Tuesday, January 06, 2009 - Posts
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Writing in the NYT Magazine last weekend, Rebecca Skloot made a great case for a Noah's ark approach to using animals to help people with disabilities. She profiled a blind woman who has a seeing-eye miniature horse—which sees more than a dog, is calmer, and lives much longer. A bipolar man who'd been episodically violent took enormous comfort from a parrot he'd trained to talk him down in moments of crisis. He's no longer violent. An intensely anxious woman has a soothing monkey that she never drives without. Yes, some of these species are wild, and all are a lot less familiar than the usual lab or golden retriever. But the public health risks seemed minimal. And the gains, for the people whose lives are opened up by these animals, huge.
Now Skloot reports on her blog that the Department of Justice is about to ban all species other than dogs from officially working as service animals. She has seen a leaked version of proposed new regulations that say that with regard to service animals, "animal means dog." This would strip disabled people who work with other species of their legal right to take them on a bus or into a restaurant, for example. It seems like exactly the wrong kind of stifling government interference. The new regulations aren't final yet. Skloot hopes they may be delayed until after Obama's inauguration so that his DoJ can toss them. At the moment, however, it looks dim for the horses and parrots—and worse for the people who rely on them.
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Am I the only one who sees Caroline Kennedy's "lack" of political experience as no big deal? At least Lisa Belkin mirrors this point of view in "The Senator Track." Instead of spending the past several decades of her life walking the "traditional" political career paths of her forefathers before her, this Kennedy wrote books on civil liberties, raised millions for public schools, and reared three children. Many have declared that privilege and a last name catapulted Kennedy into the spotlight as a senatorial candidate, but these knee-jerk reactions overlook the finer nuances of what Kennedy may bring to office, not to mention the idea that a life spent outside of politics might serve the public better than a professional glad-hander. In Obama's case, claims that he lacked sufficient political experience to win the presidency were drowned out by a nation that demanded change. Personally, I thought we were done judging candidates by their political track records the day Reagan was elected. Then again, I hail from a state that elected the Terminator its Governator.
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I must take exception to the remarks of my estimable colleague, Christopher Hitchens, who at the end of his piece on the Gaza incursion says he feels "quite free" to doubt there should ever have been a Jewish state but adds that "to see Hamas at work is to resolve that whatever replaces or follows Zionism, it must not be the wasteland of Islamic theocracy." I hate to see Christopher join the chilling chorus that blithely wishes for the destruction of Israel. Israel celebrated its 60th anniversary this year. In that time, Israelis have created a vibrant democratic country full of people who want to run businesses, invent things, grow things, raise their children, and to do so without the fear of their imminent death. Presumably this is exactly the kind of state Christopher would like to see replace Israel, though he knows what would follow Israel's end would instead be the "wasteland" he rightly fears.
Since people are not in the habit of voluntarily putting an end to their nation, how does Christopher envision the disappearance of Israelis? Bullet, bomb, gas? For most who wish to see the elimination of the state of Israel, it is not sympathy for the Palestinians that drives them (Where were the voices asking Hamas to stop its daily rockets into Israel so that this incursion could have been prevented?)—but a lust for the end of the tiny Jewish state. Pakistan, which was founded just about the same time as Israel, can hardly be called a success. It is a corrupt nuclear state with regions run by terrorists. But I have yet to hear anyone suggest the founding of Pakistan was a mistake and it should be wiped off the world map. Somalia became independent in 1959. It is now an anarchic terrorist redoubt whose main export is pirates. Again, no one is saying Somalia was just a mistake and let's get rid of it. For some reason, Israel seems to be the only country whose very existence can be casually dismissed.
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