[psmith2.0]

Yeah, I can't quite get that out of my mind this afternoon. I'm going to OD on the bunny video...

If the person he's on probation for domestic violence for is the same one who let him watch her son, that's just going to carve a hole in my soul. But even if that isn't the woman, she has to know. Wouldn't a mother's instincts be "okay, anyone but this guy".

If they're not going to give him what he deserves, then anything less than life in prison - with no chance of parole - will be a sad insult. Unfortunately, all the decent, law-abiding citizens of Idaho get to help house, feed, clothe and care for the guy for the next 50+ years (unless someone steps up and gives him the Dahmer Prison Special, which, to be completely honest, wouldn't bother me one bit).

Sorry if that makes me "no better than him", but, last I looked, I didn't beat a two-year-old to death, so...fuck off in advance. I am better than him. By miles.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 I am better than him. By miles.

Don't worry, there's a clear divide between good and evil.

Since we're on the topic, and since we're in the news anyway.

It's just one of those kind of news days around here. Here's some happy kitty videos.

[psmith2.0]

The wheels of justice need the mud knocked off them.

On a lighter, funnier note: World famous ego case/mental patient seeks to start prep school centered around pretty much everything but academics.

This will turn out just fine, no doubt.

"Since I can't be God, then can I be a dean somewhere?"

This doof, always good for a chuckle.

[kscherer]

I wonder if Hip-Hop 101 will be on the docket?

Not that that's a bad thing. Just … what else is he gonna offer?

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw this a while ago, and wondered why it had not been posted here because it is a followup to posts in this thread, I think.

Update on Disney "Black Widow" lawsuit

[psmith2.0]

I saw that yesterday I think. She reportedly received $40M. And apparently no hard feelings between the two parties.

Nice work if you can get it.

[kscherer]

$40million to memorize someone else's work.

I'm in the wrong business.

"Oh, Romeo, Oh Romeo, where the hell is you at?"

See, I can do that! Where's my $15.95?

[psmith2.0]

Follow-up on the grizzly bear dingbat upthread a few pages.

In a nutshell: four days in jail and one year probation. Heavy stuff, sure to deter others like her.

Said no one.



I guess we’ve just given up on the idea of actually ever punishing people for the wrong, stupid (and sometimes evil) stuff they do?

Sometimes you have to make an example/send a message. I would’ve tossed this dumb broad in the clink for 60-90 days to send a very strong “DO NOT DO THIS” message to others, in a genuine effort to protect both wildlife and the idiot humans in their orbit. Her antics could’ve gone so horrifically wrong, it’s not even funny. Most people don’t stare down a charging grizzly and live to tell about it (or not without some life-altering injuries).

Four days? Hell, I’d like four days in jail…a nice break from work, errands/chores, neighbors, traffic, idiots in the grocery store, etc. What kind of punishment/deterrent is that?! That’s a surprise vacation/R&R for many of us.

[kscherer]

Speaking of Yellowstone:

A woman went to Yellowstone. Upon opening the door of her car, her "puppy" escaped and promptly jumped into a 200˚ water pool. The woman, fearing for her dog's life, jumped in after to "save" it, and is now in a medically induced coma with burns over 90% of her body. The chances of her living are slim.

After all that, the dog died.

Don't get me wrong, here, I like animals as much as the next guy. But no way in hell am I ever going to risk my life to save an animal. A human being, yes, but never a dog or a cat or a million-dollar, prized unicorn. This woman—if she lives—is going to be a scarred mess for the remainder of her life. Over a dog!

Human priorities are out of whack.

I will concede the possibility that the woman didn't understand just how hot the water is in that pool and just sort of "hopped in", but then I would question her judgement considering the boiling water and the steam rolling off the surface. If you stick your face near a pot with 200˚ water you are going to feel the heat. It would have been obvious, and the risk to your own safety (and the safety of others whose lives would be imperiled saving you) is not worth it over an animal.

[709]

It's not just the heat, it's the acidity that'll get you. That stuff will dissolve a body overnight.💀

[kscherer]

So, add that in. There's a reason there's a path, and signs that say "Very, very, very HOT! Do NOT jump in, lest you die!"

[psmith2.0]

Sad story. We love our pets, but yeah...the poor puppy was done for. I understand her desire to save him, but she just didn't realize what's what. If you're gonna be stupid, you'd better be tough.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 If you're gonna be stupid, you'd better be tough.

That's a great bumper sticker, and I'm stealing it!

[psmith2.0]

I’ve heard this, and variations on it, for decades. It’s never been more relevant than now (all the stories upthread of people hurting/killing themselves in the dumbest ways imaginable).

I’d like to claim credit for it, but I can’t.

[Matsu]

The woman with the bears. She didn’t seem like an instagram type in the clip. Just like someone who didn’t realize what was up because she was caught up in a moment. It’s very easy to do.

I almost got crushed by a falling tree once after being out taking pics of an ice storm. I didn’t realize the sound of a tree shattering under the weight of ice until a canopy crumbled right above me. I was standing clear of them mostly but backed up a few steps to frame a shot and just barely stepped out of the way when I realized the sound was right above me. The branches grazed my back as I ran forward. Turned around to see a few hundred pounds of ice/tree on the ground where I’d been standing. It’s so easy to just forget where you are, just for a second.

I think I’m pretty careful when shooting on the street. I watch the surroundings, the street, vehicles, traffic… my back, my camera bag… I try to figure what sort of people are or aren’t around. But you rarely expect the urban tree canopy to just crumble on top of you - even though that’s what brought me out there: frozen/icy trees had come down through the night taking out cars, power lines, blocking streets. I should have expected that they could still be falling, but it was so otherworldly I just got caught up.

I think for some of these moments when human meets nature, people rather innocently underestimate the situation mostly due to lack of experience. I know your brain ought to tell you, “large carnivore bad” or “boiling sulphuric pool no bueno” but if you’ve lived your life without a real frame of reference, it might not register until it’s too late.

[Frank777]

Yeah, that ice storm was epic. We had visitors staying with us and they commented on how beautiful our apocalypse was.

They've never come back.

[psmith2.0]

I can understand all that to a point, Matsu. But…

And social media isn’t required in these scenarios. It helps/it adds another layer…but people can be plenty foolish and irresponsible without it.

But, yeah…this woman just got out of her car and approached a family of grizzly bears. No matter how that’s framed/explained, anyone who’s been alive in this planet for any amount of time - and who isn’t a complete blockhead - should know better. Would she jump off the side of a tour boat off the coast of Australia to swim with some great whites she spotted?

Never in 4,000 years would I ever think “bears! I need to go say hi and snap a few pics!”

I just wouldn’t. I don’t know anyone who would (and, believe me, I know some grade A idiots).

She’s lucky to be alive. And had she gotten hurt or killed, the bears involved might’ve been put down. Where’s the justice or sense in that? She came very close to being responsible for several needless deaths.

I’m not prepared to overlook/excuse that, no matter her reasons or how much “awe” she might’ve been filled with at the time.

She’s an idiot. And pointing that out is allowed. She got luckier than most in her position ever would. And a bunch of innocent bears got to continue living their lives and not be shot and killed by park rangers.

[Matsu]

I got called to take headshots and photograph big cats once, for a nature reserve. They brought out a young orphan - no longer a cub, but hadn’t quite grown into its claws yet, about the size of a large dog. They’d been raising it to that point. Just about ready to introduce to the other animals for socializing and/or fend for itself. It was on a leash, mainly for my benefit I think, and it’s handlers were pretty comfortable. I wasn’t. But I still did a relatively stupid thing. I just put out the back of my hand and camera, for it to sniff, just like with an unfamiliar dog. That was just the vibe I got in that moment: better make friends with this thing, or else. The head zookeeper rather calmly, and somewhat sternly, warned me, “don’t do that again, see those claws, she might try to play with you.”

[drewprops]

Ignorance abounds.

We have all ignorantly taken chances.

Some people are just PROFOUNDLY ignorant.



…

[psmith2.0]

I always give wild animals all the space they want/need. I don’t trust - or expect - them to act like domesticated, comfortable-around-humans pets. Because they’re not.

And that’s where some people mess up.

“Oh, how adora…” **CHOMP!!**

I’ve taken silly, ignorant chances, sure. On occasion, in my nitwit, “invincible” youth. I don’t make it an ongoing habit in my 30’s/40’s/50’s, no. It’s called “learning from experiences, and adjusting your behavior accordingly”.

There’s nothing noble or cool about going through life as a clue-starved oblivitard, winding up in ERs or the local news as a result. Most of us outgrow that phase and eventually sprout a brain. But there are far too many 40/50-something dumbasses walking around loose out there.

[PB PM]

Yup, space is a good thing. I encountered two bears in less than a week, and stayed as far away as I could. One was just taking a strolling down the street in a semi-mountain community, I got back into my car till it passed. The other was on a hillside eating berries in campground I was at. At the campground we told a couple sitting not far away that it was there, so it wouldn't sneak up on them. The guys first reaction was to grab his camera and get closer.

[psmith2.0]

Well of course he did!

[Matsu]

I think we're more cautious than most, which is why we're more likely to judge certain behaviors as flagrant stupidity, and there is plenty of that for sure, I agree. That said, there may be a deeper problem, which is not exculpatory by any means, but some phenomena on the spectrum of "shoulda known better" that we don't always think about: those missing frames of reference. People think a wild animal is like a domesticated pet, or they know it's not, but having never interacted with the later, their instinctive reaction defaults to bear equals big dog. We live in a largely domesticated environment, throw in some trappings of civilization, like a car and a caravan of tourists, and it maybe becomes more understandable how someone could just as easily think "it's OK to get out just for a second" as they could "Lock the doors and roll up the windows for Chrissake!" The same way a forest is not a park, or the ocean is not a swimming pool, etc... A lot of us are missing that knowledge and early conditioning. We don't appreciate the world outside the built environment. We might know it's not the same, but years of conditioning mess with instincts/intuition that my grandparents would have taken for granted. Phones/instagram degrade that even further, as we downgrade our responses/conditioning from built environment to virtual environment. I don't know why I'm thinking about this today, maybe it's because people are stupid, including me, but I'm trying to be better.

[PB PM]

Hit the nail on the head, it is conditioned response. They think they see that on TV, the animals look cute and fun and safe. What they don’t know is the guy shooting that documentary isn’t that close, or the actor is working with a trained animal, or more so now CGI.

[psmith2.0]

Was thinking about this overnight and I believe what really bothered me - more than some doofus getting mauled by her doing - was the fate of the bears.

I’ve reached that point where I’ve kinda given up on my fellow humans, realizing they’re a willfully stupid lost cause, and found myself genuinely sad/upset that some bears, guilty of only doing what bears do (protecting their offspring, territory, etc.) might’ve been lined up, given a blindfold a cigarette and shot by a Ranger Rick firing squad. All because of this clueless dipwad.

Realizing that would’ve bothered me more than Ms. Nimrod having her skull chewed off both saddened and amused me.

“Well, I guess I know where I come down on things…”.



Glad it all worked out and nobody got hurt, but I’d still like to see her spend more than a long weekend in jail. 20-30 days, at the very least, might’ve driven the point home and made more of a “wow, I really messed up” impact.

It’s an iffy situation brewing, with various elements all coming together: humans driving through national parks or nature preserves with wild animals out and about, doing their thing. But now we’ve got the whole “gotta photograph/film everything we see and share it to the world” mindset in the mix. My fear is, going forward, there will be no shortage of bozos getting out of their car and approaching animals they shouldn’t. Pics aside, you’ve also got that element who’ll do so to impress their family/kids (“hey kids, watch your old man show you how it’s done!”) or whatever piece-of-ass is sitting in the passenger seat. Us menfolk are notorious for doing really stupid stuff if we think it may translate into swimming in poon and titties later on back at the Days Inn. All the official-looking signage and finger-wagging from funny-hatted park rangers can’t override that.

Once again, two-legged animals will go and louse up something that was working just fine. That seems to be our calling card/legacy. We refuse to just leave stuff alone and let it be. We have to insert ourselves, thinking we’re making an “improvement” to any given situation. It’s the blind, oblivious arrogance, found only in us, that just makes me throw my hands up sometimes.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 Once again, two-legged animals will go and louse up something that was working just fine. That seems to be our calling card/legacy. We refuse to just leave stuff alone and let it be. We have to insert ourselves, thinking we’re making an “improvement” to any given situation. It’s the blind, oblivious arrogance, found only in us, that just makes me throw my hands up sometimes.

No doubt about that, I get that feeling every time they clear cut a wooded area to put in a useless strip mall that will be filled with dollar stores and cheap fast food joints. ‘It’s progress’ they chant.

More people, more problems.

[psmith2.0]

“ Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.”

- John Prine, “Paradise”

[kscherer]

Disney.

That's the cause. Entire generations of people raised idolizing talking cows and bears and lions.

They're all cuddly and harmless. Haven't you seen The Lion King? Only the one's with scars are mean!

[PB PM]

Not sure if that was meant to be sarcastic, but I’ll comment based on that not being the case. I grew up watching that stuff, maybe I was the odd one out, but that never made me believe wild animals were like that.

Of course I also grew up going to Science World (seeing nature docs on IMAX), watching PBS documentaries on whatever I could, and such things.

[kscherer]

Here's what I think:

People have always been batshit crazy! What's changed is the "cameras are everywhere" social media situation. So, we get to see/hear it as it happens.

I'm sure that, 150 years ago, a wagon pulled up to a hot springs in Yellowstone, the family mutt got out and dove in, and little Jasper jumped in to save Muffin-y-biscuit. Jasper was quickly boiled, Ma was in hysterics, there was a quick burial, and the family continued on their merry way to Or-y-gone! On the way, they stopped right here in Boyzee to drop a letter to "back home", and said letter took three months to reach ol' granny and Uncle Nestersmith. By the time this letter arrived and granny was crying something awful, Ma was already pregnant with child #9 and Marry Jo Sue had been eaten by a bear.

There was no instant gratification, no entitlement, and barely a road. When something dumb happened, the only people who knew about were the witnesses and immediate family. "Nowadays", everyone knows within 13.6 seconds of the tragedy, and we all get to comment on it, drop a fat "dislike" and thumbs down emoji, and laugh about it in our air-conditioned spaces while sipping coolers of some flavor or other.

There's billions more of us, we're all "entitled", spoiled, demand instant gratification, and there's roads everywhere.

Originally Posted by PB PM Not sure if that was meant to be sarcastic, but I’ll comment based on that not being the case. I grew up watching that stuff, maybe I was the odd one out, but that never made me believe wild animals were like that. Of course I also grew up going to Science World (seeing nature docs on IMAX), watching PBS documentaries on whatever I could, and such things.

I watched Wile E. Coyote get exploded a million times and never once believed I could explode my brother and he would just "spring away". But, something (drugs, medications, social media?) is driving us to do some dumb stuff!