Posted in Random Musings
Lions vs. Lunch
I like to think of myself as a good man. I try to live a life of measured insanity (since my brain long ago convinced me sanity was never going to work for me). I try not to have too many mean thoughts and often feel guilty when my brain goes into mean overload and I want to punch word holes through some of the media blowhards who spread hate and fear. This is guilt I recognize they do not deserve but I am overcome with worry that it is a very slippery slope and if one isn’t careful they might find themselves becoming that which they dislike immensely.
Then there are times like this afternoon. Where I see, hear, or read something that makes me gladly unleash the torrent of mean voices which hide off in the dark places of my brain. It was a video on CBS’ Early Show and it was from a circus in the Ukraine. The very first image on the clip is of a ridiculously stupid man (they like to call themselves trainers. I like to call them men waiting to become lunch) poking a lion with a long metal stick. This wasn’t soft poking. This was stab in the gut poking because the lion was refusing to do whatever stupid unnatural trick lunch man was trying to get him to perform.
I know my readers are smart (smarter than the cardboard cutout of a reporter on the Early Show because she thought what happened next was shocking) and can see where this is going. The lion apparently had decided it wasn’t all that fond of being poked by a dickhead with a pole and attacked. Not just, hey lets play attack. More like, hey you look like lunch attack. Pandemonium ensued.
It was just a tiny little circus ring with no real protection between the audience and the lions. You can clearly see the crowd decide we need to go right now and make like Snagglepuss with a quick “exit stage left.” In the ring things went from bad to worse when a second lion decided it also was done with dickhead with a pole and began chomping on lunch man’s other arm. The other circus workers decided the best way to help their trainer was to begin to poke the lions with the same pole which had so infuriated them in the first place.
This is where the mean voices in my head started laughing quite maniacally. I admit it, I was rooting for the lions. I have no sympathy or patience for people who mistreat animals. Unlike the cardboard cutout reporter I am also not shocked when lions act like lions. I didn’t want lunch man to die but I didn’t feel bad for him. He put himself in the situation and if people want to keep acting like wild animals are not going to act like wild animals than shit like this is going to happen.
They did finally get the lions off lunch man. My understanding is he lived but is in rough shape. I am wondering how many more times people are going to get hurt before we realize it is probably best if we stop parading around wild animals for people’s enjoyment. I am guessing not soon. If I am ever eaten by a lion while attending a circus my family has permission to put on my gravestone, “lions prefer zebra but I tasted just fine.”
>ROFLI know that's lame, but nothing I could write would do justice to my response to your blog today.