Saturday, August 13, 2005
Blue state ethicist
Randy Cohen's column in tomorrow's New York Times Magazine (link not yet available) contains this hilarious ethical quandry and Cohen's response. If you wonder what makes the Times write the stuff it does, it is because its local readers ask questions like this:
Cohen's answer:
The story does not say where in the country this squirrel-whacker lives, but who even knew that drowningtree rats squirrels was problematic? It seems safer than shooting them.
Or perhaps every squirrel is sacred.
A.S.C.P.A. hotline volunteers all over the country are presumably on tenterhooks waiting for a call from a squirrel-loving lesbian with a saucy faux French accent. What will they do when it comes in?
While visiting my girlfriend's grandmother, I discovered her neighbor's unsavory habit of trapping squirrels -- they eat the fruit on his trees -- and drowning them in a bucket. Ordinarily I'd call the A.S.P.C.A., but this man is kind and helpful to the grandmother, and I fear jeopardizing that. Plus, the family is uneasy about our relationship, and I don't want them to resent me even more. What's a girl to do?
Cohen's answer:
A girl is to phone the A.S.P.C.A. using a saucy French accent. That is, report this to the proper authorities anonymously. (Is there some kind of squirrel hot line?) You can thus serve both admirable goals -- preventing cruelty to animals and preserving amity between the grandmother and her neighbor.
The story does not say where in the country this squirrel-whacker lives, but who even knew that drowning
Or perhaps every squirrel is sacred.
A.S.C.P.A. hotline volunteers all over the country are presumably on tenterhooks waiting for a call from a squirrel-loving lesbian with a saucy faux French accent. What will they do when it comes in?
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