Since I'm headed to Denver for a beer festival in a few weeks, a friend sent me this story early today with a cautionary note. However, I don't normally rip off my clothes and leap into a cage containing wild animals, so I feel like I'll be okay except for, maybe, my liver.

If I were Catholic, I'd be headed to confession right now, because I've been chuckling over the story all day.

According to John Marr, in his excellent 'zine Murder Can Be Fun, it isn't uncommon for zoos to have idiots trying to get into the cages---bears, in particular, for some reason. The reasons vary (sometimes people just don't believe that these animals are dangerous, thanks to, among other things, years of Disney and other cartoons portraying carnivores as cute, ineffectual and never eating meat; other times, alcohol plays a large role---the "Hey, Bubba, lookit this!" factor---and sometimes, tragically, it's a little kid who got away from his or her parents) but all too often, the results are tragic. The animals may seem harmless, but once you're in their cage, you're playing by their rules.

Definitely a Darwin Award candidate to be sure. I personally don't see anything wrong with laughing at events such as this (of course my soul was damned long ago), as it gives the victim a purpose in death that they clearly did not have in life.

It is quite apparent (to me anyways) that such an individual that would find themselves in such a predicament voluntarily and then expire as a result of the choice they made, in reality had no true purpose in life, but at least in death can serve to remind the rest of us how incredibly stupid people can be so that we can strive to avoid being one of those people over the course of our lives.

So in that respect at least, in death their life had some value, even if it was only to provide a brief moment of comic relief. This is probably why unlike other animals, humans don't eat their young, beause those undigested young can grow up to teach us far more valuable lessons with their own self inflicted demise.

Have fun ;)!

dead and half-eaten

In that order? During the annual beer festival and there's only 'a good chance' he was drunk?

Reuters has no problem calling Iraq a 'war for oil' in it's news pages, but feels the need to keep a strong tone of neutrality and objectivity for stuff like this?

Is it too much to hope that this half-eaten guy turns out to have been a reporter?

He misread the sign, and was waiting in line when...

Boo Boo: "What's up Yogi?"

Yogi: "looks like a drunk and naked idiot has climbed into our cage"

Boo Boo: "Let's eat him, Yogi!"

Yogi: "Way ahead of you, Boo Boo, way ahead"

Boo Boo: "Awww, Yogi"

I'm guessing he was so drunk, he thought the bears were ugly fat chicks, and he jumped in and got naked thinking any chicks as ugly as that would welcome the opportunity to have sex with some drunken stranger. I'll bet his last words were something to the effect of "hey, eat THIS, baby!"

Half eaten? What a waste! That boy WANTS to be a b'ar stool. Hola bruin, lets croon a tune.

All of me, why not eat all of me?
Can't you see I'm no good without you?
Take my arms, I wanna lose 'em
Take my legs I'll never use 'em
You ate the part that once was my heart
So why not eat all of me?

I keed, I keed. Because I love...I love to mock anyone estupid enough to climb bareassed into a bear cage.

Physics Geek, you probably don't have to worry about falling naked-drunk into a bear exhibit while you're in Denver. You would have to make a significant effort to get to the zoo from the beer festival.

But given the time of year, you could have a black bear who's getting ready to hibernate wander by. My advice: Keep your clothes on and your beer close.

OTOH, there was an incident some years back at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo where a toddler managed to get into the gorilla cage. A mother gorilla picked him up, carried him to the door the keepers used, and "reacted angrily" to any other gorillas who approached before the humans came to retrieve the child.

I wonder if HE tasted like chicken?!?!
Dad

. . . and too bad the headline writer couldn't TITLE the story using that great quote from the zoo director:

"Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage"

Has a certain -- oh, I don't know, clarity? -- about it that "Man found half eaten in zoo bear cage" just lacks.

I laughed when I read this. It reminded me of that guy who got eaten by a Grizzly a while back, you know the guy from that movie "Grizzly Man."

Here's someone who goes out in the woods to "study" bears, but his real intent is to prove to people that bears are harmless. So he acts like a complete idiot and gets so close to the bears that the inevitable happened.

It also reminds me of something that Gary Larson once wrote.

"Bill and the bear found the same cave one night, and lived together for weeks in that cave, until, one night, nature's horrible instincts coming over him, Bill killed and ate him."

And one more...

Brian Piccolo and Gayle Sayers were camping one night, and heard sounds outside their tent. Brian Piccolo looks out and says, "Gayle, there's a bear out there!" Gayle immediately opens up his knapsack and starts putting on his football cleats. Brian says, "What are you thinking? You can't outrun a bear!"

And Gayle says, "I don't have to outrun the bear, just you."

awe, that was supposed to read "Bill killed and ate him."

[fixed it for ya! :) RL]

What the hell kind of name is Vuk anyway? That is borderline vulgar.

Maybe we should post that on the website of the Chicago Bears (the only true professional football team anyway) and they could take from it some motivation for the upcoming season. Maybe they could send Rex to the zoo....?