yet another tale of colossal human stupidity.
It's been a while since I've seen stupidity on this scale. Ok, maybe not that long ago, but still, this is one of the big ones. It's takes a special kind of stupid to throw yourself into the food chain. Contrary to popular belief, we're not at the top of it. Actually, I think it's a special kind of stupid to think that we're on the top of the food chain. Humans, listen to me: we got no claws, no sharp teeth, no shells for protection, no special musculature, no heightened senses. All we got is our so called advanced brains, and by the look of how people act, it isn't all that advanced anyway. Hell, we don't even have much in the way of hair to get in the way of animals enjoying their meals. We're well packaged meat snacks for the stronger creatures folks. That isn't condusive to being "on top of the food chain".
I don't even like the term "food chain". I think it's more of a "food web". Just because you can eat, doesn't mean you can't get eaten. Think of it this way: I'm certain that some people have eaten tiger before. But you damn sure know that tigers can eat us. We eat plants, but when we're dead, what do you think the plants get to feed on?
Anyways: Grizzly Man. It's the story of a Timothy Treadwell, who's got to be one of the biggest morons on the planet. Well was: as I said, he advertized himself as a tasty meat snack. After 13 years, someone finally noticed... that someone being one of the grizzlies that Treadwell felt could be "protected" only by him. The guy consisered himself to be an "expert" on the lives of the grizzly bears, since he decided to live among them several months out of the year, despite the advice of the real experts... the ones who live and work around the area. He claimed to be able to recognize several different body language and vocal comunication signs in bears. One ranger there quiped that apperently he didn't recognize the most important one: the one that means "leave me alone".
It gets better: the goon actually set up his tent near the area where the bears were foraging around for food, during the months where they were eating up for winter hibernation. And there was a shortage of stuff to eat at the time. Do the math.
I can't even begin to describe to you just how loopy this guy was. When you see a guy lamenting over the death of a bee, when you see him claim to be a "bear whisperer", when you see him glorifying bear feeces, to the point of smearing it on his forehead, you know there are problems. And I'm sure it can be taken for granted that if a person fakes an Austrailian accent when he comes from New York originally, that the guy shouldn't be taken seriously.
Unfortunatly, many did. And it lead up to him and his girlfriend finally being eaten. Not just killed, not just mauled to death. Eaten.
Again, that takes a special kind of stupid. In fact, I'd say that was worthy of the ranks of the dangerous stupids. It just seems to me, that getting eaten carries an extra punch to it, you know? I mean, who gets eaten anymore, especially in a modern nation? People get eaten by dragons and other monsters in fairy tales, sure. And there's the ocassional human predator snack out in the wild. But in the US (Jeffrey Dahmer's victims exempt of course)?? That's something that you not only have to marvel and scoff at, but also can't help but laugh at (what, am I the only one? Ok, I admit I'm twisted, but still...). I mean, he got eaten. All they found of the guy was a severed arm, with his watch still attached, and ticking. How do you have a funeral for that? Do you have a tiny casket set up for the arm to be in? And everybody walks past to pay their last respects to his hand, sticking up from out of the casket opening? Maybe they cremated the arm, though that doesn't really produce a whole lot of ash to spread around. Then again, I'm sure that bear already spread his remains around a few hours afterwards.
And yes, they shot the bear. You knew that was going to happen. Everytime someone's stupid enough to piss a dangerous animal off, and/or advertize how tasty they are, they kill the animal for doing what it would normally do. It sucks. I do see the logic behind it though, somewhat. I mean, this bear now knew just how tasty we were. Not only that, but we weren't that hard to kill. You don't think he wouldn't be looking for more of the hairless wonders, especially since it was foraging time and food was hard to come by? And the other bears, seeing this, might follow suit. There wasn't much choice but to shoot the bear after that.
This is one of the reasons why it's stressed at these national parks not to interact with or feed the bears. You're going to get them used to humans, and that's a good way to advertize your tastyness. I don't care how much someone wants to be able to "commune" with nature; some animals were meant to be left alone. I love bears myself, but you won't find me out in the woods trying to befriend any of them. I have this weird thing hardwired in me that prevents me from doing that: it's called self preservation.
If you want to have a good laugh, by all means rent the DVD Grizzly Man. Buy yourself some pizza, popcorn, or whatever snacks you want. Invite your buddies over, and have a blast. Or maybe you should show it to your kids (if you have any, and they are old enough). Show them that yes, village idiots still exist.
Anyways, enough of that....
Next post, I'm putting up a story peice. Partly because I want to get my creative juices flowing agian, and partly because I'd like to show Rin (DarkBlade), Alieu, Luthe (Rabid) and Marquise (Stix) a little of what I've been up to. :-P
PS: Rin, you wouldn't happen to have been at the O'hare airport a few days ago, were you?