Do Not Feed The Bears

From the files of "Really? I'm shocked." we have this little gem from htrnews.com: "An Asiatic black bear at Lincoln Park Zoo bit off all or parts of four fingers from the hand of a 47-year-old woman Friday after she went past barriers and was trying to feed the animal." Uh-huh. And?

Don't get me wrong. I understand why this is news. I just don't understand why it isn't portrayed as the news that it really is. The news that it really is would be that this moronic woman ignored all sorts of signs and barriers at the zoo warning people (including her, I would imagine) to stay away from the cages containing said bears. The news that it really is would be that despite repeated signage and repeated warnings and the continued presence of the bears, this woman went ahead and decided to feed them a little snack. (No word on whether or not a pick-in-ick bas-KET was involved. Boo-boo was unavailable for comment.) I'm not so sure that it's news that a bear (which is a wild animal, don't you know) bit the woman's hand and bit off her fingers. That doesn't seem like it's news, per se.

But it's being treated like news. And it is just what it sounds like it is. (By the way, in the same way that it sounds like what it is, police say that alcohol may have been involved. Again, I'm shocked. Someone help me sit down.) What did the woman think was going to happen? It's a freaking BEAR, for crying out loud!

But here's the part that gets me. According to a one Aaron Buchholz, a wildlife biologist with the the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, "It appears at this point the bears will be saved,"...meaning not euthanized." What?

Why would the bear be euthanized? Because it went all bear on the woman?! How much sense does that make? The woman is moronic enough to stick her hand inside of the bear cage, the bear acts like a bear and eats her fingers off and it's the bear who should be euthanized?! Does it make me a bad person if I ask why we're not talking about euthanizing someone that dense?

Instead of euthanizing the bears who were just acting like bears, the woman, a one Tracy Weiler and her boyfriend, a one Lawrence Bosworth, have both "...agreed to undergo a series of preventative rabies vaccines, he said. The bears will be observed for a few days for signs of rabies." Wait. The bears will be observed for signs of rabies? Umm, look. I'm not a zookeeper. I'm certainly not a bearkeeper. But if you've got a couple of bears in a zoo, shouldn't you already know whether or not they have rabies? I'm not so certain that the "Rabid Bear Display" would go over all that well with animal activists and with most humans when you put it that way!

Apparently "State law requires wild animals to be euthanized if they bite someone unless the victim agrees to the vaccinations." Ohhhh. OK. So it's just a matter of a ridiculously stupid law. If the "victim" agrees to be vaccinated against something that the animal probably doesn't have, then the animal gets to live. BUT, if the "victim" doesn't want to go through the rabies shots, then the animal, who was only acting like an animal, gets put down. That's a fine, fine law you've got going for yourself there, Wisconsin. A fine, fine, bass-ackwards law there. What is wrong with people?

Do you know what the rabies testing involves? Just out of curiosity? I'd never thought much about it before. But fortunately, the fine people at htrnews.com gave us the low down. "...if the animals were put down they (the "victims") would have had to pay for euthanizing the bears and sending their heads to the state laboratory for testing as well as for replacing the bears." Huh.

Why the heads? It's just the heads. Who does that testing? The bear head testing for rabies? I'm guessing you need a degree or a certificate or something. And I can't even begin to imagine what the bear replacement costs would be. You'd have to go through all of the trouble of looking at potential replacement bears, maybe hiring a replacement bear locator service, etc. There's so many factors to consider. I'm guessing that just having rabies vaccinations is a much cheaper way to go as opposed to lopping off the bear's heads, having them tested and then replacing them. Much, much cheaper.

What's the moral of this story? I guess it's the obvious "Don't feed the bears." But can we please start to change the attitude of how these stories are looked upon when a wild animal in captivity acts like a wild animal in captivity and attacks someone? Can't we start to look at these things as being the fault of the humans involved and not the fault of the animals involved? If you're dumb enough to go past a sign that says "Don't go past this sign or you're going to get your fingers eaten off by that there bear" (or something to that effect), can't we repeatedly make it about that instead of about the bears? Please? It's no fun to be stupid, kids. It makes life hard. And your life is going to get a lot harder if you're stupid AND you're missing a bunch of fingers (especially a thumb). Much, much harder.

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Enjoy Your VD

Today is Valentine's Day or, for those of us who are bitter and (technically) alone, Sunday. I don't really understand the point of this day. I mean, shouldn't you tell people that you love them all year 'round? Of course, that's provided that there are actually people that you would actually want to tell them that you love them because you actually do. That's a tall order, my friend. Very tall.

Regardless of my dislike for the holiday, if you like it, well, Godspeed. But don't screw it up, all right? If you're going to buy her (or him) something, make it something good. We love jewelry, but we usually like to pick it out ourselves. We love Victoria's Secret, but we'd prefer a gift card rather than some satin-y, scratch-y thing with garters that you'd pick out for us. (Believe it or not, there is sleepwear out there that is sexy and that does not make us feel like a five dollar hooker.) We love cash. No "but" with this one. Cash is cash. But there are some things that we do not want.

We do not particularly want flowers. Sure, flowers are nice, but you're getting so ripped off by buying flowers for Valentine's Day that it's hard to enjoy something that someone else got reamed up the wazoo for. (And if you've ever been reamed up the wazoo, you know exactly what I'm talking about.) I don't know any women who would be thrilled to be handed a box of chocolates. None. It's not that we don't enjoy candy because we do. But it's a whole box. And while we don't want to make you feel bad by not eating it, we also don't want our ass to end up being the size of Nebraska.

But let me tell you what we really don't want. We really, really, really don't want a teddy bear. We don't care if it's from Vermont. We don't care if it's dressed in some sort of 1980s aerobic gear complete with headband and leg warmers. We don't care if our name is emblazoned somewhere upon the animal. Yes, we realize that it's cute. But it's a teddy bear. And, well....with a world full of jewelry and gift cards and cash (my God, the cash!), it's difficult to be excited (or thankful) when handed a teddy bear.

The video below is courtesy of those fine folks over at Saturday Night Live. It's one of the funniest things they've ever done and it conveys the "Don't you dare buy me a teddy bear for Valentine's Day" sentiment better than anything else ever could. Enjoy your VD!

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Bearly Surprising

From the files of "I Can't Believe This Doesn't Happen More Often" we are taken to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (which may or may not be where Borat was from) where we learn from AOL wire services that an "...ice-skating bear turned on its trainers, killing one and seriously wounding another." Uh-huh. Sounds about right. And?

See, this is where I was surprised to learn that a) there was more to this story and b) that it was being considered "a story". I don't know how much of a story it is that a bear gets pissed off because someone has the audacity to put ice skates on it, give it a Dorothy Hamill haircut (I'm assuming, of course) and force it to skate around to entertain the masses. But let's look into it and see what the media left out, shall we?

According to the BBC, "Bears on ice are common in Russian circuses. Some are equipped with helmets and sticks and trained to play hockey." Translation: This will happen again. It's just a matter of whether it will be in a circus or on an ice hockey rink.

Trained to play hockey?! Good Lord, man! What is wrong with you people?! What part of BEAR don't you understand?! Sure, sure, a bear playing hockey is cute; novel even. But that's why there are CARTOONS. We should be drawing cartoons with bears playing hockey instead of actually getting a freaking bear and making it play hockey!

What's the point of that, anyway? It's not like the bear could ever join a league, could it? You can't just have various Russian hockey teams decide that they're going to add a BEAR to their lineup one night, can you? I don't think that sounds wise at all. Again, it sounds wacky and highly entertaining, but what say some Russian fellow churn out a graphic novel of sorts and we go about being amused by the denizens of the forest in civilized situations that way, eh?

But I digress. Back to the mauling. "Kyrgyz officials said the bear turned on the manager, 25-year-old Dmitry Potapov, during a rehearsal." (By the way, the pronunciation of Kyrgyz is unknown and thus, completely unpronounceable. Can't they buy a vowel or something?) "The bear, who had skates on at the time, severely mauled another circus worker who tried to rescue the manager."

They feel the need to make it clear that the bear was actually wearing the ice skates at the time. It's as if they want to make sure that we know that the bear might not have just been lounging about on some sort of break or had refused to skate that day or something. No, the bear was officially wearing the skates. See, to me that only illustrates further why this happened. It's a BEAR. Bears don't wear skates. I swear! Look it up! You'll see. Lots of bears, but no....? Skates, that is correct.

Here's the part that always bothers me: "(Unpronounceable) police shot and killed the bear when they arrived on the scene." See, why did the bear have to be killed? The bear was only being a bear! That's what bears do! They maul people that make them wear ice skates and twirl about. It's right there in the name --- BEAR!!

And here is what all of these sorts of incidents always have in common. That would be the cluelessness of either the bloke writing up the account of the mauling or those investigating the mauling and telling the writing bloke of their findings. We always read: "It is not clear what caused the attack." Um, I think it's crystal clear.

You've got a bear, normally a denizen of the forest, being held captive by circus folk. The circus folk have somehow (through methods I'd prefer not to ponder and really don't want to know about, but a friend of mine says are really mean) managed to get the bear to comply to the point where the bear will ice skate and/or ride a bike, drive a little car, do a little dance, and probably make a little love and basically get down tonight. A bear, despite what we've all been led to believe, mainly by those Paddington folks who make 'em seem just cute as can be in a little coat and little hat, are mean creatures which will rip you limb from limb and then eat you from the inside out. They're mean effers.

What have we learned? Nothing I wouldn't think that we all didn't know before. Such a shame that the trainer (translation: bear captor) didn't read this blog. It could have saved his life.

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Bear-ly Reenacting the News

When you think Cleveland, Ohio, I'm going to guess you don't think 'bears'. I think of Cleveland as a place where you can shop for clothing and have at least 50% of your selections to choose from be sports apparel. But I still don't think 'bears'. I'm going to think 'bears' now, however. I'm also going to be thinking that Fox News seems to believe it caters to a target audience in the 4-5 year old range of viewers and is now gearing the newscast segments toward those children.

The Fox News affiliate in Cleveland, Fox8, did a piece back around June 25, 2009 about a black bear that had made its way into a northeast Ohio neighborhood and had been sighted by several residents. Since there are hardly ever bears in Cleveland, this is definitely a news story. However, it would appear that what is also a news story is that you can produce a news story for television with a) very little experience in doing so, b) the skills of a kindergartner and c) very little hesitation in airing the piece (which resembles that done for a class project...that you'll end up getting a "C" on) on actual television.

The segment starts off harmlessly enough, with a woman talking about how she called 911 after spotting a bear in her wooded yard. The reporter, a one Todd Meany, is narrating and after only about 12 seconds, you hear a sentence that indicates great hilarity will be ensuing shortly. He says, "Nina was too stunned to get a picture, but here's what the bear probably looked like...except real." And with that the viewer sees a cardboard cut-out shaped like a bear, propped up next to a tree in the woods. Good Lord people. Behold!

Well, you can barely (pun probably intended) see what that is. Are we sure that it's....

Oh. So it really is a cardboard cutout of a bear. Sort of a stand-in for the real bear which was unavailable for the filming of this segment. While I find this highly amusing, it's also a tad bit disturbing. Next thing you know, we'll be getting rid of the weather forecasters and just having some sort of cut-out ladybug on the wall wearing a raincoat if it's going to rain or watering flowers if it's going to be sunny. Why not get rid of all of the newshole newscasters as well?! We'll have the South Park kids read the news. They're cutouts. Sort of.

And while I'm sure it's hard to imagine, it actually gets better after the first shot of the reenactment bear. You can't just recreate the bear without explaining what it is that the bear might have done! Thus, you guessed it, we are then treated to seeing how the bear might have ran if it were real and if it were there.

Amazing. I'll hand it to Todd. That's pretty gutsy. It's not like there isn't video technology available to recreate what a bear running through a forest looks like!

But then there's this woman that shows up, a one Carly Martin. She is very excited to have found some ursine defecation! (Translation: Bear poop.) Oh! But not just any ursine defection. Fresh ursine defecation! Probably still warm. I'm sure she checked it.

So while she is explaining that bears are capable of climbing trees, our friend the cardboard bear makes another appearance, this time...you guessed it! Climbing a tree. Behold!

Man, the worse it gets, the funnier it gets. Holy canoli. So we have cutout bears running, cutout bears climbing trees, a crazy naturalist talking about bear excrement. Man, if there's one thing this story needs right about now, it's a guy dressed up in a giant rabbit costume. Behold!

For reasons that are inexplicable, the large rabbit fellow there came on the screen as they were telling the viewer that bears do not want to eat humans or other creatures. Which makes perfect sense. Whenever I'm explaining the food chain of a particular animal, I always break out and don the big bunny costume to really hammer home my point. (And if I actually did that, my point would be that I'm insane.)

As our naturalist explains to us, "We'll get a report of a bear, you know, it's at this part of the river one day. And then it moves on. And moves on. And moves on. And then....we don't hear about it for a year or two." So this "bear" of which you speak, it...moves? On it's own? Repeatedly, you say? Hmmm. Interesting. It's almost like it's a regular living creature and of course it freaking moves!

The video of this child-like, yet extremely amusing bear re-enactment is below. No cardboard bears were harmed during the filming of the reenactment.

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Bearly Playing Russian Hockey

I like bears (when they're not chasing me). I also like hockey (in small increments). Oh, if only there was a way for me to enjoy both bears and hockey at the same time. Then all would be right in the world. Oh, wait! There IS a way!

Behold! A Russian bear playing hockey.

OK, I don't know if it's a real bear or just one of Putin's minions in a bear suit. It does look like a bear playing hockey (and playing hockey fairly well, actually). But, then again, the definition of "bear suit" is "outfit that will enable one to look like a bear", so it's still hard to tell. I guess I'd have to know more about how they got the skates on the guy. That's probably the deal breaker or maker for me right there.

In the meantime, who cares?! It's a bear who plays hockey! Now if we could just get some lions and tigers in there, well, that would certainly be some real frozen sport-y goodness for us right there!

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