Dear Ferret Folks- When I was a little girl, I was absolutely fascinated by the Titanic disaster. My mother knew a woman, one of her grandmother's friends, who actually survived the sinking in one of the few, too few lifeboats available to the passengers. The ship was not equipped with enough lifeboats to have accomodated all of the Titanic's passengers. At the time, there was no law compelling the Cunard Line or any other company operating a passenger liner to carry enough lifeboats for everybody, so they didn't. Lifeboats cost money, and they spoiled the view off of the deck. Thus, they were not a priority. To add insult to injury, the first few lifoboats were launched practically half empty. One story that enraged everybody (remember, more than 1000 people drowned for lack of lifeboats in icy-cold water at night, a particularly bad death because they had lots of time to consider their coming fate, as the last lifeboat was launched...without them) was a story about a particular lady. This very wealthy lady was loaded into a lifeboat with her dog. She and her dog survived. So very many did not. And for the rest of her life, many people looked down upon her, and reviled her, for what they considered her incredible arrogance. Someone could have had her dog's place in the lifeboat. Her act was never forgiven nor forgotten. The recent arguments on the FML about 'should we save the animals or the people' remind me of this lady's story. And the fact that for as many years as I have puzzled over it, I don't know quite what to make of it. Was the dog one of those little bitty things that could sit on her knee? If so, it didn't take anybody's 'place' in the lifeboat, really. It's presence wouldn't have made any substantial difference in terms of available room in the lifeboat. Was it a big dog that truly took up a human's amount of space? Then I guess we're trading a canine life for a human's. If it had been left behind, it would have perished along with the passengers who bought the 'cheap seats' aboard the ship, the ones who were initially held back from filling the lifeboats in favor of the wealthy. The sacrifice of a big dog might have saved one of them, but only one, and there were so very many of them.. How should I feel about this, I wonder. Should I be outraged, as so many of her contemporaries were, people who cut her dead socially and never spoke to her again? (But did not object to the fact that the wealthy were preferentially given seats in the lifeboats. Apparently, that was another matter altogether.) Did she hold her dog for comfort in the lifeboat when the ship finally slipped under, spilling hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of screaming, terrified people into the dark water between the chunks of floating ice? She heard them scream. She did. Probably every day for the rest of her life. Did she feel guilty? People have been talking about her and her dog for more than ninety years now, the story is so upsetting to many folks that it has never been allowed to just disappear. It has an established niche in our shared cultural history. It's not going away. Think about that, if you are of the mind that the animals should be given priority in this, our recent disaster in the South. The 'people firsters' have their right to an opinion, and their distress is genuine, very real and present for them, as the sheer endurance of this story suggests. The woman is still paying for her decision to save her dog, long after her death. The anxiety of the 'animals, too!' or even the 'animals, first' group is also genuine. Their distress is equally real, equally painful for them. Why not the dog? The dog did not book a passage aboard a ship that didn't have enough lifeboats, a supposedly intelligent human made that decision for it. Supposedly intelligent humans made the decision to launch what was the single biggest moving object in human history through the water without enough lifeboat space for all aboard, AND to describe that object as "unsinkable" in our desperate arrogance. Rather than come away from this essay of mine (and it's not funny, not my usual stuff at all, but then neither is the disaster we are faced with now) with a hard and fast decision to defend one viewpoint over another, I would hope that at least some of you will instead be moved by what so intrigues me about the story of the woman and her dog. Perfectly reasonable, equally intellegent and compassionate people have been listening to it for nearly a century now, debated it, and have come to two diametrically opposed conclusions. The dog should have lived, the dog should have died. They were given the same information, yet came to two totally different conclusions, usually taking up a heated position on one side or the other. But here is the thing....the man or woman whose conclusion stands in opposition to yours is ALSO decent, principled, and moral, whether you like to think so or not. They are. They really are. They are your friend, your neighbour, whatever. Overall, there is more uniting you than dividing you.We are Americans. And we all agree that we need to unite in support of our southern neighbours, who are suffering so terribly. Let us all help in the ways that we are best suited to give help. What is important is that we do give that help. Why waste energy *itching about the way your friend, your neighbour chooses to help? It is only important that he or she does, in the grand scheme of things. If someone on this list wants to save a dog, well, that's one less dead dog contaminating the water in Louisiana, isn't it? And that may save many people. Work together, people. Don't turn on one another, when there is enough perfectly good blame to go around for the guys who were supposed to supply the lifeboats, here and now. Alexandra in MA [Posted in FML issue 4995]