Tuesday, January 09, 2007

dispatch from the ongoing battle between children in poverty vs. rich people's pets: rover scores again!

From the AP:
SARASOTA, Fla. --Austin ricochets around the Ritz-Carlton hotel room, bouncing from bed to chair and leaping high to lick the face of his personal masseuse. He's an energetic 4-year-old pug, so there is a lot of wriggling as his "privileged pup" pet massage begins. But soon his eyelids droop and his tiny muscles relax under the soothing touch of Darlene Davison, the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota's spa director.

"OK, sweetheart, OK. There you go," coos Davison, creator of the luxury hotel chain's latest indulgence -- the $130 dog massage.

Figure in the hotel's 20-pound weight limit and the additional $125 nonrefundable pet fee and the "privileged pup" plan comes out to a minimum of $12.75 a pound. And that's the basic package.

For another $220, the Ritz throws in gourmet dog biscuits, an in-room pet massage, a choice of nail buffing or nail polish, a souvenir photo, a brisk walk over Sarasota's scenic Ringling Bridge and a gourmet meal of organic stew and designer water served on a silver tray.
If only some organization teamed up with the Ritz-Carlton so that for every $130 dog massage, $1 went to help fight childhood malaria in Africa. 50 cents? A quarter?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world

Anonymous said...

Good "Intro to Soc" and/or "Social Inequality" lecture piece. Veblen is still very relevant, it seems.

Anonymous said...

On the BBC this morning, there was a piece that described how the cancellation of previous Iraqi passports (as part of the dismantling of the old regime) and the US and Britain's refusal to recognize the new Iraqi passports (which they claim are not sufficiently for security purposes) has left hundreds of Iraqis stranded in various countries (including Iraq). One of the people interviewed by the BBC was an Iraqi man who pleaded that the world take better care of the Iraqi people; he said, "an animal in the United States is treated better than how we are treated." And now here's your post to prove the point.

Anonymous said...

Those dogs are treated a lot better than many Americans are, as well.