READER A:
Jonah,
I am not a dog person but I understand that some people are dog people the way that I understand some people are liberals – blind, deaf and uncritical of the destructive forces they embrace. The use of dogs in ads and in columns such as yours is weak, juvenile and a sign that you weren’t really ready to do good work. I find it is a good indicator that trash will follow. Therefore, I usually ignore whatever content is being carried by the dogness of the piece (bush beans are boycotted by our house), but I have been conditioned by you to expect excellence and occasional brilliance in your writing and so overcame my usual principled reaction and read your article. Imagine my surprise, as the father of an adopted Korean daughter, to find that you had indeed provided trash. I think the piece was entirely tasteless and well beneath you and I can only attribute this to a chemical imbalance due to excessive soy consumption. In the future, please remember my dog rule, if you have to revert to using a dog to carry your message, it will be delivered as a wrecked, sodden mess that was not worth your effort to create and certainly not worth my effort to read.
Reader B:
As a person of Korean ancestry I must warn you of some of the emails you are going to get. Don’t listen to them!! As always your files are informative and and hilarious.