Good morning, John, it's Friday.
On Wednesday, I asked Twitter to pick between three different video topics
and boy were there a lot of people who didn't wanna hear about any of 'em!
But one of the tweets that got the most likes was this one:
"How about D) Puppies?"
So this video is entitled "Top 10 Best Dogs Ever."
And if you are unsatisfied with this content, then blame TheSteffie!
Or any of the 31 people who liked her tweet, including me.
Let's begin, number 1: Stubby, a dog who served the allies in World War I.
After being exposed to chemical weapons and then recovering in a hospital,
Stubby became attuned to the scent of these chemical weapons,
and could alert soldiers before they could smell the gas coming.
He was wounded twice, he served in 17 different battles,
and he captured a German spy, recognizing him by his language,
an act for which Stubby was promoted to sergeant, outranking his owner.
Number 2: Lily, a pitbull who pulled her unconscious owner off of the railroad tracks
because there was a freight train coming.
The owner did not get hit by the train, Lily did.
The poor puppy lost one of her legs but survived
and if you think that story is remarkable, check out number 3:
First, dog trying to cross a highway gets hit by a car.
Second, another dog, this hero dog, drags the dog that has been hit by the car off of the road,
like, wanders out into the interstate, pulls the dog off,
I'm not showing you the video because it's pretty graphic and terrifying,
but I don't know, like, why is this dog doing this?
It's a, I mean, probably, I guess, just 'cause I was supposed to cry today?
Speaking of dogs rescuing people, and there are so many wonderful stories of dogs rescuing people,
we have this cat, who is clearly a cat, but is nonetheless, a very good dog.
Number 5: In the 1950s, some Russian scientists went out onto the streets of Moscow
to collect stray dogs thinking, "These dogs, they are obviously used to extreme circumstances."
They tested and trained these dogs and one of them, Laika, was sent into space
and became the first animal ever to orbit Earth.
Also, the first animal ever to die in orbit around the Earth.
(grunts in frustration)
Not how we wanted that one to end.
You know the first animal that went to space? It's a fruit fly.
Number 6: Alvin and the Chipmunks.
I know you think I'm crazy, but it's a little-known fact
that the actors who played Alvin and the Chipmunks in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel—
actually very small dogs!
Nope, number 7: Bummer and Lazarus,
who are two dogs, but we're just calling them one, sorry.
These dogs didn't just survive mid-1800s San Francisco, where stray dogs outnumbered people
and were killed and poisoned regularly.
They became nationally famous for their companionship with each other
and their ability to kill rats like crazy.
Bummer and Lazarus were eventually exempted from local laws
and they showed up all the time in cartoons about San Francisco.
They'd just sort of be there in the background.
Number 8: This dog,
which somebody sent me on Twitter.
I asked people to send me dogs on Twitter, so I picked one. Real cute!
Good dog!
Number 9: Tweety Bird, who is a canary
and canaries are birds, but they are named after the Canary Islands
and the Canary Islands are named after the Latin word for dog.
So, by the transitive property, Tweety Bird is a dog.
Boom!
Number 10: My dog, Lemon, who passed away this year,
And as we all know, the best dog is your dog.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
Hey, I understand why a lot of people wanted me to talk about puppies today.
It seems like we're in a much more tense moment than we were a couple of years ago,
and it does seem like that's gonna get worse before it gets better.
We're being asked to pay attention to a lot of different big things all at the same time,
and the way that we're fed content about what's going on in the world right now
is inefficient, and it's overwhemling, and it's manipulative.
Too frequently now, the people who are tasked with trying to inform the public are trying to win
rather than trying to inform,
and that is something that I'm getting super sick of.
But there are still good dogs, and there are still good people.
And in the coming years,
we can't choose between taking care of ourselves and taking care of our world's problems.
We have to do both of those things.
John, I'll see you on Tuesday.