spent on having a pet >>> operated on was paid into the medical account of an uninsured sick and >>> needy human being, so much suffering could be alleviated. It baffles me >>> when someone fains concern (many times via documentary photography) for, >>> example, a bloated, fly covered, starving African child, and then rushes >>> in the Volvo to the Vets to have the dog operated on for cancer at a >>> cost of $5,000. Vanity pets have no place in a world of suffering human >>> beings. >> >> I understand what you're driving at Sam, but I think the equation is quite >> different because for many of us our pets are family members. We know > them, we >> love them, they fill a part of our lives that is clearly built into our > species. >> I see that what appears to be a pet was buried with a human being as early > as >> 5000 B.C. >> >> It's LOGICAL to say "yes, the right decision is to not spend this money." > But >> the emotional equation is quite different. >> >> When our dog Wags was so ill we made the choice to keep her comfortable > rather >> than expend a vast quantity of money for a short life extension and > perhaps a >> life filled with an unknowable amount of pain. >> >> This decision was just as hard for me as the one I made a few months ago > for the >> treatment of my severely retarded sister who at age 60, with no > communication >> ability, no real ability to express pain, was discovered to have an > operable but >> difficult condition. I elected to treat that condition with surgery even > though >> the physicians who were treating her gave such different points of view > that I >> couldn't believe they were talking about the same patient. AND, after the > fact, >> they were unwilling to aggressively treat her for pain, which I found >> intolerable and almost neglectful. >> >> And it was similiar to the decision my wife and I made for our first child > after >> she "survived" a drowning in a fish pond but who was so severely > brain-damaged >> that she was unable even to recognize the existance of an outside world. >> >> These were hard choices. They SHOULD be hard choices. But they are HUMAN >> choices. Some of us have the where-with-all to treat our pets, our > non-human >> family members, with compassion and caring and money. We would no more > neglect >> the care of our family, in favor for a stranger far away, than we would > shoot >> them. >> >> Now that's me. That's me defending my family, pets and children and spouse > and >> the more extended members as well. But I submit it's human and has every > bit as >> much rightness to its decision as that of the person who puts down his dog > and >> writes the check to save an unknown person. >> >> It's not about vanity. It's about family and compasion. Vanity isn't a > part of >> it. >> >> Adam Bridge >> > I don,t think the argument is logical. > Even though as humans we value the child more then the cat .There is no > proof that it is immoral to spend money on the cat iso on the child. > Logically one might have to spend an equal amount on the two . > simon jessurun > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >