Miller
Continued From Page 5
third or fourth chances. Heavy
books have been written on their
professions’ disproportionate representation on the crime blotter,
often for offences showing extreme
narcissism and lack of empathy,
especially domestic abuse. The
relationship with animal abuse is
easy to see.
These guys develop a sense of
entitlement and untouchability
early on, often in the midst of a
second or sixth chance. Until they
are no longer of use to their teams,
their employers and coaches maintain them in persistent adolescence. I have written here of my
sophomore year at the University of
Colorado, when I was “courted” by
a running back to take his exams
for him. Happily, this barely literate
“scholarship” athlete quickly saw I
was not his boy. But I got to learn
all about the steak dinners and parties he was feted with, his cheerleader girlfriends, and the new
Astroturf in Folsom Field, when
are either chattels or wild beasts.
Ergo, animals have no legal rights.
Subject to very sketchy legal protection, they can be owned and
exploited at will. This, and their
frequent dependence on the
mostly indifferent stewardship of
humans, is why so much animal-rights literature compares them
to slaves and children.
Then again, if corporations
like British Petroleum, McDonald’s, and the Philadelphia Eagles
can be legal persons with rights,
why can’t sentient beings who by
birthright share the planet with
us, and provide us food, clothing,
science, companionship, and
deep pleasure?
Astroturf itself was young and my
English professors had lost their
office telephones to budget cuts.
Many professional sports fig-
ures from similar backgrounds
grow up to become decent citizens
who appreciate the good fortune
that rescues them from poverty
and ignorance. The disadvantaged
in the rest of our society often
make good without scholarships
or other special treatment, let
alone salaries in the tens of mil-
lions per year. And they don’t use
either their childhoods or their
children to weasel out of respon-
sibility for their adult misbehav-
iour. They own up like real men,
with grace, and take second chan-
ces for what they are.
Jeffrey Miller, a writer, freelance translator (
French-Eng-lish) and lawyer, teaches law
and literature at the University
of Western Ontario. His latest
book is the comic novel, Murder
on the Rebound.
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