I don’t know if you’ve been living under a rock or not heard, but a certain former TV talk-show host whose name starts with “O” and ends with “h” and has a “pra” in the middle? You know her? Well, she’s been going around the country doing a tour of talks she calls a “Life Class”. In these classes you learn really important stuff like how to forgive, how to say you’re sorry, how to live with purpose, how to let go of the past, and other touchy-feel %#!& like that. And when I was reading on the internetz the other day about this Life Class business, I thought, “I need to have a life class. Only in mine I will just tell people how not to be idiots and what to do and what not to do and it will. be. BRILLIANT!!”
And after this very short dialogue with myself, Jenny’s Life Klass was born. Klass with a K because obviously, I am super-klassy, and because I don’t want the aforementioned C-Class leader to sue me. Even though she has more money than God and I have about $10 more than the homeless guy down the street, still. Just to be sure. I mean, what would Emily and I do if O took away the $7.06 we make every month from our blog advertising?? I CAN’T LOSE MY iPHONE, people!! There are serious issues at stake!!
Ahem. Anyway. Welcome to Jenny’s Life Klass!!! Please pull up a comfy chair, grab yourself a cup of coffee or 44 oz. cup of Mountain Dew, a sugary snack, and a notebook. Cause you are gonna wanna write this stuff down.
Lesson #1: Don’t Love Animals More than People. In this installment, I will explain to you that animals are NOT people, they are not as important as people, and they should not be privileged with all the rights and dignities that humans are entitled to.
And also? I will tell you that your dog does not have a soul. Sorry, dudes. All dogs do NOT go to heaven. They go in the ground. Or the crematory. Same with cats, gerbils, guinea pigs, parakeets, et. al.
I feel that this is a very important lesson for my first Life Klass, because lately I have been seeing a lot of animal-love on the internetz, and not so much of the giving to actual humans with disabilities, disadvantage, or disease.
If you attend this session of JLK and disagree with me, that’s ok. Feel free to disagree, but I WILL give you a big ol’ F on your homework. Because this is a pass/fail class. And if you leave me a mean comment, you FAIL. And clearly if you hate me for my opinion, you love animals more than people and, well, again with the FAIL. You are dead to me. Go read another blog.
Saturday I posted about Toyota’s 100 Cars for Good, an amaaaazing philanthropic effort by which Toyota is giving away A CAR A DAY, Y’ALL!!! – for 100 days. Each day, five charities are up to win a car. They win by getting the most votes through Toyota’s 100 Cars for Good Facebook app. Of the 500 charities that are part of the program, only 12% are animal charities. That’s 60 of 500 charities devoted to animals. AND YET. The freaking ANIMALS CHARITIES beat out the humans EVERY TIME!!! The first time I voted, a couple of weeks ago, I voted for a charity that served adults with developmental disabilities. And I was all excited to see the results after I voted, because SURELY the charity that I picked was going to be the winner, right? WRONG. The animal charity had 46% of the vote, and was KILLING all the other charities (which served humans). The adults with developmental disabilities? ELEVEN PERCENT. A crappy 11% of the vote is all they were getting. You know those sweet special-needs kids in our communities? They are going to be adults one day. And they will still need therapies and services that cost a lot of money. But methinks in America disabled adults makes us uncomfortable, so we’d rather give our votes and our charitable dollars to puppies because – OMG PUPPIES! ARE SO! FREAKING! CUTE! – but adults with developmental disabilities? Aren’t as cuddly. Neither are the elderly, battered women, or apparently even educational charities, compared with our four-footed friends.
It makes my blood boil. Saturday I voted again, and again, the animal charity of the group was kicking tail (no pun intended). This time I voted for a group that helps families who have a disabled child in the family. The animal rescue charity was trumping even CHILDREN. Here are the results after my vote:
Just stop it, people. Get your heads out of your @$$es. Animals should be treated kindly, but their well-being should not be put above the health, education, or quality-of-life of humans. I don’t know why animal charities are so flippin’ sexy right now, but the fact speaks to the rottenness of our hearts and our values.
Jenny’s Life Klass homework: Vote for Toyota 100 cars for good every day and DON’T VOTE FOR THE ANIMAL CHARITIES. I don’t care who ya vote for as long as it’s an organization that helps HUMANS.
Let’s give the kids, old, people, homeless, disabled, and sick HUMANS a chance at the car for good.
Love people more than you love animals. Write that down. Practice it, and you get an A+!
*****updated*****
I am updating this to say that I think it’s totally cool if you have pets. If you have them, you should love them and take care of them. I don’t care if you call them your “kids” as long as you don’t have actual kids, then I think that’s kinda creepy. But go ahead and get all the pets you want, it’s no skin off my teeth. The point of this post, as stated above, is “Animals should be treated kindly, but their well-being should not be put above the health, education, or quality-of-life of humans. ”
So if you love your doggie or kitty, good on ya. Keep it up, and don’t be offended. If you’d rather pull your dog out of a burning building than a human, you’ve got problems.
This
Is
Amazing!
AMEN!
Nothing gives me the dry heaves more than hearing someone refer to themselves as the “mommy” of an animal. Expect maybe someone talking about an animal as their “grandchild.”
Oh God … me too! I have a friends who says their animals the “closest thing” to kids that they have and I’m fine with that distinction because they aren’t actually calling them their kids, but I do have a couple of friends who do treat their animals like their own flesh and blood children and it squicks me out.
When you don’t have kids, your animal is the closest thing. Think about it… you feed them, bathe them, walk them, play with them, teach them, reprimand them, cherish them, love them and sometimes want to kill them. Sounds like a lot of parents (of humans) to me. I know it’s not the same but come on, why do people even care how others feel toward their pets? I would only say it’s a bad thing if someone has kids and treats their dogs equally or better than their kids. Otherwise, who cares. Some people don’t like kids, some people don’t like animals, some people don’t like either… and the world goes ’round anyway.
I loved my animals a lot more BEFORE I had kids. I loved the crap out of them. And then I had kids, and the animals became just ok. And then they gave my husband horrible asthma and they became someone else’s animals. Such is life.
You know I love you. HOWEVAAA, I’ll admit that I have voted for animal charities over “people” charities a couple times so far. Before you disown me, here’s why:
1) vehicle need- sometimes, the “people” charities they’re up against don’t have as much of a need for a vehicle as, say, a van that could transport 20 dogs to an adoption event. This is a judgement call on my end, obv, but I do look at the tab about why they need a vehicle.
2) group mission- I’ve seen a few animal groups that bring the pets to retirement homes or hospitals for animal therapy… So before you write off a group just because it has the pet icon, that’s worth looking at.
And then the key thing that I think people miss: math. If you look at the pie chart you posted, the votes are split almost exactly 50-50 between animal and people causes. It looks so imbalanced in favor of the animal charity bc on most days there’s only ONE animal charity… Which means the other 50 or so percent of the votes will be split among the remaining FOUR people-oriented charities. Certainly something for Toyota to think about- maybe group finalists by category for voting for a more even playing field- but yeah, just wanted to point out that at least the differences aren’t quite as extremes as they seem.
NOW you can disown me…but I’ll be sadpanda if you do! (or sadperson, since you like people better ;p )
‘I would never disown you. I agree to disagree with lots of my friends. But I am very hard-line on this. If I were Toyota, I would’ve only opened the contest to human services and education non-profits. I’d even cut out the environment over PEOPLE!
…don’t get me started…
UP
dude. i don’t even like animals and i am still kind of concerned this post is going to get you kicked off the interwebz. those PETA people are vicious. good luck to you!
Emmaline, who will make great contributions to our society because of her developmental disability, thanks you for this post. Thanks for standing up for people who aren’t always able to stand up for themselves!
Totes agree!
I was actually considering emailing Toyota and suggesting that they only have animal charities against other animal charities…because the ONLY time a human charity has won has been because there wasn’t an animal charity to choose from that day! It’s not okay. I like my pets. I don’t think animals should be mistreated. But it’s pretty outrageous to see the disparity day in and day out as I vote.
Totally agree! I read a report about a fireman who LOST his life when rescuing a dog from a burning building. The guy took off his oxygen mask and gave it to the dog. It’s great to be a hero….but I’m sure he had family and friends who would LOVE for him to not have died to save an animal….that particular story really bothered me.
This post is awesome. And totally correct. I will start voting today!
BTW – I had not heard of the “Life Class” Oprah was promoting, but from the topics you listed that she is “teaching” I think the attendees could do themselves a favor and look for those answers in the Bible or a church service instead!
Amen sistah!
“Let’s give the kids, old, people, homeless, disabled, and sick HUMANS a chance…”
I could not agree with you more.
Obama 2012!
AU H2O
UP
Hmmm boy I am torn here. Maybe it’s because I’m a pet owner and just like people who really love animals don’t understand the people who don’t, people who don’t love animals don’t understand the people who do. I don’t think anyone is right or wrong in being attached to animals or not, it’s a personal preference.
Aside from that, I get the point (and agree) but don’t quite understand the animal hate fest that had to go along with it. And honestly, I’m not sure this post had the impact you hoped it to because I feel that most people focused on the hate fest and not on the love for humans. See comments above and you’ll see the trend…bonding over making fun of animal owners/lovers instead of bonding over helping improve the quality of human life.
On a positive note, you’ll be happy to know that I participate in fundraising events every year with Alz Association since my grandfather passed. And I haven’t donated any money or fundraised for any animal charities… just to the one animal in my life. But I would if I felt it was a good cause.
One of my best friends, Krista, sits on the board at a local shelter. She has three dogs and has rescued dogs. I am proud of her for her dedication, and have absolutely no problem with her volunteer work. The TREND where I see over & over again, animal services being championed ABOVE human services, is what bothers me. The Toyota contest is perhaps not a good indicator of overall society, but it is at least a good indicator of the overall Facebook population’s feelings. You work in an industry that provides products to special-needs children, you raise $ for the Alzheimer’s Association, surely you can see my point. God forbid I get to the point where I need the resources of a non-profit that focuses on Human Services and it doesn’t have the funding to help me or my children because it’s losing the competition for the American charitable dollar, to non-profits that focus on animals. I’ll quote myself from above, here. THIS is my point: Animals should be treated kindly, but their well-being should not be put above the health, education, or quality-of-life of humans.
I hope everyone who read this post read THAT LINE if nothing else.
Totes Brill.
This is sincerely one of the funniest things I have ever read!!! I laughed out loud so many times and made Bryan listen as I read most of it Out loud to him!!! Freaking hilarious!
I totally agree. I’ve always had animals growing up, and I love them lots – but when my son became allergic to the cat, she found a new home. I do agree you’ll probably get a lot of flack, BUT I think there are a ton of people out there that agree 100%
I totally agree with this. I remember after the tragic events of Sept 11 there were several charities asking for donations to help rebuild, support families, etc. and one of the most vocal was the North SHore Animal League, an animal rescue and adoption organization in the NYC area. They were asking for donations to support the increased amount of homeless animals after their owners perished in the attacks or could no longer keep them because their home was ruined. I remember seeing them on every morning news show, talk show, radio show etc. They made a HUGE push for donations and it DROVE ME CRAZY that people thought their dollar would be better spent helping stray animals than on the thousands of HUMANS whose lives were literally detstroyed by the attacks or on the City that was ravaged but still had to support it citizens. If every single affected human either received money or support as a result of charitable giving – sure, donate all you want to animals. But we all know that is impossible. So please people, consider the well being of humans before animals.
You did not write an “animal hate fest”. You are not promoting the mistreatment of animals. You are promoting the treatment of humans.
I have to say I have the same concerns as you. I am an animal lover we have lots of animals. I heard about a lady in Maryland who went out in her bathrobe in a snow storm and locked herself out of the house. She went to the neighbors but they would not let her in because she was a stranger. She froze on the doorstep. When I heard this I thought that it was so sad. The part that made me the saddest was that if the person that would not let her in had left an animal out in the snow to freeze to death they would have been targeted if not charged with animal neglect or mistreatment. We had a sermon in church about this a long time ago as well. People are created in God’s image animals are not. God put animals here to feed us provide us with transportation and cloth us. Maybe also to bring us joy and comfort but they are not to be put above people. If we put animals above people where does that put God when people are the ones created in Him image?
Hmmm. I agree with almost everything you said. But I do think animals have souls, or some sort of spark of the divine. But I eat them (not cats and dogs for the record), and would put *almost* any human before the life of one of my pets.
Oh yeah, this one sparked the comments! In Jenny’s characteristic irreverent “for the sake of entertainment” way, she has made an excellent point about how IN GENERAL as a society we have some seriously misplaced priorities. Obviously this is not the only shining example, but it’s one that I don’t think sinks in with a lot of people as misguided. I don’t think you’re an animal-hater, Jenny, and I think you respect them as God’s creation. You were brave to bring this up, and I admit that while I’ve agreed with you the times you’ve brought it up on Facebook, I’ve refrained from commenting (at least I think I refrained). All part of my anti-Facebook-drama policy. But I wanted to speak up now and say, in a non-dog-bashing way (I love my rescue dog! And my children! Not equally!), that I totally concur. You’ve made an excellent point we should all think about.
(Oh, but maybe in another time, we can talk about whether pets will be in heaven. 🙂 I just read a very interesting theory put forth by Randy Alcorn in his book, Heaven.)
I am late to the party here with a comment, and let me say – your post is so funny and I look forward to many more JLK’s….however, for one minute – I must be the devil’s advocate and say this…animals (dogs in particular) do have souls and provide huge value to many people people. especially, those with disabilities.
The charity here is a pet rescue…. and I cannot speak to whether they are better than any other charity.
But, for a moment – think about all the seeing eye dogs? And have you ever seen a dog literally catch a child having a seizure? I have – dogs can sense when the seizure os going to occur by changes in the body that only their senses detect and break the fall of a child about to hit their head while having a seizure.
There are also many formally trained dogs who visit terminally ill children in the hospital…kids who never get to leave the ICU or hospital floor and getting a visit from a dog or even a horse (yes, I have seen it) may be the only time they smile in a month. Transplant patients, children with cancer, and little kids who suffer awful car accidents who are separated from their home, their pets, their siblings, and often their parents (who have to work)…..getting a snuggle from a dog is EPIC!
These are just a few examples … I could go on (dogs who rescued people on 9/11)…but I will leave you with this – all these dogs were trained and loved by humans to do what they do selflessly (yes dogs are selfless).
…I know you will be making fun of me b/c I am one of those kooks who loves their dogs and puts them on the internetz and I can laugh at myself b/c sometimes I am nuts BUT when I see my dog’s picture on the wall at Children’s hospital of Pittsburgh (he is retired at 13 from going)…I know my dogs deserve it! xoxo
I would totally, totally, TOTALLY vote for a charity that helped service animals, even retired service animals, because those animals help disabled people, and that is AWESOME. That is a win-win! I have yet to see one of these up for a car yet, but I will keep my eyes peeled.
I don’t begrudge anyone their pets, pets can be very valuable part of people’s lives. (Right Emily, ha ha.) (I used to take pictures of my cats and have framed photos of them on my desk at work before I had kids. I SWEAR.) I just think the charitable dollar should be heavily funneled to the human side. And maybe it is!! In this particular effort (100 cars), however, it’s NOT, and it makes me sad. Yesterday there was no animal non-profit up for vote. But Monday there was, and once again, it won. Today, SO FAR a Humane Society is winning. 2nd place is a non-profit that looks for the links between cancer in pets & people. This intrigues me, and I could probably get behind it, but again I voted for a human service organization and again it’s getting skunked by the puppies.
I’m just sayin’, animals are great, and dogs especially can provide much-needed services & perform valuable jobs & duties, but human life is more valuable than even the most capable dog. I’ll never waver on that.
But I guess I should never say never, because the thought just occurred to me that I might choose a service dog over a pedophile if they were both trapped in a burning building. And I was a firefighter. And there was no chance of me dying.