Miranda Devine, doggies, socialized medicine, Choice, and another tragic result from screen culture thinking

As if to add to the impenetrability of her thinking, the subbies at the Sydney Morning Herald seem to have decided on a new font for contributions by Miranda the Devine.

Nobody else seems to have been afflicted by the disease, but it makes for a difficult read, even if it means that all the lettering appropriately tilts to the right. Here's a sample, with the opening par, as it was when I read Pet owners hounded by veterinary fees:

It's always alarming to find out too much about a commentariat commentator, but the news that her mongrel mutt is called Biggles no doubt sent fans of Captain W. E. Johns into a kind of ecstasy. These days Biggles is rarely on the horizon, a bit like the William books, or Billy Bunter, that heroic tribute to the mind set of Piers Akerman with his relentless determination to get tuck from the tuck shop, just as Piers is determined day in and day out to damn the cockroach plague of socialists.

Still, we should never forget the days when Biggles valiantly fought the filthy Hun in dozens of books, and of course the good Captain was also careful to make sure that there was a female genre in the form of the stout Worrals of the W.A.A.F. (not that I'm suggesting the Devine should have called her mutt Worrals in some bizarre TG ritual). (You can find out more about W. E. Johns here in a commercial site with plenty of information and here).

But back to the Devine, who is outraged and shocked at the cost of dog care, with a trip to the GP costing $75 for a 20 minute consultation and vaccinations, but a visit to the vet for conjunctivitis sending her reeling at $187 (eyedrops included).

Well I guess we can take that as at least two cheers for socialized medicine, though you wonder when the push for socialized treatment for animals will really start to get going in force as owners suffer under the weight of private sector treatment, where costs often seem determined by what vets deem they can get away with.

Devine roams freely through anecdotes about the suffering of eastern suburbs owners as they attempt to alleviate the suffering of their animals at the cost of intense suffering to their purses. (Surprisingly she doesn't blame video games, computers or the interweb for this trend - however as her source for some of her stories seems to be either the intertubes or television, perhaps she's reciting them to demonstrate the increasing plasticity of her brain as she soaks up deadly screen culture death ray vibes).

Naturally she gets agitated about not just the cost, but the cost of insurance for animal owners for all the high tech medical treatments, and the next thing you know she's quoting a Choice survey. Choice!! That bizarre aggregation of cardigan wearing librarians and right wing ABC viewers who believe in consumer rights! Why the next thing you know the Devine will be quoting Karl Marx in outraged support of the rights of all the animals on Animal Farm.

There's a hint that the Devine might be disturbed by this trend to treat dogs as people:

The increasing tendency for dog owners to humanise their pets, to the point where they let them sleep in their beds, feed them human food and carry them in baby slings, means vets face higher expectations.

Which alarms me even more, because I've recently developed a hypothesis that the tendency for humans to treat dogs and other animals has risen in recent times as a result of the younger generations playing video games. Think about it. The alienated, unhappy creatures stare for hours at screens killing zombies, and when they stop, they start watching an animated show like The Simpsons, and what do they see? Santa's Little Helper!

Suddenly they want a dog, and if they get a dog, so help me they think the dog is human. And damn me if screen culture isn't to blame. Hmm, I must whip up a proposal for a research grant on this one. And quickly, before someone else makes the link, which now strikes me as so obvious it's like being whacked in the face with a hulking tuna. Where's Susan Greenfield when we need her?

Meanwhile, back at the Devine's column, things get a little weirder. There's even a hint the Devine might be something of a closet proponent of euthanasia:

Where once a dog with cancer would be mercifully put down, now owners can opt for expensive chemotherapy and palliative care.

Is that a hint it'd be merciful to put down the elderly? And of course there's room for a little ritual mortification:

Morally, it's impossible to justify the obscene spiralling medical costs for dogs when children overseas are dying of preventable disease and elderly people in this country are suffering from squeezed health budgets.

Which reminds me of the ritual reminders by both my mother and father that I should eat up all my food because of the millions starving in Asia. It seems that if you're of a certain generation this was a universal meme - I know of one person who even tried to box their spare cooked food and ship it off to Asia, which surely shows a wonderful if impractical humanitarian streak.

But of course in a free market it's the right of everybody to ignore the starving millions and the suffering of the elderly in pursuit of their own emotional indulgence. (After all, why not just put the old farts down, and free up a little cash or maybe the inheritance to lavish on the family pet).

And so the Devine swiftly comes to heel with a tug of the leash, for fear of alienating her eastern suburbs readers when doggie devotion can be dressed up as true love:

But equally, having taken responsibility for a dog and grown to love it, many owners find it impossible to say no.

Well each to their own, but yesterday on the train, somewhere around Wynyard, I was bedazzled by the sight of a woman carrying a small lap dog in her purse. The dog looked like nothing so much as a large, shaved rodent, and it made our local 'ferret on the shoulder' man feel more like a style warrior than an eccentric. Indeed I had a strange and sudden urge to introduce the ferret to the purse dog, but then I have rural tastes.

It was a rare sighting on public transport - you're normally much better off heading to a coffee shop in Double Bay to see lap dogs and their human pets - but you know, damned if the woman didn't look a little like a fixated, staring into the distance video game player.

Still, what have we learned today? Having a dog is expensive (and the desire likely the result of too much screen culture), socialized medicine is wonderful and wise, online forums are a great source of information (damn you interwebs, damn you) and Choice is a 'go to' source of consumer truth. And of course it's sad news about the starving millions in Asia or the suffering elderly, but when a cute doggie looks at you, it surely must be love.

Sssh, nobody mention Gene Wilder and sheep.

(Disclaimer: the writer is dogless, believing a big city is cruel enough to humans without torturing dogs as a form of emotional compensation. Genuine dog lovers will of course spare no expense and buy a farm for their pets, which they can visit on weekends, so that the hounds can roam wild and free).

(Below: and yes Biggles made it to Australia, to find it full of giant squids as well as lap dogs, while Worrals shows women can be damn fighting for the empire grrrlies).

(PS the reference to Gene Wilder and sheep passed you by? Here's a few clues. Why not check it out? I suggest you google. You do know how to Google right? You take your plastic brain and you pucker it up and you whistle. And remember Google is thy god).