Hi everyone,
 
As Zen so eloquently put it yesterday, "Having a different point of view is
not evil."
 
Zen and MC (the Rude One) made some very valid points.  These are based on
common sense, a very rare thing these days.
 
In suggesting that we should work WITH the petstores to help educate their
employees and new ferret owners, M.C.  is offering a very constructive
method of actually accomplishing something instead of just making ourselves
feel better with some politically correct garbage.
 
Our Buddy (aka Chubbs) who, many will remember, was the starved fur-covered
skeleton left in the snow at my friend's petstore door 15 months ago goes
in to get his stitches removed tomorrow morning.  He had both adrenal
glands removed 2 weeks ago.  The left one was the size of a golfball and
the right one was the size of a small marble.  For those who don't know,
they are normally about half the size of a pencil eraser (if not smaller).
We are very lucky to still have him with us.  Our wonderful vet (Dr. Chuck
Burmeister, Peoria, IL) spent 1 hour literally carving out the artery going
to his kidney instead of just removing the kidney and spent a total of 3
hours doing this surgery.  When asked, he commented that he'd not seen a
larger tumor except in autopsies.
 
My Marshall Farms questions for all you to think about is:
1. Since Buddy was born at MF, should I blame them for this illness?
 
To do so would be to ignore the fact that his first humans starved him for
his first nine months or so of life by feeding him cheap dog food and then
Cheerio's when he stopped eating the dog food.
 
2. His cagemate died from heart failure due to malnutrition.  She was
also a MF ferret.  Should I blame them for that death also?
 
For those who don't get the point - those are rhetorical questions.
 
I have ferrets who are MF and ferrets that aren't MF.  I love them all.  I
consider them all gifts from a higher power and don't question the path
used to send them to me.
 
It seems to me that everyone jumps on the "bash" MF bandwagon with little
or no evidence of "evil" deeds.  Recently I read one poster who commented
that they "assumed" MF sold the majority of their ferrets to labs instead
of the public.  Why would this person "assume" this?  Why wouldn't they
"assume" that MF would look at the very limited number of potential
customers that research labs consist of versus the millions of potential
customers the general public consists of and prefer millions instead of
hundreds?  Why would a "greedy" business choose the smaller customer base?
Have we have allowed ourselves to become so politically correct that we
don't even question the people who make statements bashing the "evil" MF?
 
I welcome any intelligent arguments.  For those who wish to "Flame" me, I
suggest you do it privately.  You really don't want to get into a public
word war with me.  Trust me on this.
 
P.S.  Thanks BIG for continuing the thankless job of moderating this
sometimes frustrating list.  Your patience is that of a saint.
[Posted in FML issue 2960]