May 122006
During the question and answer portion of Wednesday’s forum on disability, policy, and opera, some dude raised his hand and proceeded to make the following observation:
My dog plays with the neighbor’s three-legged dog and they seem to get along fine. The four-legged dog treats the three-legged dog like anyone else and the three-legged dog doesn’t seem to notice that anything’s wrong with it. It seems that dogs have all this stuff figured out already. We could learn a lot from them.
I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea. So I guess the solution to disability discrimination and marginalization in all its pervasive forms is for every household to have a three-legged dog that can serve as a model of behavior and a source of inspiration for all us humans (especially the denser ones among us). Ideally, the three-legged dog should have a four-legged companion, just to emphasize the point, but the four-legged dog could probably be optional. Dogs are so cool. Not only do they have highly developed codes of ethical behavior, but they also get to run around naked and lick themselves in public. We could learn a lot from them.
