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.
