Archive | March, 2011

The Walt Disney Conundrum

16 Mar

March 16, 2011

The New York Post (Their motto: We call ourselves a newspaper no matter what you say.) ran the following story without attribution. Is it true? Is it made up? I don’t know. Please read the “story” while I go back to the dictionary and look up the definition of journalism.

Here’s a story of the blind leading the blind.

A sightless Briton was devastated when his beloved seeing-eye dog also went blind from cataracts.

But his despair was short-lived, because a social-services agency gave the guide dog his own seeing-eye pooch, so the trio of companions can walk through life together in love.

Picture it. A blind man is walking down the street. He is holding the harness of a seeing eye dog, which in turn is holding the harness of another seeing eye dog in his mouth and is leading both the blind dog and blind man safely to their destination.

Far more likely is that the blind man, being attached to his seeing eye dog, kept him and walks with him but also holds the leash of the new seeing eye dog. I seriously doubt the first dog walks the second.

However, this brings up a very troubling issue. It brings up The Walt Disney Conundrum.

Goofy and Pluto are both dogs, right? There are plenty of cartoons where Mickey Mouse walks Pluto around on a leash. He wears a collar, chews on bones, walks on all fours. He is a dog.

But Goofy is also a dog. He is a typical cartoon anthropomorphic dog. (I spelled that right the first time and didn’t even need the spell check, pat on back.) He talks, he walks upright, he wears clothes, he pals around with Mickey and Donald. He is an idiot, granted, but if I hold that against him I’d also have to hold it against 95% of everyone I meet when I walk out my door and I simply don’t have the energy.

So if Goofy and Pluto are both dogs, what happens if Mickey asks Goofy to walk Pluto for him? It brings up a whole host of ethical, moral, and genetic questions.

Is Goofy a superior dog? Is Pluto an inferior dog? Do they relate to each other in any way as fellow dogs? Do they communicate? Can Goofy bark and be understood by Pluto? Can they procreate? And what would the offspring be? Human-ish like Goofy or canine like Pluto? Or somewhere in between?

If Goofy were to walk Pluto on a leash, or worse, train him to obey commands, is that an issue of slavery? Is it morally right for an intelligent dog to treat a canine dog like a, well, dog? Is it akin to human mistreatment of the mentally disabled?

Can Goofy disobey “no dogs allowed” signs? Why is he allowed out without a leash? Could Goofy legally take a dump in the park if he cleans it up? Does he eat dog food?

If it is simply a matter of intelligence should Goofy and Pluto be considered the same genus? And what about Goofy’s intelligence? Should his stupidity make him legally inferior to Mickey? Could Donald Duck file a discrimination lawsuit on Pluto’s behalf? If Goofy is a dumb “person” but Pluto is a smart dog, does that actually make Pluto a better dog? If Goofy got a jog as a security guard and Pluto a job as a guard dog would they be equals?

And then there is the clothes issue, which is endemic to Disney. Goofy wears clothes. Pluto does not. Do intelligent dogs have to wear clothes or does Goofy have an evolved sense of modesty that is beyond Pluto? Mickey Mouse wears shorts and shoes but no shirt. How does he get into a restaurant with a policy of “no shoes no shirt no service”? And then there is Donald. Why doesn’t he have to wear pants? And that suit- who really believes he was ever a sailor?

This is all very troubling.

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Picture Postcard Tuesday- Sheepshead Bay, 1980’s

15 Mar

March 15, 2011- midday

A trio today. These were all taken at the same time in the early to mid 1980’s. They are undated but I seem to feel that they are from 1983. I have distinct good memories of taking these pictures and for that reason alone I’ve decided to post them. Although the pictures are old some of the scratches and squiggles are from my old scanner. I decided to leave the imperfections in. Down the line I may change my mind and rescan them.

This was taken looking across Sheepshead Bay towards Manhattan Beach. The water had frozen and you can see the way the ice is cracking in the foreground. The wake in the water is frozen in place and if you look closely  you can see birds walking on the ice.

The piers there have been significantly improved and rebuilt over the years. It was a years-long process. I think this picture speaks for itself, a nice use of light and shadow.

It isn’t only the piers that have been renovated. Across the street from the piers are now rows of modern restaurants and shops that replaced mostly wooden single family homes. While the construction was going on residents and activists lobbied against most of it. They complained that the area would lose its “fishing village charm.” Being young I totally disagreed with them at the time but looking back they were totally right. The area is now a more upscale and less rustic (though “rustic” in this case is a matter of degree, depending upon how rustic it may or may not have been in the first place.) The fishing industry is not what it used to be, and part of it is because of ridiculous fishing rules. It used to be that you could keep a fluke at 11 inches, then 13, and who knows how high it is now. Of course, commercial fishermen can keep far smaller fluke. If you are raising the size limit in order to preserve the species, why pick on weekend fishermen whose take is a mere fraction of what the commercial fishermen take?

The picture above is of a long gone house. Look at the birds on the roof. Just a second before I snapped it there was a fourth bird in the middle of the row. You can see him flying away. The fact that the birds are now asymmetrical still bothers me because it was the symmetry that impelled me to take the picture in the first place. And don’t judge the era by the car. It was already old when I took the picture.

Tomorrow I’ll continue the “piers” theme with a modern picture of the decaying Atlantic City pier.

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