Alicia:
You are not wrong to find the Baltimore Sun column by Kevin Cowherd
disturbing at all.  His so-called humor was not based on anything more than
false stereotypes and a mean spirit.  If one were to apply such stereotyping
to other humans, it would be called bigotry and would be roundly decried.
Humor designed to perpetuate ignorance is not humor at all, despite what
some people would have you think.  Those same people would have you believe
that Mr. Cowherd's writing is a form a satire.  It is not and they and he,
are wrong.  Despite what some would have you believe, newspapers are not
great bastians of literary style.  Most newspapers are written for a
readership skill of sixth or seventh grade -- and yes, that goes for the
major papers as well as the small papers printed in small backwater
communities.  You don't find much satire written for sixth graders.
 
What should be really and truely disturbing to the ferret community is that
some people claimng to be proponents of ferrets actually defend this type of
blatant and deliberate misinformation.  Mr Cowherd's column coming as it did
at the height of the Kodo situation, could have been an opportunity for all
ferret supporters to educate the public and the media through reasoned and
rational responses.  Instead, those who did respond were denegrated and
ridiculed by others in the ferret community.  Mr Cowherd wrote his column
out of ignorance and a mean spirit.  Reading his other columns, it seems
that is his stock in trade -- a mean spirit and ignorant remarks
masquerading as so-called satire.  His supporters in the ferret community do
not have the defence of ignorance of the facts, therefore I cannot
understand the source of their support.
 
A few weeks ago during the Kodo debacle, someone quoted Dr. Deitrich
Bonhoeffer's final letter to his friends, not knowing the source.  Dr
Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who opposed Hitler's Nazi regime.  Friends
discovering his imminent arrest urged him to flee, he refused and sent them
the following paraphrased explanation: "When they came for the Communists I
said nothing, because after all, I was not a Communist.  Then they came for
the Trade Unionists, and not being a Trade Unionist, I remained silent.
Then they came for the Jews and again, I said nothing because I was not a
Jew.  And then, they came for me and there was no one left to speak out."
The good pastor died at the hands of the Nazis.  His message is simple and
one of the few maxims by which I guide my personal life.  I speak out
against bigotry and deliberate misinformation.  For years, I have quietly
worked locally to educate others about ferrets and other unusual pets.  In
the beginning, there was a great deal of misinformation that had to be
dispelled.  Happily, those misconceptions in this area have died out as
people learned the truth about ferrets and other pets.
 
Mr Cowherd and his supporters -- in and out of the ferret community -- are
wrong.  His column was not humorous, it was harmful to the true nature of
ferrets.  It was more harmful because Mr Cowherd knows enough to be aware
that what he was writing was not humorous exaggeration, but deliberate
falsehood.  His design was to draw laughs from small-minded people by
denigrating ferrets and those who choose to share their lives with them.
Humor based on harming others is not funny, it is bigotry and hate-mongering
whether the focus is ferrets or racial, ethnic, or religious minorities.  I
am both shocked and saddened that anyone in the ferret community could for
one minute consider supporting such a wrong course.
 
Scott
[Posted in FML issue 1989]