Therapy Donkeys

                Apparently, warm cookies, coloring books, Play-Doh-- and even puppies-- aren’t enough to get snowflakes through the stress of final exams, term papers and other end-of-semester assignments. The State University of New York at Plattsburgh recently brought a small herd of miniature donkeys to campus to help students cope with the otherwise unbearable pressure of schoolwork.

                Ken Besaw of Thera-Pets, the New York-based organization that runs the “animal assisted visitation program,” told a local ABC news affiliate: “Spend 10 minutes with them. You’ll chill right out.” A video shows the students petted, played and cavorted with the therapy donkeys, horsing around to their hearts content.

                Therapy donkeys are the perfect symbol of today’s Democratic Party. They don’t help you achieve or produce, conceive or create, inspire or elevate, understand or accept. But they do make many people feel better about themselves, especially when they are acting like immature jackasses.