[nagdu] American Idol contestant gets guide dog

Jenine Stanley jeninems at wowway.com
Thu May 14 00:22:57 UTC 2009


I'm with Tina on this one. 

I have to feel for the folks at GDA. Though we could argue that they got in
bed with these folks to begin with, as have all of the guide dog schools to
one degree or another on this project, I'm sure they never expected it to go
this far. I'm sure they tried over and over to educate Ms. Abdul and her
crew but like the fairly oblivious person she seems, she ignored it for the
hype and PR factor for her. 

I'm sure the guy wasn't exactly thrilled either. What do you say in a
situation like that? 

You are the school, with media there and all, and you get told this probably
right before the event, or at least in enough time only to grab a couple
demo dogs. Do you take the opportunity, or tell them to go pound salt? It's
like taking funding from Big Tobacco or something. 

I joke that as many people who smoke at my particular employer as we have,
we should have no problem sucking up to Big Tobacco. <grin> 

As Tammy noted though, it does put a moral dilemma out there for us, lightly
or heavily. 

I'm personally sickened by how Ms. Abdul has taken our movement as her PR
savior and completely disregarded anything guide dogs and guide dog schools
stand for or operate under. 

The sad thing is though that in these tough times, money is money. Some day
this will get written up for the business journals as a good example of "Be
careful what you wish for."





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