Faith the Dog: "He was born with 2 legs. Even his mother did not want him." (DIALUP WARNING)

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://nedhardy.com/2011/08/23/the-story-of-faith-the-dog/?utm_source=theslingshot&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=amazing-the-story-of-faith-the-dog

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. pics aren't loading for me

[Amerigo Vespucci]

2. I just hit "reload" and now it's 2 broken links for me, too...

...not sure why that happened, but they're at the link I posted.

[ashling]

4. Try the link

the pics are within the story at the link.

When coming upon pics that don't open, right click on the pic icon and then copy the url from the choices. Use that url to open the pic. It usually works...sometimes I am not really interested enough, however.

[idiotgardener]

3. Faith is female.

I know it wasn't your error.

[begin_within]

5. What an amazing animal.

[TheMadMonk]

6. Sorry, but regardless of the bloody marvelous outcome, this type of story...

...speaks more to the abominable selfishness of the "rescuer" than their compassion.

How many must suffer for every "heroic measure" success story, before the sub-visible suffering of the many outweighs a human interst soundbite at the end of the six o'clock news? Why is a parent who spectacularly throws in the towel by killing their disabled child after ten years of devotion a monster? And yet a hundred million voters, demanding she "suck it up" and refusing to help her shoulder the buden in the least manner are simply exercising a rational right to minimisation of their own personal contribution to social welfare?

Take very premature babies for example: With roughly 1/2 suffering significant to crippling disability and half of the remainder being measurably sub-par on multiple cognitive and physical indicators. 3 in 4 are condemned to a lifetime of "suffering" (certainly occupancy of the worst 10% of any number of bell curves) that 1 in 4 might live a "normal life".

It is all well and good to rub noses in the Hawkings, Einsteins, Bethovens, or a hundred other paragons of intellect who might never had a chance to make their epochal contributions to human knowledge under a "more rational" regime. But what of their counterparts who never had a chance to rise, because "an accident of birth" is still a far greater indicator of future success than any demonstrated merit below the level of un-fucking-believably exceptional? (Physical prowess notwithstanding.)

How many potentially exceptional kids never get offered a chance to show what they have, simply because their birth address is Energetic Street or Derwent drive?

Just how many behave as if their $30/mo to World Vision, absolves them of all resposibility for the poverty stricken of their own nation? Perhaps even gives them the right to vocally characterise their own poor as worthless parasites sucking on the public teat?

It is all well and good to spend $10-$20 million separating conjoined twins from another nation, or giving one but to do so whilst vocally denying the most basic of healthcare to millions of children (let alone adults) born "right next door" is just plain sick.

I'd spend health dollars on replacing aged air-con in a low income housing block before funding a single paediatric bed in a hospital.

In my world, there is a very clear distinction between desperation and taking one last philosophical shot at success. I will root for the cold blooded parent offering their kid up as an experimental subject, whilst openly acknowledging the likelyhood of failure. And I will lambast the parent blindly chasing nostrum after nostrum.

All FDA and who owns who conspiracy BS aside, if an "advanced" form of treatment is only available in a "backward" or "lagging" nation then that treatment MUST be held as suspect, and approached with a rational expectation of failure, rather than an unrealistic hope for success.

[provis99]

9. are you on crack?

[Quantess]

10. LOL, I'm scratching my head at that response also.

Some people can always find something to complain over.

[TheMadMonk]

11. Pot actually. But I still stand by my rant.

WE (collectively) would far rather BE SEEN doing good (no matter how ineffectually) than do effective good without expectation or hope of individual recognition.

We ALL ooh and ah over the tearjerking story of the 2 legged dog rescued from certain death. But tens of thousands of perfectly healthy abandoned animals every Xmas is only of real effecting interest to a small handfull of animal activists already pre-invested in the problem.

We salve our consciences with a monthly donation, receiving in return "shares" in a kid somewhere in Africa - AND COLLECTIVELY we on average repeatedly choose to look the other way whilst a dark skinned kid, born "just down the road" arrives daily at school with a hole in their belly and goes to sleep wrapped around a similar vacancy.

We drop a handfull of change into the jar for the local kid with a million dollar medical condition AND feel good about it - but COLLECTIVELY we bitch at the cost of deworming some "worthless wetback's" kid.

Some amongst us might be able to give Mother T a run for someone else's money, but that "some" is a VERY small minority. MOST OF US are just as bloody venal as the next person, and stories like this one are more convenient camoflage behind which we might conceal our intrinsic callousness than heartening indicators of burgeoning "humanity".

We collectively give more of a shit for the starving kid in Africa, than the kid in similar straights at home.

I DO NOT have a problem with charity per se. I DO have a MAJOR problem with those who attempt to define themselves by their conspicuous contributions to charity.

[AngkorWot]

7. His own mother didn't want him?

Wow, what a bitch.

[OnyxCollie]

8. You're making me cry. nt