As your liaison to the Faunasphere, I feel like I have been remiss by not posting something about the incident in Cincinnati. I guess I didn’t because the whole situation is just too depressing and it also didn’t seem right to post about it during Memorial Day weekend. Also because I wasn’t sure if I had anything to say that wasn’t being said by many others.
Also, to be honest, this is one of the times when the animal activist community isn’t showing itself in he best light. Here’s what I wrote on FB shortly after the story broke and the online temperature started to rise:
Dear Vegans, The killing of the endangered gorilla in Cincy Zoo was horrible. No argument there. And zoos suck. No argu there, either. BUT when you start attacking the toddler’s parents, especially in vicious terms, you are not helping. First, “inadequate parenting” could be an unfair accusation–kids can get lost in a flash. Even if it’s not, tho, you are providing fodder for yet more “angry / abusive vegan” stories in the media, and thus making everyone’s job harder. No matter what you think of the situation or the parents in particular, please keep a civil tone b/c your need to vent doesn’t outweigh the animals’ need for us to represent their interests responsibly.
Many activists, including every leading / respected one I’ve read, has basically said the same thing. But their voices seemed drowned in a classic Internet tidal wave of venom aimed at the parents, which is a drag. (For the record, I didn’t mind so much when the animal loving hoards went after that ahole dentist who illegally killed Cecil the Lion. But this is way different.)
I’m usually pretty happy to (privately) judge parents whose kids annoy me, but in this case I really can’t. I think these parents were just monumentally unlucky that their lose-the-kid moment happened at the zoo instead of Kmart or Kroger, like it does for many people. (Plus, you know, racism.) And is it unreasonable to ask that the Zoo do more to defend the parents? I get that they probably can’t due to legal CYA. But does anyone else have the sense that the dialogue is unfolding in ways the zoo finds beneficial? It, in my view, is ultimately responsible for this tragedy, because, yeah, it’s not actually that hard to design a barrier that will keep out even a determined four-year-old. As the lawsuits unfold, I’m guessing we’ll hear about safety concessions made in the service of “visitor experience.”
On the other hand, the barrier did indeed remain unbreached for years and many thousands of other visitors. So although I think zoos are at best a highly mixed bag, maybe this is one of those slippery incidents where no one is proximally to blame.
At the same time, poor, poor Harambe..
That’s my 2c. What’s yours?
PS – Here’s a brilliant (and funny) take.
trollhattan
50-50 zoo/parents. You do not have exhibits that don’t effectively separate visitors and critters –doubly so for potentially dangerous and endangered critters. You NEVER lose sight and control of your toddler, just like you never give the toddler access to your precious guns or strangers unfettered access to your toddler. Every parent knows that.
Hillary Rettig
@trollhattan: on the NY Times parenting link most of the commenters are amazingly moderate and non-judge-y. Several have suggesting using “kid leashes” to manage “spirited children,” which is probably a good idea. I could see how that would squick some people out, tho.
rikyrah
Children can get away so quick.
I hate to be cold.
but, children over animals.
period.
Hillary Rettig
@rikyrah: I don’t even think that’s cold. And btw I suspect many animals (esp. mammals), if they could comment here, would agree with you.
smith
@trollhattan:
Every parent knows that, but if you never had a toddler get away from you, you’re luckier than most.
Joyce H
What I found astonishing about this entire incident is how many people turned into gorilla experts overnight. How ‘OBVIOUS’ it was to them that the gorilla was not threatening and the child was actually perfectly safe. Did they stay in a Holiday Inn Express, or what?
Bobby Thomson
I agree with everything you wrote, Hillary. As the parent of a kid with “elopement” issues that used to be pretty severe, I’m not interested in pointing fingers at any parents over this. It’s nothing like leaving a loaded gun around unlocked.
Kids run off. Zoos should be designed with that in mind.
Amaranthine RBG
There ain’t no shortage of homo sapiens on this planet.
Fair Economist
He was 4, so not a toddler anymore. Has there ever been a young boy without some major physical disability who hasn’t gotten away from his parents at least once? I rather doubt it, and I certainly don’t know any.
Hillary Rettig
@Joyce H: AND parenting experts, let’s not forget that.
I love your line re Holiday Inn Express!
TaMara (HFG)
Tragic all around. Appreciated your thoughts on this.
TaMara (HFG)
@Joyce H: This! I saw the video, so I KNOW THAT GORILLA WAS PROTECTING THAT BOY. Ok then, all those years of school, training and experience down the drain.
burnspbesq
In the real world, causation is a bit more complicated than linear regression. Bad things happen.
Can we fix the problem first, and worry about fixing blame later?
schrodinger's cat
My parents once lost me on a beach in India. This was in the days before cell phones. I had no idea that I was even lost.
Cacti
@trollhattan:
I’d say at least 70 zoo/30 parents. A 3-foot fence wouldn’t be considered adequate enclosure for a backyard swimming pool or most breeds of large dogs for negligence purposes.
Feathers
Having stayed completely away from the video, I was unaware of the race angle on the story. I was, however, completely cognizant of the double overload of misogyny dumped on the mother of the child. I was working at the MIT Museum during Cambridge Science week and the issue of “family friendly” came up. They are doing a great job with community outreach, but the museum really is intended for adults and school age children. But parents get there and are upset that there are no toddler activities. Apparently, some Boston area museums are completely backing out of having any sort of family programming, because that creates an expectation of a children’s museum type of experience.
That said – zoos need to be toddler proof to every extent possible. This is a system failure.
rb
@TaMara (HFG):
No kidding. This is fast turning into a leftwing Terry Schiavo situation. A good reminder that ignorant self-righteousness is limited to no particular slant or cause.
Horrible situation for the child and his family, and awful for the animal. But I’m inclined to believe that the zoo staff only did what they had to, and are devastated at that.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@burnspbesq: We’re a punishment society. We love to see people punished, especially if the punishment is more than the crime warrants.
chopper
@Joyce H:
well, I’ve never met any gorillas, but i have met some trump voters. so it’s pretty close.
Mike in DC
If that gorilla had been permitted to openly carry a firearm, he’d be alive today.
Emerald
Last night I saw a Facebook post (can’t find it now) from a zoo animal keeper who has worked with gorillas for years and loves them probably more than the people who are outraged at the gorilla’s death. She emphasized that the gorilla is literally 10 times stronger than an average human man. No keeper ever comes into direct contact with gorillas–they stay behind very secure fencing. She said that the gorilla was not being protective toward the child, that instead was exhibiting behaviors that indicated he was showing off. When the attendants called the gorillas inside to get him away from the child, the females all obeyed, but he did not. Clearly tranquilizers would not work fast enough and might have caused the gorilla to fall over onto the child. Her sympathy was not only toward the child’s parents, who are going through hell right now, but to the gorilla keepers there who love those animals with all their souls. To lose one like that is devastating to them. But they did the right thing.
Now, whether the enclosure was secure enough or not is another question. Whether the parents were negligent is another question. But after reading that, even as a person who likes animals more than I like people, I have to agree that they did the right thing.
jnfr
In the longer video you can see the gorilla grab the kid and drag him around the enclosure. It was not a safe situation.
But I wish this incident could bring people to more concern for gorillas in the wild, because they are disappearing rapidly.
RIP, Harambe.
Paul in KY
IMO, the parent or whomever was running herd on the kids bears a bit of responsibility. If they had been able to stop the kid from jumping in there, the poor gorilla would be alive today.
Edit: Agree the gorilla had to be put down once he grabbed the child. Very sad situation.
Adam L Silverman
@burnspbesq: You do understand that this happened in the US, right?//
ETA: better add the sarc tags…
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in DC: That’s actually what’s been on the right wing/gun sites. “Someone breaks in and trespasses onto your property and you get shot? That’s not American!” Once it came out that the family was African-American and the father had a criminal record, then it just got worse and worse.
Paul in KY
@chopper: Your average gorilla is a much better & calmer animal than your average Trump voter.
cokane
zoos do not suck. Some zoos suck. Cincinnati is not one of those. Zoos provide a unique opportunity for studying wildlife biology that simple isn’t always as feasible in nature. In addition, they are also an important component in conservation efforts, directly (think panda breeding) and indirectly by educating the future generation. Anti zoo people seem incredibly myopic, imo.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
I read that the father supposedly has a long criminal record, which some have tried to squeeze into the narrative: bad dad, bad apple not falling far from the tree, etc.
Did Clapton get shredded when his kid fell from a high rise balcony? Clapton did a lot of drugs, after all (a criminal activity).
I will say that IF the family sues the zoo, my sympathy for them will largely evaporate. If the zoo sues the family, ditto. Much blame to go around, but profiteering (though inevitable) will make things even worse.
LAO
@Feathers:
Agree, whole heartily.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Good god, I hate zoos. I know some do good work in species preservation and education, but jeebus, even the good ones suck.
@cokane:
They’re all depressing.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Yes. I have a little brother who was an unholy terror as a child. Had he decided he wanted into an enclosure like that it would have happened.
My parents were young, in their very early twenties when he was born, and even then they were smart enough to NEVER take him into a situation like that. Hell, we didn’t even take him swimming until he was eight. The alligator zoo near my grandparents house he always wanted to see? HELL NO.
The kid sat there for ten minutes telling his mom he wanted in. They did nothing and just sat there. So the kid got in. Parent’s fault, 100%. I hope they’re charged and sued.
Hillary Rettig
@Amaranthine RBG: can’t disagree with that, but what do we do with the uncomfortable truth? One commenter pointed out that this is as pure a “lifeboat scenario” as we are likely to see IRL.
Weaselone
@TaMara (HFG):
It also ignores that the gorilla in question was a male silverback. Even if he was helping, his help could well have ended up being lethal or severely harmful to a human toddler. It’s not the same situation as the female gorilla who returned a child to its mother some years ago.
I also disagree with the Zoos suck line in the OP. Zoos do valuable work in preserving and promoting the survival of endangered species.
Cacti
@Amaranthine RBG:
And yet, you’re still here.
You must be special.
Adam L Silverman
@West of the Rockies (been a while): In this case the dad is one of the success stories. He’d gotten himself sorted out and turned around. Of course that’s not how Fox reported it:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/fox-friends-cites-rap-sheet-of-black-dad-who-wasnt-at-zoo-to-blame-him-for-gorillas-death/
Dmbeaster
I really do not agree with any of those enraged over this. The enclosure is a standard zoo design — two low barriers and then a deep moat separating guests from the animals. The kid climbed over the barriers and fell 15 feet into the moat. The gorilla climbed down into the moat to grab the kid.
Its a full grown silverback. The kid was in great danger, and killing the animal to save the kid was the only realistic option.
Blaming the parents is bogus, unless there was evidence that they were being neglectful in allowing the kid to get past the barriers.
Accidents involving this type of zoo design seem to be rare. The trade off is more barriers and cages.
Zoos are a net positive provided the animal imprisonment is at least decent. If you want vast numbers of people to be sympathetic to wild animals, zoos are going to be their only real experience.
cokane
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Not good work, necessary work.
Hillary Rettig
@schrodinger’s cat: ME TOO. Only, I don’t even think I got lost. I was coming back from the bathrooms and started crying because the sand was hot and burning my feet. Everyone thought I was lost, and I got taken to the whatever air conditioned place it was where they took the lost kids, and given some candy.
So, all in all…a good day!
Cacti
@Dmbeaster:
You’ve identified the design problem.
Hillary Rettig
@chopper: ding, ding, ding WINNAH!
Archon
@Mike in DC:
LOL! Thank you Mike, that made my day.
Hillary Rettig
@Mike in DC: omg ANOTHER WINNAH!
Hillary Rettig
@Emerald: Thanks for your great insights, and especially the reminder that the zoo workers are also suffering as a result of this.
Paul in KY
@cokane: Have been to Cinn. zoo a few times. I enjoyed it & thought it was one of the better one4s I have visited. Better than Louisville zoo, IMO. Also Miami zoo (post Andrew).
TriassicSands
@rikyrah:
Which is precisely why we’re going to end up with zero gorillas and 9 or 10,000,000,000 people. Period.
And that same statement can be repeated for countless other species.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I hadn’t been following this story, but I will say that that particular spin on blaming the parents is truly disgusting.
btw, left you a response a couple threads downstairs re the Alan Moore/Antichrist bit. FWIW.
Hillary Rettig
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: would like to see the good ones morph into nonprofit sanctuaries and conservation societies. and the bad ones, like the little roadside zoos, are AWFUL. Mix human or animal welfare with the profit motive and someone usually winds up suffering – badly.
Paul in KY
@Weaselone: A healthy adult male silverback gorilla has no natural predators. Even a starving male lion will not tangle with one.
ruemara
I find this to be another of the “boy, we have some undiscovered depths of racist thought in fairly progressive circles” fails that 2015/6 has proven rich in. Especially since the tragic accident has gone full on to blame the parents 100% because they must be bad because black and now watch the media dig up their pasts. Think about the last time a kid got into an enclosure. Did people, including the media, ever hold them accountable like this? Hell, look at toddler gun deaths. How often has someone gone to jail for a ‘tragic accident’ versus ‘they’ve suffered enough’? I know if they decide to press charges, the offending family member is probably a POC.
I’m sorry for Harambe. He was a beauty. And I’m not versed enough on gorilla animal behaviour to comment. Although my former boss probably would’ve been. But I am well versed in human behaviour. The kid was stupid, willful & curious; the parents were distracted and just trying to give their kids a fun family outing. Making black families think twice about bringing their kids to enjoy stuff like this, I’m kinda opposed. Would be nice if stupid human failings could be dealt with equally.
rb
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Oh, give it a rest already. Unless you were there you’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.
Adam L Silverman
@Archon: @Hillary Rettig: Don’t laugh, read the comments and weep:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/05/robert-farago/breaking-gorilla-shot-dead-4-year-old-boy-gets-cincinnati-zoo-enclosure/
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/06/robert-farago/cincinnati-police-investigate-parents-wayward-toddler-harambe-shooting/
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/45985_Breitbart_Readers_React_to_Cincinnati_Zoo_Gorilla_Story_With_Deluge_of_Ugly_Racism
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Only tangentially related, but there was a story out of the Bronx (NYC) yesterday. A guy beat up another guy who had allegedly broken into his apartment and had allegedly tried (or was trying) to rape the guy’s wife. The alleged rapist is dead as a result.
The guy who did the beating is pretty obviously African; don’t know about the dead guy. No firearm was involved. But I can’t help wondering if he had shot and killed the alleged rapist, what would be the public reaction? Now if he had shot and killed the alleged rapist and was white?
Marjowil
Agree with the consensus here. Yes, it was a beautiful animal, but experts agree that he was getting agitated from the noise of the crowd and could have killed the child any instant. Taking him down was the right thing. My rule is people over animals, animals over furniture. As a parent I can vouch that you can lose track of a child SO FAST it will make you dizzy. The racism and anti-child (someone on FB wishing the child had died instead) are disgraceful.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I saw it. Danka. He’s still nuts!
Hillary Rettig
@Dmbeaster: > If you want vast numbers of people to be sympathetic to wild animals, zoos are going to be their only real experience.
We had this discussion in the SeaWorld thread a while back, re orcas, and seriously, most of us probably don’t need to see animals in prison to sympathize with them.
happily I suspect the entire discussion will go moot in our lifetimes as more and more animal based entertainment goes animatronic or virtual.
The best “animal” we saw at Universal Studios last year was the guy (or gal) dressed up as raptor (of the dinosaur kind). It wasn’t a clunky dumb Godzilla outfit but a sleek one where you could see his arms and legs, etc. It was his movements in the suit that was incredibly realistic and compelling. He was scary!
Hillary Rettig
@Adam L Silverman: oy I’m not sure I want to do that
Adam L Silverman
@ruemara: In the last pair of similar incidents at least one was 1) not in the US and 2) turned out okay as the gorillas rescued/sheltered the child until he or she could be recovered. Add in the race of the family, social media, the current political climate and you have the mess we are seeing now. This includes the rise of online petitioning to get things done. Regardless, the Cincinnati Police Department has opened an investigation into the parents and announced they will forward their recommendations to the District Attorney’s Office for action. This is interesting given that one of the parents wasn’t even at the zoo. This is going to get worse before it gets better.
LAO
@Gin & Tonic: He was released on his own recognizance (no bail) and charged with assault, harassment and carrying a weapon. I will eat the dress I’m wearing today, if a jury in the Bronx actually indicts this man.
ETA: a link. https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160601/morrisania/man-who-killed-wifes-would-be-rapist-released-on-assault-charges
rb
Jesus christ.
We are a stupid, primitive, bloodthirsty people and when the meteor comes we’ll deserve it.
D58826
@Feathers:
Iphone had a twitter link to Brietbart comment section. Most were a variation of ‘they shot the wrong monkey’. And they were the ‘polite’ ones.
Gin & Tonic
@LAO: I thought they were going to charge him with manslaughter.
Paul in KY
@ruemara: Whether black or white or green, IF the kid was saying something to effect of ‘I want to jump down in there & play with him’, you better corral that kid & take what they say seriously.
Hillary Rettig
@ruemara: also some really good insights and angles I hadn’t considered. thanks.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: In NY? Given how hard it is to get a permit to purchase a handgun, let alone carry one within the Five Burroughs, the guy defending himself and his wife would have been arrested. The comments on the gun sites would be mixed. I guarantee someone will do a “should have been a defensive gun use” post decrying NY City’s handgun regulations making it far too hard, and far too dangerous for the defender, to defend against this type of thing. The comments will break down into three themes: 1) “that poor home invader rapist didn’t do nothing (this part will be typed in a bad attempt to mimic the supposed speech patterns of poor African Americans), he was just trying to turn his life around”, 2) since both attacker and victims were black, “this was clearly about drugs and inner city/urban violence”, 3) good on the defender. African Americans should be armed to protect themselves, gun control in the US has always been about disarming African Americans so they can’t protect themselves, its a shame he had to use his bare hands.
That’s what you’re going to get.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Well, yeah, but so is AC, so…a match made in Heaven/Hell, nu?
LAO
@Gin & Tonic: That was the arrest charge, but the DA opted for assault.
Cermet
@TriassicSands: So? Unless you decide to be the first to remove yourself from living, and can convince your loved ones – you are just blowing smoke out of your … well, you are being less than civil. The child’s life comes first. Tragic and a lost but that is reality unless you can convince people to die off … .
cokane
@Hillary Rettig: Almost all of the big name zoos — think the ones that take their city’s name — are non-profits. But being able to hire highly educated professionals for the sophisticated work of conservation and research isn’t cheap. Creating something that can study and preserve megafauna among other things requires a cash stream. Hence zoos. I swear the shortsightedness of anti-zoo ppl…
Gardenfli
@rikyrah:
I don’t think that’s cold at all. What is cold are the social media posters who are saying that the life of the gorilla was worth more than the life of the little boy. Now that’s effed up.
Miss Bianca
@rb: It is on beyond disgusting – it’s obscene, if they actually decide to go after the parents.
@ruemara: Yeah, this. All this. It would just be a “tragedy” if it involved a white family. A black family…well, that makes it pathological. Criminal, even.
Barbara
@Feathers: On the one hand, it’s great that so many parents want to take their kids to museums. I think that sticking with that positive sign is important, and I hope museums don’t completely do away with all child friendly activities. On the other hand, it is frustrating to the nth degree that parents refuse to acknowledge age appropriateness “suggestions” when it comes to children’s activities, and even more frustrating that they can’t figure out how to go through a museum and keep their own children entertained. As inveterate museum goers, we basically bullied our kids into submission even when they were little, but we did come up with some games that worked pretty well, the best being, visit the shop first and buy a bunch of post cards and then, with you in tow, let your kids try to find the works on the post card. It leads to close viewing whether they find them or not. Did this in the Cappelli Scrovigni in Padua, and I think it was just about the best way to see the place.
As for Harambe — I can barely stand to think about this. I think a zoo owes its animals a high degree of protection because they know the likely outcome of any animal/human encounter will bring harm to the animal. I don’t know what happened with the parents. I have to believe that no one is probably blaming these parents more than they are blaming themselves. It’s their child and they must realize how bad the outcome might have been for him. I did have one child who had me on high alert until she was at least 7. She managed to get lost at the Tower of London and the Ben Franklin Museum in Philadelphia (Thanks Dad!) and there are at least five other escape episodes that brought real terror to me (and if I keep typing the number will go up).
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman:
And, if he were white, would be front-paged as a hero on Breitbart and the like. No, LAO is right, I can’t see putting together a grand jury there that’ll indict the guy for anything. Just suggesting that if he’d used a gun instead of (apparently) a tire iron there’d be a *lot* more people going to bat for him.
Cacti
@Gardenfli:
We’ve got a couple that are implying it in this thread.
Adam L Silverman
@Hillary Rettig: I didn’t make a joke about you asking if the candy you were offered when lost as a child was organically grown, locally sourced, certified vegan, so you owe me!!!//
More seriously, no you don’t. I read that stuff because someone has to. I find it amazing that a site run by the child of Holocaust survivors, where another four of the six regular writers and editors are also Jewish Americans, tolerates a comment section that quickly devolves into the worst stuff posted at Breitbart, Free Republic, the Daily Stormer, and/or Stormfront. I’ve mentioned it to him on occasion, but clicks are clicks I guess. Though the best is the guy that quotes his own manifesto in the comments. That’s gold right there!
BruceFromOhio
The gorilla is dead.
Little boy and parents have to live with that.
People are assholes.
… what rikyrah said …
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: I cannot believe they actually charged him. I realize this is NY and not Florida, but that’s just amazing. Also, this isn’t/can’t be the same Mamadou Diallo as from all those years ago, is it?
JPL
Many decades ago, my son got lost at the Dallas Fairgrounds, a few months before Adam Walsh was kidnapped. It was Memorial Day weekend and there was a large event. My son was under three. There were three adults and three children and they wanted to put the picnic items in a trash can that was less than twenty feet away. My son ended up on the opposite side of the espanade, panicked and went to the car. Within a few minutes the police had monitored all the gates, interrupted all the shows, and searched everywhere. Over an hour later, someone who happened to be parked near us, saw him sitting next to the car crying and brought him back in. It was bad enough, that when he was found, a police officer cried. Several years ago, my son asked whether or not I remembered the time I lost him. I can’t jump on the bandwagon to shame the mother.
btw.. No one thought of looking by the car since my son was so young, plus they watched the gates pretty quickly.
Cacti
@Cermet:
Yup.
Strange coincidence that the people who loudly worry about there being too many people, aren’t also lining up to off themselves for the greater good of gaia. Makes you wonder who they do think of as expendable.
Barbara
@Adam L Silverman: No, Amadou Diallo was killed by police officers, who where later acquitted.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Yes, children over animals but that doesn’t mean you have to always kill the animals. I wonder if the zoo keepers couldn’t have distracted the gorilla while rescuing the child. I know I’m speculating out of my behind, but I just wish there was something that could have been done to save Harambe and the child (who thankfully is safe and sound).
Now that this has happened, I’m hoping that zoos throughout the country are ensuring that fences/barriers are effective so we don’t have more children wandering into animal enclosures and animals getting killed.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t disagree. Also, given that the news reporting is running with him in traditional dress, this will quickly devolve into a foreigner/alien type of thing as well.
rikyrah
@smith:
so true.
so true.
JPL
@Patricia Kayden: An article mentioned that the gorilla became agitated because of all the screaming. Hindsight is fifty/fifty, but I wondered if they could have moved the crowd I don’t know the layout though.
Adam L Silverman
@Barbara: That’s what I thought. I was curious, given the similarity of the names, if there is/was a relation. But I don’t know how common a last name Diallo is.
Miss Bianca
@Hillary Rettig: I’m a big fan of kid leashes, myself. And anyone it squicks out – fuck ’em. I had the pleasure of pacing a toddler who could *run* – outrun me, who had the advantage of twice his leg length and mountain lungs at sea level – and after seizing him by the collar to keep him from darting out into London traffic I would have given anything to have a leash on him!
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: That was Amadou Diallo and the NYPD killed him. But, it has not been reported that they are related. Also, I’m not surprised they charged him. It will either be quietly dismissed or, IMO, will be “no true billed” by a grand jury.
ETA: I see Barbara got there first.
Capri
I sure don’t understand it, but folks get much more upset over the injury and death of animals than of other humans. Even completely innocent small children and babies don’t evoke the type of outrage that comes from situations like Michael VIck’s dogs..
This scenario was writ large inf Rwanda when war broke out. In the first months of the conflict there there were many more articles about the threat to the wild gorilla populations than of the human suffering that was going on.
rb
@Patricia Kayden:
He was standing directly over the kid, having already dragged him across the enclosure and ignored the staff’s directions to leave it. This is an extremely powerful and intelligent but agitated wild animal. ‘Distraction’ was not going to get it done.
Assigning blame is a fool’s game, but if I have to go there then the zoo – or more specifically the enclosure design – is responsible. They know any ‘encounter’ between humans and animals risks the lives of both, and the latter will be sacrificed for the former.
But no design is foolproof and mistakes will happen. If we can’t handle that without a collective racist freakout then that is the real malfunction.
Patricia Kayden
@ruemara: To this point in time, I don’t know the color of the boy. I also don’t care about the color of the child. Whatever his color, this is still a tragedy. The parents could have kept better watch of their child. But which parent hasn’t had their child disappear at inopportune times? I completely understand how people can vent frustration with the parents, who appear to be careless, while simultaneously criticizing the way zookeepers reacted.
Patricia Kayden
@rb: Very sorry to hear that racists are using this incident to display their anti-Black tendencies. Wasn’t aware the child was Black. That makes no difference to how I see this tragic story.
Cacti
@Capri:
It’s no great mystery. A substantial segment of the US population cares more for the lives of non-human mammals than they do for fellow humans of a certain pigmentation.
Miss Bianca
@Capri: I remember – in fact, I will never forget – Michael Moore talking about his movie “Roger and Me”, where he made the point that a lot of (white) people got upset over the footage of the woman knocking one of her bunnies on the head, but none of them ever expressed similar outrage over the footage of the black guy getting shot by police a few frames earlier. That observation really rocked me back on my heels – in fact, it wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say it changed my life – made me face a hell of a lot of uncomfortable truths about how cheaply white America holds black lives.
rikyrah
@Cacti:
tell that truth
Renie
@Gin & Tonic: they were both African American and the guy is being charged with manslaught; think the issue is he attacked him in the hallway not in his home. i’m sure a white guy would definitely get off by a white jury
Fair Economist
@Adam L Silverman:
In the one I saw something was very different – the gorilla was female. Female gorillas are cooperative breeders, like humans, and will help each other out and look out for each other’s babies. Male gorillas, however, are VERY different and frequently kill young children of other males. It would have been very normal behavior for Harambe to simply kill the boy, or to drag him around to display dominance for a while and then kill him.
rb
I just don’t understand the disconnect between these thoughts. Where do we get off assessing what care they put into their parenting, especially given one of them wasn’t even at the zoo?
Someone upthread nailed it, I guess. We are a punitive culture and love the thought of judgment and punishment. Someone must be blamed and shamed, the parents are someone, and so the parents must be blamed and shamed.
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
As I understand it, it was the gorilla keepers who signed off on shooting him when all of their other efforts to get him away from the child or tranquilize him failed. It was sad, but it was their action of last resort.
There has been a lot of recent work to make zoo enclosures better and safer for both the animals inside and the animals outside. Since there have now been several cases of kids getting inside the gorilla enclosures, hopefully zoo designers are taking a closer look at them to make them safer for everyone.
And I’m not even going to comment on the internet assholes who seem to think that it’s just fine to let a wild animal kill a child, other than WTF is wrong with you!
singfoom
Terrible that the gorilla died. Terrible that that boy got away. As a father of two toddler boys, I can attest that they can hurt themselves in an instant when I look away for that instant.
So all the parent haters can go fuck themselves, that shit happens. You can plan and you can parent and you can have child leashes and even then you’ll never have 100% coverage because children are fast little monsters.
I won’t even touch the racist shit that’s been mentioned beyond…. Kids are kids, regardless of race, so those people can also go fuck themselves too.
James E Powell
@burnspbesq:
We have to have some one or some thing to blame. And right away. Where else can we focus that undying rage we all seem to carry around with us? Exaggerating, I know, but still.
rb
@rb:
…. provided that specific someone is a person of color, I should have added. Critical context here in The Greatest Nation God Ever Gave Man.
JPL
@singfoom: this
Frank Wilhoit
The Zoo’s liability premium will double or triple at the next renewal. Other zoos will either pay similarly increased premiums or else negotiate smaller increases in exchange for specific investments in security. Have you noticed zoos undergoing major reconstruction and opening, to great fanfare, “new exhibits”? Each results in a greater distance and more barriers between the public and the animals.
If the child in this case had been killed, the Zoo would not have been able to get liability underwriting anywhere, at any price, and would probably have been forced to close.
The Cincinnati Zoo is compressed into a surprisingly small parcel of land; it has no room to expand and very little slack to re-engineer its larger animal habitats.
mali muso
@Adam L Silverman: In West Africa, Diallo is about as common a name as Smith or Johnson. Traditionally it’s associated with members of the ethnic group Fula/Fulani/Peuhl who were nomadic herders and are spread all over West Africa. (things you learn in Peace Corps…)
khead
Really? Pretty sure the reason for shooting the gorilla is because it would’ve killed the child. Kinda like a gun.
This whole thing absolutely reminds me of Junior grabbing a gun and shooting himself. We are now apparently in the “haven’t the parents suffered enough?” stage – because the Internets are burning up with hot taeks along this line today. I’m surprised it took this long because if it HAD been a gun, the gun nuts would’ve already been pushing this line 5 seconds after it happened. I mean, it’s just “one of those things that happen”. Can’t help it, it’s kids! You turn your head and they’re gone! amirite? AMIRITE?!?!? I am guessing – just a hunch – those lines wouldn’t fly here at BJ if Junior had shot himself instead of going into a gorilla habitat while Mommy wasn’t watching. But just because end result was happy for the kid doesn’t mean the parents get a total pass. Anyway, one can still be happy the kid is fine while getting on the parents.
Also, shoot the gorilla. T-t-two times even.
This thread needed some trolling. Too much agreement.
Miss Bianca
@khead:
No, it didn’t.
Mnemosyne
FWIW, the tide seems to be turning back around again. The radio morning show I listen to had call-ins from people who did insanely stupid things as kids, like the guy who came close to falling into the Grand Canyon as a 6-year-old when his parents got distracted by his siblings. Shit happens, and kids are crafty.
boatboy_srq
I can’t help thinking there’s a correlation between the zoo’s barriers not being completely childproof and the parents’ loss of control of the child – and the tales (discussed here at BJ just this morning) of clueless clods getting too close to wildlife in the national parks.
I’m not acquainted with any other nation that demands so much separation of the ordinary citizen from risk. US zoos are fortresses to keep attendees safe from the animals; historic sites and natural wonders are gated, fenced and glassed off from the public; and exception to any of that requires a waiver penned in gold ink signed by seven witnesses and sworn on five separate holy books. The presumption that every environment has to be so safe as to approach experience-free, and that any failure in the precautions is automatically a failure of the hosting party (zoo, park, amusement, whatever) is unreasonable and desperately needs to be revisited. It’s particularly unreasonable given how addicted to fiscal/economic risk the same culture has become.
It’s this fixation with public hypersafety that allows the zoo to face such criticism over what appears to be an overindulgence of childhood curiosity when ch exceeded the zoo’s due diligence, even as it highlights the blissful unawareness of adults in far less safe – and explicitly marked – locales.
Being hard on the parents in this case he nothing to do with veganism, any more than it has to do with whether Mercury is retrograde or whether the child’s teacher wore leggings in class or whether daffodils are pretty.
Keith G
Zoos are dangerous places. I am a member of our Houston and several times a week I walk the zoo is my form of aerobic exercise. As with most modern upper-level zoos that try really hard not to look like a zoo, there are attempts to reduce presence of visual barriers between the visitor and the exhibit. That is what the public demands when one is paying $20 a visit to go to the zoo.
Whenever a small child wanders off and gets into some hazard it is the parents (or whomever is acting in loco parentis) fault. We want our zoo and public parks to be designed as safe as practical while being as open and enjoyable to the largest segment of our population possible. And the first line of the that safety is always the responsible adults who are on the scene looking after those youngsters who are in their care.
The fact that these parents screwed up and lost sight of one of their children in a situation that potentially, and now we know really, has so much danger doesn’t make them bad human beings or even bad parent. They just messed up and the very large cost of their behavior is being externalized to the greater Cincinnati community.
cintibud
If I recall correctly the Cincinnati Zoo’s Gorilla exhibit was opened in the 70’s and was hailed at the time as a forward thinking attempt to showcase the Gorillas in a natural looking habitat designed to minimize the effects of harsh looking barriers between the animals and visitors. I haven’t been there in years but from the news reports it doesn’t look like it has changed much. In the years since it opened there have been no similar types of accidents so I think the staff/zoo admin didn’t even think there was any reason to look for weaknesses in the design.
ruemara
Some of you coming at me about how the kid said he wanted to get in truly need to step off. He’s fucking 4. What parent would believe their 4 year old could get into a zoo enclosure? Should the present parent have sat on him, scurried the entire family out? When your kid says they want a toy at the market , do you end the trip entirely or pat him/her down to make sure they haven’t stolen it? Or do you find the stuff your kid has tossed into the cart at checkout like other parents and deal with it after you lost track of your kid’s actions for a bloody second.
singfoom
@khead:
You’re not completely wrong, but the difference is this. The gun in your hypothetical is not only within the parent’s control in terms of placement, security and handling. It’s the parent’s property and they are expected to be responsible for it.
The gorilla enclosure and its construction is outside the parent’s control. That’s where this analogy falls down. That’s why it’s easier to place blame on the parents in the gun case as opposed to this gorilla case.
That said, the parents in the gorilla case are not blameless, but they’re also not the WORST PARENTS IN THE WORLD(TM).
YMMV, but I think that’s a crucial difference.
germy
“Cincinnati” and “Zoo” – two very sad words that when combined become even sadder.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
I have one friend (from Mali, I think) whose last name is Diallo. He tells me it is an extremely common surname.
BruceFromOhio
@JPL: This x many
Elie
My heart breaks over the loss of this magnificent animal but I never thought that there was much choice but for the keepers to do what they did. I am so sorry for all involved, including us not on the scene but who love animals! We are living in dire times for so many of our noblest fellow animals on this planet and the loss of any is a tragedy. While I accept that kids will not uncommonly find ways to overcome barriers of all types, I do think that that zoo (and all others) should examine their security set ups. This sort of thing must be avoided if possible. We know that there have been several incidents like this which, thankfully, mostly resolved without needing to kill the animal. I will also add that the boy and all of us were lucky that this was not a polar bear, grizzly or big cat enclosure where the outcome might have been much much worse for the boy and happened too fast for the keepers to prevent….
schrodinger's cat
@Hillary Rettig: My mom’s school friend had a summer home. Her cousins, their kids would all come and go throughout the summer. It was bucolic. They had mango trees. She had invited my folks several times, we took her up on her invitation a couple of times. It was a traditional Indian home with a big swing in the verandah. The beach was in the next town. The bus service was kinda spotty and cab or rickshaw had to be hired in advance. Market day was once a week. We had all gone to the beach, somehow me and my mom’s friend’s daughter got left behind because we were too busy telling each other stories and collecting sea-shells. The older folks were rushing so as to not miss the last bus. They even sat in the bus and while paying for the tickets they realized they were two short. The bus hadn’t gotten very far. They created a big ruckus got off the bus and rushed towards the beach.
My friend and I saw my mother rushing towards us along with my friend’s uncle, followed by my dad and my friend’s dad. Much hugging ensued. We had no idea why they were so frantic. We had stopped to get an ice-cream and had started on our way to the bus stop. I was about 10 and my friend 8.
Adam L Silverman
@Fair Economist: One of the last two was a female. In the other it was a a male. This was in the UK, the male Silverback gathered up the child and held off the other gorillas until the boy could be rescued:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N05CItceEdg
That’s not to second guess the folks in Cincinnati. These are wild animals, they are not going to respond in predictable ways to something like this happening. And in the case of the video, its not clear, but I think the father had been holding the boy up to see into the enclosure and lost his grip and dropped the kid.
TriassicSands
@Cermet:
Nonsense. I’ve lived my life — i.e., made conscious choices — to limit the population of the earth. My one suicide is easily overcome by the Cincinnati mother’s choice to have not just three, but four children. I’ve done what I could to minimize my footprint (carbon and otherwise) on the earth, but to assume that my obligation extends to killing myself is idiotic, and just a simplistic way to thoughtlessly avoid taking responsibility for living a mindful life.
Your approach guarantees an impoverished planet in which there is only room for human beings. We’re the one species that can actually make these choices and yet, few if any human beings do.
I had nothing to do with the choice that brought me to life, but I am willing to make decisions to live responsibly and, I hope, sustainably. Having four children is not sustainable as a model for human behavior (especially for people who consume the way most Americans do), not least because one mother can not adequately watch four children in a setting like a zoo.
germy
@Patricia Kayden: They will use any incident. I understand they’re currently using the Angry Birds movie.
Mnemosyne
@boatboy_srq:
I literally just read a Facebook post by a zookeeper named Amanda O’Donoghue who made that exact point — zoo exhibits are designed to keep the exhibited animals in, but not to keep humans out.
And, as an experienced gorilla handler, she says the zoo had no choice but to shoot the gorilla when he refused to leave the exhibit. Period.
Feathers
@Barbara: I am going to have to out myself here as having gotten away from my parents at the Wright Brothers museum and climbed up into the pilot seat of their plane. The plane is now at the Smithsonian Air & Space and hung very high up in the air. My family swears that I’m the reason it is not available for closer inspection. I was about the same age as the child involved here.
cintibud
@Frank Wilhoit:
Yes. It’s located in an “inner city” type location, close to the University of Cincinnati and the UC medical center. I did a quick Zillow search on real estate surrounding the zoo and found the average house price to be about 50k
ETA – I also now see some enclaves near the zoo with houses 200 – 400k. Those are probably on the hill tops
Elie
@germy:
Well, without zoos we would have not only fewer ways to get the public to see and appreciate animals — but some species would disappear in the wild completely. I think I know what you feel however, and I share it as well. No easy choices on a planet where humans have put everything in peril including ourselves…..
CONGRATULATIONS!
@TriassicSands: This is where I end up standing every time. It’s not that I don’t like people, but we’re killing off everything else alive on the planet. And we always have a “reason”, problem is the reasons are always bullshit.
@Gardenfli: I’ll say it loud and proud. 7 billion humans, be 8 billion by the end of this decade. Less than 5,000 gorillas left worldwide. You tell me which is worth saving. Do they not also have a right to live?
Adam L Silverman
@mali muso: I knew where the name originated and which tribe it was associated with, what I didn’t know until you replied, and I appreciate the info, is how common the name was.
Davebo
You should have considering he didn’t illegally kill the lion, at least in the opinion of the Zimbabwe government.
Mnemosyne
@TriassicSands:
Oh, well, if she had four children, there’s no way she would miss the one the gorilla killed, right?
Adam L Silverman
@germy: And Taylor Swift.
SiubhanDuinne
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned at all in this thread, or for that matter in most of the other discussions I’ve seen or heard, is that the Cincinnati Zoo was apparently in full compliance with enclosure guidelines set out by both the US Department of Agriculture and the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums), both of which conduct regular accreditation audits.
If there’s going to be finger-pointing — and clearly there is — then perhaps the two governing bodies might want to take a look at tightening up their requirements. I’m sure every decent zoo in the country right now is undergoing a reassessment of their own facilities, even if the USDA/AZA gave them top marks in the latest inspection.
Mnemosyne
@Davebo:
Meh. Dragging a carcass behind a truck until it lures a lion out of the refuge is, at the very least, poor sportsmanship, and cowardly to boot. The dentist deserved every bit of internet shaming he got.
Hillary Rettig
@schrodinger’s cat: Cute story, and I hope you at least got your ice cream!
SiubhanDuinne
O/T, shooting at UCLA. Reports say “two victims” but it is unclear whether that means fatalities or injuries.
Hillary Rettig
@SiubhanDuinne: YES
Paul in KY
@Capri: I do get more tore-up when a horse goes down in a race & has to be put down, than I do about jockey getting injured/killed.
That’s because the horse has no say in the matter & the jock can ride or not ride & is compensated for the job.
Cacti
@TriassicSands:
So, how many should we euthanize for the greater good?
Brachiator
I hope the kid is OK now. I’m sad that they had to kill the gorilla. I expect that a more effective barrier will be put up in the future.
I got no time for “let’s assess blame and put the blame on somebody.” Any criticism of the parents is stupid.
I don’t get the impression that many animal activists actually know anything about animals. Not too sure about the activism, either.
Miss Bianca
completely o/t, but any idea why the font size on the posts suddenly shrank? Could it have been something I did accidentally? And if so, can I change it back?
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
They’re saying locally that it was at one of the engineering buildings. Yikes!
ETA: Two members of a coworkers family are fine but on lockdown.
schrodinger's cat
@Hillary Rettig: Was still eating the ice-cream when found. I think it was good that I did not realize that we were lost because I was not fluent in the local language.
Hillary Rettig
@Mnemosyne: he also sold out his guides *in a flash.*
And he’s a likely repeat offender.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: Injured.
http://ktla.com/2016/06/01/police-investigate-possible-shooter-at-ucla/
Bill
@cokane:
This. We’ve been member of our (very good) zoo for a decade. My kids have grown up with an appreciation of wildlife and conservation they wouldn’t have had without it.
As for the incident, I just don’t understand why it’s controversial. If you are going to have zoos, thing like this are going to happen. Even the best precautions eventually fail, and kids in particular will make dumb choices at inopportune times. (This reminds me a bit of the Prospect Park Zoo Polar Bear incident that got a HUGE amount of press when I was a kid. More tragic outcome in that case though.) And that includes all kids, no matter how attentive the parents are.
I certainly don’t like that the Gorilla was killed, but it seem like it was an easy decision. The life of a child is more important than a Gorilla. The expert analysis I’ve read is that the kid was in life threatening danger. Shooting the Gorilla is a no-brainer in that case.
I just don’t understand people who romanticize animals to the point where they treat them as human. Especially when I’m sure a number of the people screaming about this incident ate a cheeseburger today and are wearing leather shoes.
Trollhattan
@smith:
Mine is 14 now but we live 10 minutes from the local zoo and she’s been there dozens of times since perhaps turning two. I can guaran-goddamn-tee she never bolted, never was out of sight, and never tried to enter a display. Department stores are a lot tougher to navigate with a child than the zoo.
boatboy_srq
@Mnemosyne: I was actually referring to the quote from the park ranger bewailing certain parkgoers’ insistence on getting up-close selfies with the bears – despite clear warning signs, NO safety mechanisms, multiple notices in all the literature, pleading from the staff to keep some distance for the parkgoers’ own safety, and the presumably obvious fact that bears in national parks and forests aren’t the live equivalent of Winnie-the-Pooh. But that’s a valid point as well.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, just saw that. I’m not familiar with UCLA’s campus, so I don’t know if that means in the center of everything or on the edges or what, but regardless, I hope the authorities can capture the shooter(s) without any additional casualties.
Trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Not to mention killing a collared lion that was utterly conditioned to humans being present in his territory. That dentist can rot in hell, gnawed on by hyenas.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman:
Not picking on you, because you are mostly a careful writer, but I see this usage a lot. If his surname was mostly consonants and you knew it was, say, Slovene as opposed to Croat, would you write “tribe”?
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: @Hillary Rettig: The dentist was cleared, but as Hillary’s link indicated he’s leaned way out over and crossed the line before. The larger issue with these types of hunts is whether or not there is a real animal husbandry/conservation component to it. I’ve read the arguments for and against and honestly know enough to say I don’t trust any of the sources, on any side of the issue, enough to know whether their arguments should be trusted and accepted.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: live feed here:
http://ktla.com/2016/06/01/police-investigate-possible-shooter-at-ucla/
Report is that this is in front of Engineering Building #4 near Westwood Plaza.
rb
@singfoom:
Precisely. We get on ‘responsible’ gun owners in these tragic situations not because they have inquisitive children (and children are tough to keep pinned down every second of every day) but because they left loaded guns sitting around the house like they’re water pistols.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: In this case the name is one that is held by those belonging to the Fulani tribe, as well as its named variant in Mali the Puehl. These groups are a tribe in the classic scholarly definition sense. And in this case they are a cross national tribe. The Fulani are found not just in Nigeria. And as is the case with the part of the tribe in Mali have a variant name.
Slovenes aren’t a tribe. Neither are Croats.
Davebo
@Mnemosyne: It was the guides that did that, and ultimately they and the person who occupied the land were the ones at fault IMO.
It’s a emotionally charged subject and frankly those who lashed out, made death threats, etc against the Dentist would have done so regardless of the circumstances of the killing. The fact is the revenue generated from licenses for the hunting of exotics in Zimbabwe and elsewhere (even in the US) is used to protect the animals and their habitat.
Mnemosyne
@boatboy_srq:
I have a lot less sympathy for adults who endanger themselves in a national park than I do for a kid who endangers him/herself. A kid doesn’t know any better, while adults are *supposed* to have more common sense.
The Dangerman
@Adam L Silverman:
Bruin Grad here; Engineering 4 is (was?) all labs (i.e., not high density). Boelter is main engineering building (i.e., high density).
For quick egress, E4 would work well (curiously, right across the street, basically, is UCPD).
Adam L Silverman
@The Dangerman: I’ve been to LA twice for conferences. Was downtown the whole time. I have no idea where any of this is. I’m just quoting the news reporter.
Mnemosyne
@Davebo:
The guides didn’t do that at random — he paid them to do it. Sorry, but he doesn’t escape the moral responsibility for his actions just because he squeaked by legally.
The dentist shouldn’t have received death threats, but I have no problem with patients deciding they no longer wanted him to be their dentist once he demonstrates how little ethical and moral sense he has.
The question of hunting licenses is a different one but, again, they generally aren’t valid on refuge grounds, which is why the guides chose to deliberately lure a lion away. That lion was killed due to deliberate human baiting and action, not on a normal, sanctioned hunt.
Are you also okay with out of season hunting and fishing in the US because, hey, people are going to hunt those animals during the season anyway?
The Dangerman
@Adam L Silverman:
UCLA campus is worth the visit; lovely, lovely campus.
When I was on campus, decades ago, there was a minor incident in the old hospital (this was before Reagan) and LAFD fucking sent everybody. Huge response. I can’t imagine the response today.
ETA: Sorry, Reagan Medical Center
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: The usage interested me because in the comment you were replying to, mali muso (who’d been in the Peace Corps, presumably in West Africa, and so with some local knowledge) used “ethnic group” and not “tribe.”
TIm C.
Related stories from a behind the scenes tour of the Oregon Zoo.
1) As the land the zoo is on is on very unstable land in a city that has a high earthquake potential, a major quake could cause a mass escape from landslides destroying fences. Trying to figure out what to do if and when that happens and how fast they need to do it is a big deal.
2) The large cat displays all have just inside the keeper’s area, a pre-positioned “emergency chicken” with the goal of getting an animal away from anyone who might end up in the enclosure when they shouldn’t be.
3) The Keeper I was with expressed the most concern about the Polar Bears as being the most dangerous.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
Another reason why “blaming” the zoo is wrongheaded. On the other hand, obviously, the enclosure can be re-evaluated and improved upon.
Vishnu Schist
Haven’t read all of the comments, can’t we chalk this up to a shitty situation and forget about blame? Kids get away from parents everywhere. Designers try to anticipate problems and design systems against them. Those barriers get breached. It’s called life in the real world. It sucks that a family’s nice day at the zoo turns into this shitshow. It sucks that the gorilla was killed. I’d like the scorn trolls on both sides to STFU. Shit happens, that shit sucks. Good lord I despise the holier than thou crowd.
Trollhattan
@Davebo:
Often claimed. Would love to see proof, especially detailed financials, that this isn’t anything more than smokescreen for assholes who like to run around the globe shooting exotic animals in an attempt to imitate Hemingway. Am especially dubious of any claims made by Zimbabwe’s government.Whatever money they collect; I’ll bet serious quatloos mostly goes straight into Mugabe’s bank account.
David Fud
@rikyrah: I lost my toddler… at the bottom of a pool. I am lucky he is fine.
However, I think anyone who hovers enough to manage their kid as closely as seems to be required by the internet or anyone who hasn’t had a kid go astray needs to ask themselves if they are a helicopter parent. We like to complain about parents being over-involved, kids getting participation trophies. However, then we turn around and rage against folks who give their kids some leeway or who don’t hover obsessively over their kids when the kids get lost or do something stupid.
It is almost like its easier to be an armchair parent. I am sure all of those judging have perfect, high achieving, rational, obedient children, though. Maybe we should get them a bumper sticker for their superior children and offer them something to do other than read or watch about blood and gore from the latest shocking story from our media.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I understand. Tribes are definitely ethnic groups – either ethno-national, ethno-linguistic, or a combination. But not all ethnic groups are tribes or, perhaps more accurately, organize themselves in a tribal manner. In this case I think both terms are appropriate. I tend to use the latter because when I’ve had to brief or write about the Fulani, or more specifically the Hausa-Fulani in regards to what is going on in Nigeria and Cameroon and other adjacent states, I’m also often talking about the other tribal groups and confederations.
Jeffro
@Joyce H:
My understanding is that bookings doubled this past week, yes.
lol and great point.
Mnemosyne
@The Dangerman:
I had to look at a map and I probably walked past that building a hundred times on my way to Ackerman back when I worked at UCLA in the early aughts. There’s a million places to hide, so I hope they catch the guy. LA Times and NBC say 2 dead.
Adam L Silverman
@TIm C.: Polar bears will actively hunt humans. They are not to be trifled with.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: They look so cute, though!
Trollhattan
@TIm C.:
Darn interesting. “My life as an Emergency Chicken” by Mr. Clucky. What a job!
I believe him about the polar bears. They’ve been atop the food chain so long they don’t know any other view. And they’re utterly ginormous, speedy and clever and all that.
Interesting early John Irving book: “Setting Free the Bears” is about liberating the animals in the Vienna zoo, with predictable results.
The Dangerman
@Mnemosyne:
You and I probably crossed paths; I spent a lot of time in the Coop and worked in the bookstore for a while (as a student).
UCLA is so high density, yeah, a million places to hide is right.
ETA: I liked the old Ackerman/Bookstore. They messed with it. They best never mess with the Kerchoff coffee house or we’ll have words.
ETA2: Speaking of coffee, my first “real” cup was in the Engineering Cafe (I forget what it was called) in Boelter; it was jet fuel. I was up for a while ;-)
cckids
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Yep. My daughter was one of those. Holy FSM, I used to be afraid she’d never make it to kindergarten age. She was active, a hell of a climber, more determined than a Navy Seal. The times we lucked out that she didn’t get kidnapped or die were many.
That being said, at a zoo or other crowded place? We always had a hand on her.
schrodinger's cat
@Trollhattan: I remember seeing a documentary about polar bears, how one male had figured out how to pick and a lock and break into a convenience store, which he did several times according to their camera.
khead
@singfoom:
If the gorilla enclosure is “outside of the parents’ control”, that might be a good reason for the parents to pay a bit more attention to their child while the child is near it. See Keith G @ 108. I’m not asking for jail time, just a recognition that maybe someone shoulda paid a bit more attention instead of a “gosh, $hit happens – my kid got away from me once – so leave them alone” on behalf of the parents.
Plus I was bored at lunch and a little surprised at the comments here.
Mnemosyne
@TIm C.:
There are apparently categories of animals at zoos, and gorillas are in Category 1 along with bears, big cats, other primates, etc. as being among the most dangerous to work with.
ItinerantPedant
I’ll leave this as a mental exercise, regardless of how you feel about zoos as an institution:
Everyone who’s a parent, raise your hands.
OK, put them down if you have no kids older than about two.
OK, of the rest of you, put your hands down if you’ve never ever EVER looked away from your kid or kids for “just a second” and found him or her yards away.
OK, those of you who just put your hands down are liars. Put them back up.
OK those of you who aren’t tweeting, posting, and/or reposting criticisms of the parents in Cincinnati. Put your hands down.
OK, those of you who are left, put your hands down if you would be willing to risk YOUR OWN child on the hope that the gorilla wouldn’t intentionally or accidentally badly injure or kill the kid while the drugs took effect, the keepers found something to give the gorilla, could coax the gorilla to give the kid up, etc.
OK, those of you who put your hands down, put them back up, you dirty fucking liars.
Look around. Yes, this was a tragedy. Yes, the barriers at zoos need to be better. But the people with their hands up are nasty, sanctimonious, hypercritical, HYPOcritical pieces of crap. I don’t care how good you THINK you are, you are one bad day away from being those parents in Cincinnati. Knock it the fuck off.
Paul in KY
@ruemara: IF the kid did say that, you watch that kid closely.
IF the kid did not say anything at all like that, then really no fault at all of parents, as other have said, they can do stupid shit in an instant.
Trollhattan
@David Fud:
Well, that’s certainly one viewpoint. A counterpoint is teaching the child that opportunities are earned, and part of earning the opportunity to go to the zoo, amusement park, restaurant, wherever is to pay attention and to behave. They don’t need to be little robots, but they have to learn to mind both the adult in charge and their environment they are in. If they’re motivated and expectations are made simple and clear, they’ll learn easily. It’s what we expect of our dogs, are kids somehow exempted?
khead
@rb:
Assumes facts not in evidence. No one said anything about leaving the guns out like a water pistol. All I said is that the excuse making in this thread sounds an awful lot like the wingnuts making excuses after a gun accident. I mean, you just sounded like one in your last response. So, feel free to assume the guns are locked up. Inquisitive kids can get to those guns too. If the children are THAT tough to keep pinned down, perhaps it’s up to some entity to make sure those kids aren’t too inquisiting around a gorilla habitat.
Paul in KY
@Feathers: So it was you!!!! (shakes fist at monitor)
Paul in KY
@cintibud: It is not in an ‘Inner City’ location. It is somewhat close to that, but definitely not in it.
TriassicSands
@Cacti:
Always the same fatuous replies.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
Sadly, that has now changed to two fatalities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/us/ucla-shooting.html?_r=0
Trollhattan
@schrodinger’s cat:
Holy crap!
Wonder how folks living in our boreal zones are welcoming their new pizzly bear neighbors. Hey, I know, let’s take the best qualities of the polar bear and grizzly bear and make a fun new bear!
I prefer our Sierra bears; they just want our pic-a-nic baskets.
Paul in KY
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Maybe if it was a stupid, drunk adult that jumped down in there, I might agree (not shooting the animal & hoping to extricate the yahoo unharmed or harmed). However, this was a 4 year old & you have to err on side of letting him have another chance at life. Very sad situation.
schrodinger's cat
@Trollhattan: This was in Churchill, Manitoba. The juvenile males were the worst.
Mnemosyne
@The Dangerman:
I worked for the medical center, but from the purchasing office on Wilshire, so I wasn’t on campus all that often. I also took a million writing classes at the Extension.
The thing I miss most now that I’m in the SFV is the Big Blue Bus. I took that from Mar Vista to work every day and saved myself a boatload of money, not to mention wear and tear on my car.
Shell
Todays “Gun What The Fuck?”
2 people dead after shooting at UCLA; campus on lockdown
mmeep
Are you texting this article? Hoards is a verb. I think you mean hordes.
boatboy_srq
@Mnemosyne: I have no sympathy for a society that demands that the entire Earth be a “safe place”, that lives as if it were and as if the only “real” threats to life and limb come from Scary Brown People with boxcutters/shoe-bombs/Skittles, and that after this event will no doubt demand even more safeguards – paid for with public funds they’re increasingly unwilling to contribute to – further separating people from the exhibit.
Davebo
@Mnemosyne:
Absolutely not. Neither are the vast vast majority of American sportsmen. I don’t hunt anymore but I still love to fish and I assure you I obey all the laws pertaining to such activity. And the truth is through my fees for fishing licenses and membership in organizations like the Coastal Conservation Association are put to excellent use supporting conservation efforts that non-sportsmen also gain from even though they rarely contribute to the effort.
I’m not asking anyone to condone my hobby but at least people should realize that sportsmen are real conservationists as opposed to those who complain on the internet.
@Trollhattan:
Well I’m not certain they will let you audit their books but those game wardens and biologists are getting paid and equipped and that funding isn’t only coming from environmental groups.
JPL
@David Fud: That is a memory that will always stay with you. Glad the outcome was good.
Mnemosyne
@Trollhattan:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I am not a parent, but I was a kid with undiagnosed ADHD. Good luck with getting your kids to always be obedient in public.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Brian Williams is speculating (!) murder-suicide.
The Dangerman
If UCLA is still on the same basic calendar, this is either Dead Week (sorry, that’s what Week 10 is called) or Finals week. An awful lot of stress on students this time of the Quarter (and year). Curiously, the main Mental Health offices on campus were in the Math/Science building, which is basically connected to Boelter (it’s the same building, all things considered).
This is starting to feel like an isolated incident, thank goodness. A real active shooter at UCLA would be far worse than two victims (which is bad enough). Again, a super high density campus.
ETA: And, upstairs, Brian Williams beat me to it.
TriassicSands
@Mnemosyne:
First, the gorilla didn’t kill anyone. Maybe he would have. But maybe not. Of course, he was becoming agitated as a response to the panic the human beings were exhibiting. However, clearly human beings have no responsibilities in such a scenario. We’re always the victims, I guess.
Second, I’m sure the child, had it been killed, would have been missed. And the likelihood is that it would have been replaced, because two or three children are not enough.
If the only thing that matters, ultimately, is the fate of human beings, then we will end up exterminating most, if not all, of the mega-fauna on the planet (as well as lots of the smaller critters). And we’re well on the way to doing just that. I’m old enough that I won’t have to experience such an impoverished world, but I pity any sentient species that thinks it is the only think that matters or that it always matters more than everything else. There is always a reason why the animals have to suffer for the mistakes and irresponsibility of human beings. Mnemosyne, we live in a world where the greed, acquisitiveness, and wastefulness of Americans is more important than the lives of any species other than our own (except the same behavior may well take care of homo sapiens, too). There are now almost seven and a half human beings vying for the habitat and resources that every other species needs to survive. We all love having a limited number of deer around to look at, but when there are too many, or they start eating the vegetables in our gardens, they are seen as a pestilence and need to be eliminated. Only human beings escape that reasoning. And yet, we’re the problem.
Chyron HR
@TriassicSands:
Ha ha, brilliant parody post. Many upvotes.
Mnemosyne
@Davebo:
And yet you’re defending a guy who paid someone to break those rules so he could kill the animal he wanted.
I actually don’t have a problem with people who hunt animals in order to eat them (or give the meat to other people to eat). I do have a huge problem with trophy hunters, whether that’s a guy who kills a lion that’s been lured out of a refuge or the asshole who takes just the antlers or head from a deer and leaves the rest to rot. YMMV.
Trollhattan
@Davebo:
Even presuming (and in Zimbabwe it’s a big presumption) user fees meaningfully support protection and conservation, the vast majority of safari clients are on photo safaris, and not great white hunters. If trophy hunting ended tomorrow there’s plenty of revenue to be harvested.
Also, too, trophy hunting is the inverse of natural selection, removing the largest, healthiest animals and leaving the old, small, diseased, etc. I have yet to read of a photographer doing that.
End trophy hunting.
rb
@khead:
Incorrect. I said it.
If guns were locked in a safe and kids managed to break in anyway, different story.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes they do. And I’m all for doing whatever we can to protect their environment and them. Because it means they won’t be roaming near where I live hunting me!
There’s a theory, backed by both Nepalese and Tibetan folklore and supported by a one test on each of two different hair samples supposedly belonging to Yeti, that the Yeti is actually a polar bear hybrid that lives high in the Himalayas. According to the folklore there are actually two types of Yeti. The larger and more dangerous type is a special type of bear that lives in the heights, while the smaller, less dangerous type is humanlike and lives in the more clement zones in the lower Himalayas. Several years ago a British veterinarian and researcher brought samples collected from all over the world (US, Russia, Nepal. Tibet, etc) to a geneticist at Oxford for testing. All of them came back as from known animals except two from the Himalayas. Those two came back as a hybrid bear. One part being the regional variant of Ursas Arcturus, the brown bear (there are two subtypes in the Himalayas – one in the East and one in the West: the Himalayan brown bear and the Tibetan brown bear). The other part was ancient polar bear DNA. The geneticist’s theory was that an ancient polar bear population had been trapped in the Himalayas after the last ice age and interbred with the local brown bear populations producing a very ancient lineage of hybrid. The same British veterinarian just recently did a search for more genetic samples, came back with five, and they all came back as some form of bear: Himalayan brown, Tibetan brown, or Himalayan black bear. No polar bear DNA at all. But what was really interesting was the folklore he was told by the residents of the Himalayas about the two different types of Yeti: one human/human like and one a special type of bear. This was the subject of the just shown on SUN the 29th documentary Yeti or Not.
pat
@ruemara:
Bingo. There was a report of grandparents being charged because their grandson got hold of a gun and shot himself and as soon as I read that I knew it was a black family. Disgusting.
Trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
It was pretty simple; if she acted out and wouldn’t stop, the event was over and we left. Action-consequence-lesson. Had we not been able to trust her, her and our lives would have been rather different but as things turned out she was a wonderful kid to travel and do things with.
Now she’s teenage and so a reset button has been pushed, so we’re relearning one another.
liberal
@TriassicSands:
Maybe it’s because I grew up in the early 1970s, when people made a big fuss over oil shortages and pollution, but whenever I see people with more than two children, I think to myself, “WTF are you thinking?”
I myself don’t understand this claim that people have a fundamental, natural right to breed like rabbits.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Joyce H: I had the distinct displeasure of an encounter with some idiots Sunday who held forth at length about this and how the negligent parent got a gorilla killed for no good reason. One spectacular asshole announced that “this is going viral!” It will be just like the guy who killed the lion,” she declared, “sickening – they should have tranqued him.” When I suggested that such a shot w/could have created dangerous agitation before subduing the gorilla, she just said “no.” Her nephew said “but we calmed horses down with ace,” and I reminded him that we used a needle and not a gun. Getting shot with a dose is exponentially more painful than getting stuck with one, and it would have been IM, not IV, and IM takes longer to have an effect. He then allowed as how I might – based on my experience with large animals and tranquilizers – have a better handle on the process than some other people (like his aunt) who are just sure it was wrong, because she knows better. Plus “those” people never take care of their kids right. She’s an asshole, and I’ll be happy to never have to endure her again. In fact, I suspect I may skip the younger nephew’s wedding for that very reason.
There really was no other choice under the circumstances, with a child in danger. The zoo director is an acquaintance of mine – many would say “friend,” but I use that term very specifically. I’ve known him for 30+ years and I am quite certain this has been extremely difficult for him – both the decision and the aftermath.
I read that there was a card left by a child that read “I’m sorry you had to kill one of your gorillas. We love the gorillas.” I got something in my eye right after that; it was quite dusty in the room.
Mnemosyne
@TriassicSands:
Human beings were responsible for putting that gorilla in a cage, and also responsible for protecting other animals (including humans) from it. Sadly, sometimes part of that responsibility is to protect a child who foolishly fell into the enclosure.
How you manage to extend the killing of one gorilla in one zoo to protect the life of one child out to the infinity of all wild animals being killed is your own problem that you should investigate with a professional. Deciding that animal and human lives are equal and that wild animals should be able to kill humans with no repercussions is some of the weirdest shit I’ve ever heard.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: All bears are very smart. There are reports of Forest Service Rangers in the US finding willow trees stripped to their under bark and then finding a bear that had packed the bark into its mouth. When examined the bear had abscesses or other dental issues and they’d packed their mouths with the bark to use as a crude anesthetic to dull the pain.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/07/01/html/fulltext1.html
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@rb:
I agree. Ignorant self righteousness is abundant on this topic. And I have every reason to believe, as I explained, that you are correct about the zoo staff.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: Unfortunately.
Miss Bianca
@TriassicSands: You know, maybe you’re right about us human beings, but the way you talk about us is completely repellant. It’s probably just as well you decided not to have children, if you can speak of “replacing” them, in the event of their happening to get mauled to a death by a gorilla, in that cold-blooded fashion. You’re not a doctor, I hope – your bedside manner might leave something to be desired. “So you’ve got cancer, what do you expect me to do about it? Humans are a cancer on the planet anyway. The sooner you die, the better off the planet will be.”
Yeah. May be true. But are you volunteering to kill yourself in order to free up space for the benighted other fauna of the world? No? Then maybe don’t be so cavalier about other folks’ right to live and breed.
El Caganer
@schrodinger’s cat: Isn’t that true of humans, also?
Peale
@liberal: So four children is now too much to bear? Sheeze.
Mnemosyne
@Trollhattan:
Glad it worked out for you. What do you suggest for the parents of kids with ADHD or ASD? Keep the kids in the house until they’re 18?
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
And now murder-suicide confirmed by LAPD chief.
Gin & Tonic
@liberal: You two must be a lot of fun at parties.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Gin & Tonic: Guy was arrested and charged too, but released OR, which I think hints at a potential no bill.
liberal
@khead:
Next thing you’re going to tell me that streets busy with automobiles are outside of parents’ control. /snark
Chyron HR
@Miss Bianca:
TS already sociopathsplained that their suicide wouldn’t matter because some b**** would just pop out 3 or 4 more brats anyway, so there.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: A lot of Native American tribes spoke of bears as tho’ they were humans – or, certainly, people, if not human people. It’s not just that they’re so smart, it’s the way their feet are shaped, the way they can stand upright…a lot of different factors.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: Sadly makes sense. And as tragic as that is, its better than having a shooter on the loose either inside or outside of the cordon area.
Miss Bianca
@Chyron HR: Oh, silly me, forgot that *that* wasn’t going to solve the problem.
liberal
@Peale: Ask yourself: what would the world be like if everyone (especially everyone in developed countries) had four children?
IMHO we’re above carrying capacity as it is. (Certainly if you add in human tendencies to settle disputes by warfare, and so on.) Personal liberty, blah blah blah, but with global warming, resource depletion of all kinds, and so forth coming down the pike, having lots of children is an act of terrible irresponsibility.
schrodinger's cat
@El Caganer: Indeed, probably true for all mammals. When my boy cat was a juvenile kitteh he was a much bigger terror than my placid girl cat at the same age. I am sure there are exceptions. My brother was quieter and better behaved than I was, according to my parents. I think I had trained them better so they handled my younger brother with greater ease.
schrodinger's cat
@Miss Bianca: In Ramayana, Jambuvant, who is half bear-half human is known for being a wise soul, whose counsel everyone seeks.
Davebo
@Trollhattan: That’s true, but photo safari’s don’t raise 20K USD in license fees.
There were fewer than 100 white rhinos left after hunters almost wiped them out in the early 1900s. Now, after several decades of charging for sport hunting and investing in rhino preservation, there are about 20,000 southern white rhinos living today.
It’s not perfect, but’s it’s also no evil.
ruemara
@Paul in KY: how closely is closely? You can watch them very closely and still lose your kid, so we may need metrics
Miss Bianca
@schrodinger’s cat: How wonderful – I’m going to have to look that reference up!
ETA: Lunch hour + Google = magical image!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jambavan#/media/File:Jambavan.jpg
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: A lot of the bigfoot tracks are really brown bear double strikes. They are the only other mammal (that we know of…. cue dramatic noise for effect….) who’s rear paws/feet actually articulate like a humans. And there rear legs, when they’re moving at speed they have a tendency to place their rear paws where they’ve just placed their front paws. In mud or soft sand or snow the resulting print looks like an impossibly large human type of foot print. This was also covered in the documentary I referenced and in the same veterinarian/researcher’s earlier documentary on the subject.
khead
@liberal:
Are the cars locked up? Or sitting out with the water pistols?
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
Why are you arguing a hypothetical? On average, women in developed countries including the US have less than 2 children. Are you shocked to find out that some of them have slightly more than average?
Here, I’ll round up myself, two cousins, and a friend who all stayed childless. Now we balance her out. Feel better, Judgy McJudgerson?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Miss Bianca:
I just watched Paddington a couple of days ago. Lord Grantham plays the father, and the bear is hilarious. The bathroom scene is classic, and looks like what would actually happen if a bear were actually in one’s bathroom judging by the videos of bears playing in people’s backyard pools, etc.
Paul in KY
@ruemara: Close a fuckin enough that he doesn’t get in there (IF he gave you any verbal indication AT ALL that he wanted to do that).
That’s just common sense.
Trollhattan
@Davebo:
They absolutely do raise that kind of money because there are so many more photographers than hunters. Times, they aren’t just changing, they’ve changed for good.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: @Miss Bianca: There’s also a joke my closest friends that I do martial arts with that I’m a Jewish-Grizzly-American. It has to do with the fact that I build muscle on my upper back faster than anywhere else on my body (I look at a weight and my back gets bigger) and, as a result, have a very large, but not disproportionate upper back. Also, I’ll eat anything that won’t eat me first. And I like to rub against door posts to get at itches I can’t reach.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
From Gizmodo on the shooting at UCLA.
Some amazing photos of the students here as well.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Adam L Silverman:
Totally OT, but after thinking about The Devil in the White City, do the business practices of serial killer Dr. H.H. Holmes remind you of anyone running this election cycle? Makes me wonder what’s under Donald’s floorboards.
rb
@liberal:
But that’s not the situation we’re in. It’s a critically important discussion, but I see no reason to base it on an alternate reality where people in developed countries are having children at more than twice the actual rate.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Jambavan, reincarnated? He too was a military adviser to the vanaras who helped Rama build the bridge from the southern tip of India to Lanka.
ruemara
@Adam L Silverman: You’re totally ruining cryptozoology for me with science. I’ll have to check out the doc.
Adam L Silverman
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Building hotels in major entertainment hot spots? Hmmm, nope, no similarities there at all.
Timurid
@schrodinger’s cat:
Hanuman and the monkeys get all the press. Nobody remembers the really cool stuff from that story…
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: For all these reasons, were-bears make a lot more sense to me than werewolves.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Trollhattan:
Very slowly, in extremely humid heat, ideally.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: Doubtful. Though he is a favorite of mine. I’m also a big fan of Ganesha. Anyone that large who can just bulldoze problems out of the way gets serious admiration from me.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Are you on the Grizzly diet? Salmon, berries, and grubs? (I would substitute lobster or crayfish for grubs, myself, but perhaps as a Jewish-Grizzly-American you would consider that traif? )
Adam L Silverman
@ruemara: There are two. The latest is the one from this past Sunday as part of Animal Planet’s Monster Week. That’s Yeti or Not.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/an-inside-look-at-yeti-or-not-animal-planets-most-intr-1778544485
The earlier one, from 2013, is called Bigfoot: The New Evidence in the US and The Bigfoot Files in the UK:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-video/10384296/Yeti-lives-The-secrets-of-bigfoot-uncovered-in-new-documentary.html
As for whether there is a large hominid/ape we haven’t discovered yet. Its possible. I don’t think the four people on Finding Bigfoot or Cole’s neighbors on Mountain Monsters are going to figure it out though. But I sure love watching them try!
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Ahh the Beornings.
Miss Bianca
@Timurid: bear cavalry. cool.
@Adam L Silverman: Ah, you’re there already! Well-done!
David Fud
@Mnemosyne: I know, right? The obliviousness of the non-parents and the hovering parents never cease to amaze me. They won’t get it unless and until they have their own children/let them experience life. Even equating a dog to a child in pretty much any sense, for any parent, is pretty laughable. But, we all have our blind spots.
Mike J
@Trollhattan:
Pretty sure it was just Nastassja Kinski in a bear suit.
LAO
Is it me, or did this thread get weirder than usual?
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I’m not on the grizzly diet per se. Lots of protein – mostly lean, from a variety of sources, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Limited grains – mostly brown rice and oats/oatmeal because they don’t mess up my system. Almost no refined carbohydrates.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: No, why do you ask?
Jeffro
@LAO: Weirder and dumber (and that is saying something)
OT – because it is way past time for an Open Thread – the Prez is giving one heck of a barn-burner in Indiana:
“We’ve been stuck with a Republican Congress that’s opposed pretty much everything we’ve tried to do” – PBO
Guess it’s time for a little offense! Hey GOP, feeling good about your nominee and his record?
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: No particular reason…backs away slowly, contemplates getting actual work done.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Ganesha is known for his wit and smarts. He is really cool. My favorite too. His parents Shiva and Parvati are pretty kick-ass too.
35 foot Ganesha in Agneepath (Path of Fire). Bonus: Priyanka Chopra
* Violence alert: There is a stabbing at around 3.40
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: silence on the grub issue, I see. ; )
@LAO: Is it? seems like a typical Tuesday, to me. Oh, wait, it’s Wednesday. Yeah, OK, then. Defiintely weird for a Wednesday.
schrodinger's cat
@Timurid: The Vanar sena was the best part about Ramyana, that and Ravan. Ram is the most boring milque toast hero evah.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Jeffro:
Indiana will vote for Trump, because the president is black.
Trollhattan
@Mike J:
I wish! Or better, a python suit.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I just put the live feed up as an open thread.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@LAO: I suspect it might have, because there’s lots of emotion around the topic. Of course I could be projecting, because there’s so much emotion for me – knowing Thane, and understanding how he and the staff must feel. I know the liability issues on the part of the zoo. Then I also understand both the tranquilizer effects including slow (not immediate) onset of sedation combined with agitation at the pain of being shot with the dose – I have real life experience with this stuff – as well the animal behavior and strength. Then add that to having been a captive audience of a self righteous racist asshole just make me not at all capable of being rational on the topic.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I do not like them in a house, I do not like them with a mouse. I do not like them in a plane, I do not like them on a train.
Mike J
@Trollhattan: And for the people who have never read/seen Irving’s Hotel New Hampshire, the bear suit.
The best thing about balloon juice is you never have to worry that there won’t be at least one person who understands what you’re referring to.
Mike J
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
And my Lambo’s blue?
Miss Bianca
@schrodinger’s cat: OK, my life totally needs more color, more gorgeous men with big drums, and maybe more huge statues of Indian deities. Definitely more singing. The stabby bits, maybe not.. Is that a scene from a movie?
Trollhattan
@Mike J:
I’m always on the lookout for somebody to say, “‘Earl!’ said the bear.” to. Doesn’t get the response it once did.
Gin & Tonic
@LAO: Posted immediately following Nastassja Kinski in a bear suit? No, not weird at all.
Trollhattan
@Miss Bianca:
Is that how the cool kids say it these days?
Miss Bianca
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Sounds like a horrible experience all round. : (
@Trollhattan: Follow the link, friend, it will all make sense then…
Gin & Tonic
@Miss Bianca:
Have you noticed how Betty Cracker has more than once posted about keeping Thor in Thursday, but not once about keeping Wotan in Wednesday?
schrodinger's cat
@Miss Bianca: Yes it is from a movie. The huge Ganpati statues and the big drums at the visarjan (last day, when the idols are immersed in water) totally happens IRL too.
LAO
@Gin & Tonic: I know, silly me. Clearly, I haven’t spent enough time here lately.
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Not responsive — but earlier in this thread I did promise to eat the dress I’m wearing today if a Bronx jury indicted Mr. Diallo for killing the man who attempted to rape his wife. So, we agree. Also — the DA backed off and did not charge manslaughter, so this may be dropped “after an investigation” before presentment to a grand jury. (I believe, even though I no longer practice in state court much, that they have 6 months to indict because he is not in custody).
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Mike J:
This video is why Elkhart will go for Trump, big.
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic: IKR?
I used to wait on Wotan at the library I worked at. He mostly showed up on the weekends, tho’, so even *he* didn’t keep the Wotan in Wednesday.
Monala
@liberal: Guess what? The vast majority of women, all over the world, choose to have fewer than 4 children (and usually, no more than two), provided that they can:
1) control their fertility (hello, access to birth control!); and
2) be pretty sure that their children will live to adulthood (i.e., know that their kids won’t die from preventable diseases or malnutrition).
The birth rate among women worldwide has declined in virtually every country except the very poorest, because those are the women who don’t have 1) and 2). There will always be some that for whatever reason (oops pregnancies, Quiverful philosophy, etc.), decide to have a bunch of kids. But those women are the exception – and they’re balanced out by the fact that plenty of women have no children at all. If you’re really concerned about the birth rate, work on preventing poverty and increasing access to birth control.
Monala
@liberal: Worldwide average fertility rate is 2.5 children, half of what it was in 1960: Link
Cacti
@Monala:
But that requires time, money, and effort.
Being self-righteous requires nothing and the emotional reward is immediate.
Felanius Kootea
@Adam L Silverman: As usual, I’m late to the thread and probably no one is reading anymore. What is the “classic scholarly definition sense of a tribe?” There are members of my family who would knock your teeth out if you referred to their ethnic group as a tribe and were within arms length, and other members of my family who don’t give a rat’s ass and use the term themselves. The former view the word tribe as akin to a slur, the latter obviously don’t.
The way I see it, there are over 20 million Fulani/Fula/Peul across West Africa. I think it’s easy enough to refer to them as Fula/Fulani/Peul without adding any other term to modify that name.
PurpleGirl
@Barbara: I went back to article. And the man accused of beating and killing the man assaulting his wife is Mamadou Diallo, Amadou’s father.
Patricia Kayden
@rb: You got me. I’m not a parent (at least not to human children) so I should not criticize the parents. I can imagine that they’re not doing too well right now given all the unwanted scrutiny and criticism which is being targeted towards them. It’s just a sad story all around.
Mnemosyne
@David Fud:
I am not a parent, but I was a holy terror as a child and have been responsible for small children often enough to know that you *cannot* watch them like a hawk 24/7. Kids do stupidly dangerous things because they’re kids and don’t know any better.
Mnemosyne
@Monala:
Also, this. All of those “Make Room, Make Room” horror stories never came to pass, because it turns out that if you reduce infant and child mortality and increase access to safe, reliable birth control, the vast majority of women worldwide will have two or fewer children BY CHOICE.
It’s in those areas where women are still not allowed to make their own childbearing choices that women are still having many children as a matter of course and, not surprisingly, most of them will say they would prefer to have had fewer children if they had had that option.
Keith G
@ruemara:
As closely as one needs to, given a rational and knowledgeable assessment of the children and the environs. Watch them more closely in Central Park than in Grandma’s living room.
I hosted my boyfriend and his two sons to the Houston Zoo. I was in charge of the 6 y.o. He never left my sight and as often as not we were holding hands. There are many animal exhibits at our zoo that depend on the humans not wanting to dodge a barrier for a “closer look.” As a guardian, one must assess that situation and act accordingly. Maybe these guardians did do that, but were distracted just long enough for tragedy. Maybe the guardians were more relaxed and oblivious to the practical dangers that exist in many, if not most, zoos.
There was a breakdown unique to this event. Since those of us here know them only from this one event, I feel reflexively defending the adults in question is just as meaninglessly speculative as is attacking them.
Keith G
test….this site seems to not be playing well with my browser.
keestadoll
Missing in the bad parent meme (so far as I can tell): It would’ve taken a nanosecond between knowing my kid was in the habitat and me jumping in. No thought of me-kid death, just MUST SAVE MY KID. Could the bigger question possibly be where the parenting instinct was?
Ohio Mom
@keestadoll: with her other three (more sedate) kids by her side?
the fat kate middleton
@singfoom: Absolutely. While we have experienced many instances of what I’ll call “darting toddlers”, it’s led to tragedy for our family at least twice: a friend’s one-year-old son decided to explore Daddy’s bucket of water while Daddy was doing lawn work. The child drowned. He told our son, “Never stop watching them – not even for ten seconds.” And our two year old great granddaughter darted over to the neighbor’s driveway just as the neighbor was backing up. We lost her, despite parents who adored her and thought they were watching her every moment. I simply can’t hold those parents in Cincinnati responsible for the death of Harambe.
Paul in KY
@Ohio Mom: Good point!
Paul in KY
@the fat kate middleton: Very, very sorry to hear of those tragedies.
Alice
@ruemara: Sorry, but this story was breaking the Internet for at least two days before the news media introduced race into this story. So, although it is true that racists will have a field day, more people are simply expressing a valid opinion about a secondary issue in this larger problem, which is that captivity kills and this never should have happened. The zoo should not be in existence.
Sind
@Keith G: @rikyrah: Why? It is interesting that human animals have such an obnoxious superiority complex.
Sind
As for why the holier-than-thou hypocrites question the calling out of the mother and not the father, all accounts that I have read say that the father was not present at the zoo.