specifically, THIS dog:
i can’t understand the spanish commentator, but it’s not hard to imagine what he must be saying.
there are some human beings as brave, even braver, than this hero dog. irena sendler, who died last year, was one of them. i just learned about this amazing woman, and i am not likely to forget her story, even with my astoundingly crappy memory.
i challenge you to watch this account of her life without tears:
i’ve often wondered, as perhaps some of you have wondered, what would i really do in a life-or-death situation: save myself, or try to save another? it’s an impossible question to answer, of course, until you are in that situation, and once you ARE in that situation the question becomes irrelevant. nothing matters but the action taken … or not taken.
i know from experience that, in a crisis, i will pretty much go for helping the other guy, no matter what the risk. i sort of enjoy immediate risk. but that is completely different from the kind of risk that irena sendler took. you could almost call it “cold-blooded” risk. day after day, hiding infants and young kids in her truck to smuggle them out of the warsaw ghetto. joking with the guards who would’ve killed her in a minute if they realized what was going on. smiling at the wheel of her ambulance.
that kind of sustained action in the face of potentially grave consequences (which ultimately came to pass for irena, when the nazis discovered what she was doing, broke her arms and legs and threw her in prison). it’s one thing to take a bold action in a bold moment of decision; many of us can do that. but this? sustained resistance to evil at immense risk to one’s own self?
i don’t know if i could have done what irena sendler did during the holocaust. but i do know that i want to be, or to become, the kind of a woman who can. i’m working on it.
i wanna be your dog.
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You’ve managed to put me to tears. First, I wonder if that dog survived and remember why I am an animal activist. Their emotions and needs are not so unlike our own.
Second, the video of Irena Sendler reminded me of why I still believe that kindness in humans will ALWAYS matter more and have longer term results than evil. It needs no reward, as the reward is in the act, itself.
Finally, while I love Patti and R.E.M….they can’t hold a candle to Iggy’s song. Let’s watch the man himself do what no one else can do with it, unmistakenly…Iggy…and may you remember with a smile our fabulous night seeing him live doing this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbLRf0j80wU
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