What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Saturday, February 03, 2007

   DOG DAYS

At the risk of sounding like an incredibly lazy man, I love my sofa. It's a happy place, home to some of my favourite activities. Number one, of course, the occasional make-out session with a Gentleman Caller; number two, lovely evenings chatting with friends over tea; and number three, watching a movie with my little dog curled up beside me. These things are bliss.

On an evening a few months ago, I took a night off, flopped down on the sofa and put on a movie. At one point, there was a scene with a dog crying in distress and Tegan suddenly sat up in alarm, staring wide-eyed at the screen with her head cocked to one side, and she started to quiver. I'd never stopped to consider what effect the TV had on a dog before. I found Tegan's reactions fascinating and a bit sad as I rushed to grab the remote.

Thinking of that moment in what was an otherwise delightful evening, I am very grateful that Tegan has been asleep on my bed for the last couple hours. There's a video clip exploding around the 'net right now, a video of US soldiers in Iraq abusing a maimed dog. I watched it and immediately wished I hadn't. There's a reason the phrase 'curiosity killed the cat' was coined. At the moment, it seems especially ironic. I won't link to the clip but if you should stumble upon it, keep surfing. Please don't stop and watch the dog & soldiers video. You just don't need that in your head, trust me.

Now, of course, part of the presumed appeal of this video is that it shows American soldiers at their most cynical and cruel. "You see?" people will say, "Look how horrible the Americans are!" but as a devout bleeding-heart liberal, I think that's crap. For one thing, nothing could ever be worse than the Iraqi's hostage-beheading footage (still haven't seen any, knock wood) and, even as a dog lover, I find it again fascinating and sad that people are getting so worked up over a animal while many still shrug at the supposed inevitability of a fiasco that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis and, yes, American soldiers.

I have great sympathy for what the troops are enduring, trying to beat the odds so heavily stacked against them from the start, and I can certainly understand the desire to take out their frustrations on some lesser creature. But as Mark Twain said, "Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in." I'm not giving these soldiers a pass -- they disgust me -- but I will keep my blame squarely where it belongs: the war cheerleaders who put these men there through jingoism and lies, the kind of people Molly Ivins worked to stop, as it happens.

I've been thinking about Molly a lot this week as that "scorching case of cancer" finally took her from us. She was the kind of person who could probably watch that dog video and know exactly what to say -- something smart, angry, funny and compassionate, all at once. Tomorrow: some of my favourite Molly!

Labels: introspective, Middle East, Tegan the Jack Russell Terrorist, tributes, war - what is it good for?