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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 10/15/99 -- Vol. 18, No. 16
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-817-5619, mleeper@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@lucent.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-447-3652 for details. The Denver Area Science Fiction
Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of every month at
Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
===================================================================
1. On Thursday, October 21, at 7:30 PM Harlan Ellison will be
speaking in the Performing Arts Center of Brookdale Community
College in Lincroft, New Jersey. Tickets are $7. See
http://www2.brookdale.cc.nj.us/brookdale/News/events.htm
"An evening with author Harlan Ellison"
for further information or contact Student Activities at 732-224-
2788. [-psrc]
[I know the URL looks wrong, but that seems to be it. -ecl]
===================================================================
3. I am not someone who gets angry easily, but I saw something in
Princeton that got me upset. I was walking on Nassau Street
looking for a place to have dinner. Leashed to a light pole was a
white dog. Not as big as some, but the size of a German Shepherd.
The dog was making something of a fuss unhappy about being chained,
whining to passers-by. This seemed to be a dog just unused to be
being left on a street. I think I made a face to entertain the dog
and he stopped his whining to look at me. (I have a theory that
dogs and very young children find human adults boring. Any kind of
strange motions you make they will find interesting. Keep them
non-threatening, of course.) He seemed to be a nice looking dog
and alert. Surprising he was not trained a little better. After a
moment I had to break eye contact and the dog forlornly started his
whining again. Some dogs do not take well to training and I
supposed this might be one.
Service was not very good at the restaurant. People were
complaining. I must have been there at least an hour at a minimum.
I left the restaurant and returning by the same path I heard the
same whining. Sure enough the white dog was still leashed on the
same short leash to the same pole. But one thing was now
different. My attitude was very different. This is no dog who
needed training. To be trapped tied to a pole for a few minutes in
the afternoon is one thing. To be tied to the same poll for what
now seemed like it could have been hours and with night coming on
is something else altogether. Now I really wanted to take whoever
did this and throttle him or her. How can he not see this from the
dog's point of view.
There is no species of animal easier to empathize with than a dog
in my opinion. I suppose that a chimpanzee is very close to us
genetically. He probably has emotions that are similar to ours,
but he does not grow up in our society. That has to make a
difference. Cats do share our society but what goes on in a cat's
head I rarely can figure out. They have a very different
psychology from humans. But at least in my opinion there is no
other species that exhibit so wide a spectrum of emotions that
appear to be like the corresponding human emotions than does the
dog. Some of the longtime readers of this column will know my pet
theory that dogs who have grown up in our society and no longer
fully canine and are a lot more human than we realize. This is due
to their instincts as a animal who lives in packs to pick up the
behaviors of their leaders and to always be open to learning new
rules. So I am more ready to look at things from (what I am
guessing is) a dog's point of view than any other animal.
How do I see things from a dog's point of view? A dog is
constantly trying to understand the rules in this alien human
world. On one hand many dogs pick up a considerable amount of
human language. It is a surprising amount considering that they
are after all a different species. Anybody who thinks a dog is
stupid is definitely a "glass is half empty" type. But even with
some language knowledge they must spend much of the time bewildered
by what is happening around them. A dog's attitude is 20%
understanding our society in an almost humanlike way. The other
80% is going with or occasionally bucking the flow. For a dog like
this, tethered so that he can walk around an area of maybe nine
square feet, left for hours, seeing night falling, the fear of
abandonment must be terrible. Meanwhile these tall creatures on
their hind legs, too tall to even comfortably look in the eye, keep
walking by and ignoring him. The dog knows he hasn't the dexterity
to unhook the leash and even if he did Where would he go to find a
meal? And what if he did get away and the master came back and
could not find him? But if the dog has been tethered a long while
he is probably hungry and thirsty. I can understand how he might
whine a bit. I would probably be in hysterics. I wonder if other
people think about how incredibly cruel our behaviors are to other
species. It is easy just to tie a dog up, go about one's business,
and pick up the dog when ready. Someone could do that without
giving a second thought to the amount of unhappiness and perhaps
even terror that gets added to the world. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
HO 1K-644 732-817-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
Obscenity is what happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
-- Bertrand Russell
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