I would like to thank the Mountain Xpress and Mr. Fuchs of Wilderness Taxidermy for inspiring me to greater entrepreneurial heights [“Practically Alive: The Art of Taxidermy Lives in Franklin,” Feb. 13].
Since the lack of compassion for our suffering homeless is so embodied in Mr. Fuchs business model, I propose a new business of my own. Let me take our dead homeless, stuff and mount them and call it a new “art form.” I’ll name an exhibit: “A Legacy to the Fuchs: Hubris Personified.”
Until we see all living beings as an extension of ourselves, and their suffering as our own, we will never understand the true meaning of interdependence, responsibility and grace. I guess “Thou shall not kill” means “except when you’re paying $40,000 for the privilege.” A giraffe not a “glamour” animal to shoot? My God, ignorance surrounds us. We must continue to expose it and rail against the darkness. I stand in awe of the Rev. Amy Cantrell of Zacchaeus House. She is a beacon in the face of pernicious indifference.
Mr. Fuchs would do well to read Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” It’s the one about the sailor who wears the albatross around his neck. But perhaps a lion is a bit too large.
— Renae Shoemaker
Asheville
yep, one should not mess with the albratross:
… Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
The very deep did rot : O Christ !
That ever this should be !
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night ;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white. …
ole Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote pretty good stuff
To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks.
A. A. Milne