THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 12, 1995 TAG: 9511080063
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: He Said, She Said
SOURCE: Kerry Dougherty and Dave Addis
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
KERRY SAYS:
My favorite time of year is fast approaching, Dave.
You see, the temperature is sinking toward 40 - the magic number that tells me it's time to dash to the furriers and retrieve my full-length mink coat, which spent the mothy summer months in cold storage.
It's warm, it's soft, it's elegant.
And the best part: It's politically incorrect.
What follows here is a pre-emptive strike, Dave. An answer to all those people who go insane at the sight of someone wearing fur.
It's a sad day when you have to defend your choice of apparel.
But I am gloriously guilt-free when it comes to this coat. I didn't even buy it. My mother-in-law died nine years ago - just after she'd splurged on a beautiful mink with her hard-earned money.
When I inherited the coat, I suffered some hesitation - about a nanosecond's worth.
It was ranch-raised minks who gave their little lives so I could have this gorgeous coat. Little rodent-like animals that wouldn't even have been born if it hadn't been for the fur industry. And during their short, crowded lives the little guys were well-fed. You don't get a glossy sheen like that on a lousy diet.
Yes, their lives were brief - but a good bit longer than the seven weeks Tyson Chicken gives its birds to grow up. Yet I don't see the animal-rights nuts spray-painting Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets and attacking children with Chicken McNugget Happy Meals.
Wearing a mink not only makes you feel glamorous - it's exciting. You never know when a brave, spray-paint-wielding animal-rights kook will dash out of an alley and take aim.
But the good part is, the coat's insured. If some nut spray-paints it, I get a new one! I think I'll go for a bigger collar next time - one requiring more pelts.
I've always suspected that the anti-fur-industry stuff is really a thin disguise for anti-rich-people sentiments. After all, if these animal-rights hooligans were serious about their love for little critters, they'd be spray painting goose-down jackets and throwing themselves in front of Perdue chicken trucks. They'd boycott Bass Weejuns and leather jackets.
Nah, they'd rather pick on fur wearers because they reckon they're all rich. In case you haven't noticed, Dave, it's politically correct to hate rich people these days. In fact, the only more maligned group than rich people are fat people.
But that's another column.
Well, I ain't rich. I inherited my coat.
But you know what? When I'm enveloped in mink I feel like a million dollars.
DAVE SAYS:
If anybody does vandalize you, Kerry, I'd like to recommend a slogan for them to spray-paint across your back:
Calm Down!
Though I'm pretty much in your corner on your right to wear whatever you want, must we resort to all this wheezing about ``nuts'' and ``kooks''? And poor people plotting against the rich? You're beginning to sound like a mink-lined Lyndon LaRouche. Let's try to keep the fur on your coat from spreading to your brain, shall we?
I'm as troubled as you are by true believers who aren't satisfied to hold a strong opinion, but feel that everyone else must agree, to the extent of attacking those who don't.
Rikki Lake, one of the doyennes of daytime shock-talk, took part in an animal-rights guerrilla raid on a New York fur shop a while back, one that caused extensive damage. She was ``sentenced'' recently to a couple of hours of reading bedtime stories to children, or some equally taxing community service. She should have been jailed.
One can only wonder if Rikki would have been that charitable if some raider, acting in the name of public decency, had torn up the set of her talk show. What we'd have heard, I'm sure, would have been pained indignation about the sanctity of Rikki's First Amendment rights.
I share part of your enthusiasm for fur. When I lived in Moscow, fall would turn to winter in a cruel and instant reminder of why neither Napoleon nor the Nazis could shove the Russians off that land. So one day I bought a grey rabbit-fur hat from an old woman in the street.
At work, I was explaining to a Russian friend why wearing that hat would be a political statement in America. He looked at my hat, declared it to be Chinese rabbit from somewhere in Siberia, and described its likely story:
``Probably the family raised this rabbit, like a pet. When it was plump, they cooked it for a Sunday feast. The mother sewed it into a hat, and then they sell the hat to buy their child a warm winter coat.''
He smiled. ``To Americans,'' he said, ``maybe fur is politics. To us, fur is not politics. Fur is survival.''
Obviously, Kerry, your mink coat is for decoration, not survival. But if we've reached a point where wearing it in public causes us to call one another names and screech at one another in the streets, and to conjure theories on the poor rebelling against the rich, well, maybe there is a question of survival at hand: the survival of decent, mannerly public discourse.
So wear your coat if it makes you feel good, Kerry, but don't wear your politics on its sleeve. And let's hope those who disagree will show the same restraint. MEMO: Kerry Dougherty can be reached at 446-2302, and via e-mail at
kerryd(at)infi.net. Dave Addis can be reached at 446-2588, and
addis(at)infi.net. by CNB