Musings Of A Journeyman: 5/17/09

If you love dogs, read this. If you don't love dogs, read this anyway.

The following is taken from a speech given as closing arguments by George Graham Vest, attorney for Charles Burden whose dog was on trial for killing sheep, according to a movie. The speech was taken from the movie, “The Trial of Old Drum”, where Scott Bakula played the role of Vest. According to other web sites from Warrensburg, MO, the trial wasn’t over sheep, but rather where Burden’s dog, Drum, was shot and killed by a neighboring landowner who suspected that the dog had killed sheep. The ensuing trial was a result of Burden suing that neighbor, Leonidas Hornsby, for damages. There may have been some changes in the actual speech, since the web site I found also published the speech, but it appears a little differently, though not in content, only in some of the wording. George Vest was elected to the Senate about a year later. He was known as quite the orator. Given this speech, it is no mystery how he earned that reputation. Outside the courthouse in Warrensburg, MO, is a statue of Old Drum, paying tribute to the heroic dog that endured a trial.
According to the movie, these events transpired in 1955. The web site cites this happened in 1870. The movie does provide an acknowledgment that this event occurred in the 19th century. For anyone that searches the Internet for related stories will find numerous accounts, all essentially the same story, but with a small variety of detail. Without further adieu, George Graham Vest’s “Eulogy to The Dog”.

"The best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his worst enemy. His son or his daughter who he has raised with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who we trust with our happiness, our good name, may become traitors to us. People who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us are often the first to throw the stones of malice when failure settles its cloud on our heads.
But the one absolutely unselfish friend that you can have in this selfish world, the one who will never desert you, the one who never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is your dog. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, he is your best friend in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness, he will sleep on a cold ground where wintry winds blow and snows drive fiercely, if only to be at his masters side. He kisses the hand that offers him no food. He licks the wounds and sores that come and encounter us with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. And when all other friends depart, he remains. If fortune sends his master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog has no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when the last scene of all comes and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found. His head between his paws, his eyes, sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death."

Some Favorite Quotes

Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to.
-H. Mumford Jones

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
-John Muir

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
-Thomas A. Edison

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
-Douglas Adams

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
-Andre Gide

Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.
-Suzanne Necker

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-George Bernard Shaw

What luck for rulers that men do not think.
-Adolf Hitler

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.
-Sydney Smith

Life is what happens between moments.
-me

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.
-Thomas Carlyle

The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is because they have a common enemy.
-Sam Levenson

It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
-Judith Martin

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves.
-Carl Jung

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
-Albert Einstein

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
-Aristotle

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
-Mark Twain

Children are a side effect of sex.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
-Mark Twain

The aim of education should be to teach the child to think, not what to think.
-John Dewey

Sunday, May 17, 2009

What a movie!

I watched a good movie this evening. I was due for another good purging.
So I purged, but not as heavily as thought I might. I guess once I figured out what was happening, the plot didn't hit me so heavily. Nonetheless.... powerful stuff!

I saw Seven Pounds.

The hard part is for me to comment on the movie without giving the story away. Even though the audience can pretty well figure out what will happen within the 1st thirty (or so) minutes, its still compelling to watch. It draws you in.
It is about compassion and guilt. Two very powerful emotions that drive this story.
I couldn't help wondering what happened to the Box Jelly. But that is beside the point. :-)

I was reminded of my days in college. In grad school I took a Social Psychology class. There was considerable amount of material and ensuing discourse regarding altruism. There is an undying philosophical question associated with it too..... Is there such a thing as pure altruism? On just about any given day you can hear someone discussing this in the library or hanging out near the Psych classes. My professor and I had a discussion about this too. I never did figure out what his opinion was, but then I suppose that is what made him a good professor. He & I discussed this a couple times and he understood my position well. Well enough to use me as an example in a class discussion. Score 1 nerd point for the guy sitting in the center of the back row. :-)

This argument is (predictably) never really settled. There are strong opinions going either way. Its kind of like arguing over which side of the sausage is its beginning?
But within that argument lies something even more important. Even more important than the motives for altruism is the outcome of it. What does the reason matter if someone did something for someone else. Isn't the outcome what really matters?

I put this movie in the same class as "Life as a House." Amazing!
I'll leave you with a couple trailers from these movies.... Food for thought.

Let me know your thoughts! Enjoy & be well!

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Sunday, May 17, 2009

What a movie!