"Bison injures woman posing for selfie at Yellowstone"

<p>In my experience: Bison, are large, not so smart brutish beasts, with few social skills. The weigh between 1000lbs (cows) and 2000lbs or more (bulls). Anyone that would approach one thinking they're docile, friendly critters deserves their fate.</p>

No one deserves to die for being foolish, at least in my book.

 

You mentioned a young boy dying above. That said tragedy to me. And heartbreak.

<p>Talk about a Photo Bomb...</p>

I don't laugh when someone slips on a banana peel or falls in a shower, Fred. Yet if someone risks their life for a selfie, that makes me wonder " what impelled them to act that way?" If not stupid or thoughtless, if not thinking of themselves, why put themselves in danger for a lousy memento of the trip. A professional photographer may risk his or her life getting close to an ice shelf that is about to calve and knowing their rubber raft may be taken down, that is one thing. Same for helping your comrades in a fire fight in war. Or a police officer in drug house raid. Calculated risks. I have done some careless (physical risk) things of course. Standing on ladders too shaky to save five minutes. I submit that is in a different category from the solipsistic urge to get your mug shot with a buffalo, or a zoo animal like the tiger that leaped to a fence straddler and mauled him...as I recall. I see it as not a condemnation or gloating, but a caution and reflection on the selfie mania. Am I insensitive, I think not. But I take your point that it is no real laughing matter when anyone is hurt. Even the drunken cyclist who wears no helmet..

As you say, Gerry it's no laughing matter when someone gets hurt or dies. I think when someone is badly hurt or killed

even because of what others consider their own foolishness, it's insensitive to say they deserve what they get. I don't

believe you had said that, so wasn't referring to you as insensitive. But these Internet conversations where everyone talks

about how stupid others are get to be tiresome after a while. They tend to be mean spirited and tend to show our less

charitable and less humanistic sides. I think they're popular and kind of lame and unfortunate.

<p>Fred, you are such a drama queen. No one is laughing, and this is a particular situation where the Law of cause and effect was evident. That law is without emotion or prejudice. Even Albert Einstein was quoted, "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe".</p>

<p>Every form of life that I know of, protects it's space/territory. Humans are the only species that sit in judgement to determine what other life forms deserve or don't deserve. At least the bison didn't kill the woman and then barbecue her to celebrate a holiday. There are consequences for foolish behavior, and without those consequences, people will continue to do foolish things....</p>

Charles, so glad you're not following me around. LOL. Sincerely, your caring drama queen. It's hard to believe I'm being

chastised for saying even foolish people don't DESERVE to die for doing foolish things. But such is life here on Mars.

<p>Sorry I keep running into you. Every bar I go into, there you are. The original post was lighthearted, and I started reading, and who do I find, but my sanctimonious friend, telling everyone how they should feel because of one person's comment. Please remember, you are talking to adults, not children. This is Photo.net, not Moral.net. Even on Mars, the law of cause and effect exist.</p>

I guess I interpret the word , no doubt kind of a careless off the cuff phrase, "deserves to die" in a different sense. Different for sure than a jury sentencing a culprit. Making a moral judgment from some superior moral position and rendering a death sentence for personal culpability in the tragic event. I rather take the verb form "deserves to die " above in the sense that we might say that maybe the person 'made their own bed and has to lie in it'- or- 'they were begging for trouble and got it," " playing a dangerous game without checking the odds." Accidents happen and I got a few scars going back to youth when I misunderstood good old canine pal doggies I did not know well I mean enough to pet. Old scar on palm.. Tame animals, right, until they are not friendl.

 

Ignore warning signs on our beaches with bravado and get stung by box jellyfish. Still an accident that happens frequently, but playing against the odds with the jellies holding the cards by numbers. Maybe a communication thing is all, . Aloha, -g-

 

PS. On the selfie craze.National Geographic this month shows a photo of Pope Francis in Vatican square with a young girl reaching out and grasping his hand and stopping him in his tracks, with the other hand extended, holding her camera/ phone for a selfie with the Pope. Bravo.. Sounds innocuous or innocent, but there are nearby two burly guards next to his holiness. I mean she could have earned an uncomfortable grapple by both of them and then got a bad blessing or two. Just saying.

I may on second look have misrepresented the Pope shot and he shows no aversion to cameras. Good. Though his black suited guards looked a little less thrilled at the experience. Maybe it was not a presumption after all, I mean for a people's pope. Working the crowd in a smiling fashion almost.

 

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/vatican/yoder-photography#/12-selfie-with-the-pope-670.jpg

<p>The lion Major "...did some double work for Clarence, the star lion of Daktari. Major lived to be twenty-three and spent his last few years at Magic Mountain in Saugus, California, where an average of 120 children a day had their photos taken on his back."<br /> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=VKS1-aBvXawC&pg=PT317&lpg=PT317&dq=clarence+the+lion+magic+mountain&source=bl&ots=0hY2n_h_Wd&sig=HfPCGgkRhCgjZ2zP1XsF6MiGWDY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDIQ6AEwA2oVChMI6sXu09CCxwIVRDmICh2VHgP7#v=onepage&q=clarence%20the%20lion%20magic%20mountain&f=false">https://books.google.com/books?id=VKS1-aBvXawC&pg=PT317&lpg=PT317&dq=clarence+the+lion+magic+mountain&source=bl&ots=0hY2n_h_Wd&sig=HfPCGgkRhCgjZ2zP1XsF6MiGWDY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDIQ6AEwA2oVChMI6sXu09CCxwIVRDmICh2VHgP7#v=onepage&q=clarence%20the%20lion%20magic%20mountain&f=false</a></p>

<p>I had my administrative assistant's childhood photo of her on Major as my work screen saver for a few years. She looked ready to bolt off him, she said she didn't want to be in that photo. I saw Major for myself. When not posing with children, Major slept in the open on a shaded lawn behind a small white picket fence that I remember to have been less than 2 feet tall. That's where I saw him. He was old and worn out and exuded dignity. People walked by a few yards from him all day long.</p>

<p>So how do we go from being a young girl with intact, healthy instincts superior to those of her parents (the child just knowing not to sit on a lion) to being a parent who, with instinct lost to them, would put their kid on a bison, or walk up to a brown bear to take a picture? How is it that instinct is lost? None of us can claim as our own the dignity of Major, so that loss is ours, we are all stupid in that regard.</p>

<p>As to Einstein and the infinite. People can only be infinitely stupid in a universe that is infinite. That way they can take their finite collection of stupidity to an infinite number of places. But if Einstein was not certain that about the universe, he could be no more certain of the infinity of human stupidity. He said something glib, that's all. But I think there is more in the behaviors that are the subject of this thread that the word 'stupid' conceals because people don't want to think more deeply about it.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>This is Photo.net, not Moral.net.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>LOL. Tell it to those posting here who came before me. Those who were sanctimoniously but "lightheartedly" laughing at the stupidity of others they were looking down upon.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Sorry I keep running into you. Every bar I go into, there you are.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>When I go into different bars and keep going over to the same guy time after time, it's because I've got a thing for him, not just because he's there. We're actually in agreement. I got on the case of people who were moralizing about what others deserve and sanctimoniously laughing at the stupidity of others. You got on my case for getting on theirs and for pretty much the same reasons, but you can't recognize that because you're so busy trying to buy me another drink.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>So how do we go from being a young girl with intact, healthy instincts superior to those of her parents (the child just knowing not to sit on a lion) to being a parent who, with instinct lost to them, would put their kid on a bison, or walk up to a brown bear to take a picture? How is it that instinct is lost?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>"Hollywood" teaches us to regard these animals as lovable teddy bears, ironically with shows like Daktari (which I loved as a child). As children, we instinctively fear everything we don't understand -- people besides Mommy and Daddy, new foods, house cats, bugs, etc. And then our parents (and Hollywood) teach us what we can trust. This doesn't change after we grow up. People still fear the mysterious and unknown.</p>

<p>Charles W., having grown up and lived in cities all my life, my instincts when I'm out in the wilderness are much less refined than my more honed instincts for getting along well even in darkly-lit and dangerous parts of the city. My friends who live in the forests of Northern California say they feel about auto traffic and the hustle bustle of the city as I feel about how to navigate my climbs along river beds and into gorges and my encounters with animals I don't understand or have experience with. We have not, as a species, been at one with nature for a long time. It's a good goal to start to come to respect the animal and natural world of which we're a part but it will be a long time in coming considering the anthropocentric attitudes we've fostered and continue to foster, though we often pay lip service to a more organic existence within our environment.</p>

<p>___________________________________</p>

<p>When a tourist gets beat up in the city, in part because he was unfamiliar enough and walked into a dangerous neighborhood and was not very streetwise, I don't think he deserves what he got. If a bike messenger takes liberties with traffic laws and red lights and gets severely injured by a car, I don't sit around judging him as stupid or think he deserves to be in the hospital. If I were to trespass on an animal's natural habitat, making it angry enough to attack me, I don't think I would have deserved what I got. I would blame neither the animal nor myself. Stuff happens. Blaming is not always the best response.</p>

<p>I photograph better in the city than I do out in nature. That's because I feel more intimate with city life. I've sometimes forgotten where I am and what I'm doing and have even backed into the street mindlessly while taking a shot, coming too close for comfort to passing traffic. I don't think of myself as stupid or deserving of injury for having done so. I think I lost track of time and space for a moment and, thankfully, it's just served as a good reminder. My wanting to get the shot because I consider myself a "photographer" is no more valid than Joe X wanting to take a selfie for whatever reason he may have.</p>

<p>Sarah, Fred, I do think learning is much of it. For example, from my learning I'm tempted to first call something like bison woman's behavior stupid instead of just saying "I am dumbfounded." Saying she's stupid is a 'you statement', saying I'm dumbfounded is an "I" statement. Catch, notice, intervene, change. Catch myself, start noticing it, will to do differently, and change it. I have to notice I'm dumbfounded, catch myself, care enough to intervene and work with all that to change. NOT THAT EASY!!!!!</p>

<p> </p>

I don't know. We have a duty to educate offspring on safety even as they get older. We see or read about something that resulted in injury, obviously caused by personal ignorance or foolish showing off( like with firecrackers here this month). We have to call it out for what it is. Without nuance or the lesson is lost. ... Why then attach the " stupid" to the agent (underlined) vs the behaviour (underlined)... It is more forceful and instinctive I'd argue to say that IT was" dumb" implying HE or SHE was dumb than to weave a lesson about dumb behavior vis a vis agent of the "Dumbth" ( Check Steve Allen's book "Dumbth"). Yes, I suppose has its moral downsides from some global perspective. Maybe. But there is a reason,- likely evolution based rationale. A lack of reverence for life? Who here would scoff by a graveside. I just say it is quite human to seek a reason for so called "accidents." And pin the selfie donkey's tail.

<p>Gerry "Without nuance or the lesson is lost..."</p>

<p>Good point. </p>

<p>It is a further example of the theory of natural selection, unfortunately unsuccessful.</p>

<p>"Charles W., having grown up and lived in cities all my life, my instincts when I'm out in the wilderness are much less refined than my more honed instincts for getting along well even in darkly-lit and dangerous parts of the city"</p>

<p>There you go.</p>

<p>What Fred has said.<br>

.</p>

<p>Just as a follow up thought; I visited Yosemite a number of years ago an amazing place. I wanted to have a walk about but then I read about Bears being able to charge at you at 40mph and they are especially aggresive when they have young....I passed on the idea of a walk about because Im a city person without a clue other than what I read. Sort of spoiled the place for me.</p>

<p>I might pat a Bison on the head which I might wrongly perceive in a safe place with other folks around... but a 40mph Bear....Phew.</p>

I'm a city person, too. Just got back from some great Yosemite hiking. I followed the rules, stayed aware of

my surroundings, and was willing to take the small risk in order to experience Yosemite on foot and out of the

mainstream foot traffic. I know folks who've seen bears. I don't know anyone who's ever been attacked by one, though it

obviously occurs. Probably more people are injured driving cars each year than by Yosemite bears but we each have to assess for ourselves our own risk/benefit tolerance. We're I asked, I'd recommend everyone go hiking in Yosemite at some time in their life.

<p>You do not want to pat a buffalo on the head. My brother and I were passing a park in Michigan one night (around 11pm) many years ago. Behind a chain link fence was a buffalo about 12 or 15 inches from it facing out. We were just admiring it from about 18 inches away from the fence on the other side. We did nothing to provoke it and just admiring its size. Suddenly in the blink of an eye it butted the fence and I swear it pushed the fence to within 1/2" of my face the suddenness, power and speed from a standing position was overwhelming and frightening. He could have killed us. We were whispering at the time but maybe we woke him up and startled him. But I will tell now that I am never going to consider touching one of those things.</p>

<p><em>Experienced Hiker Killed by Grizzly Bear in Yellowstone</em><br /><br />Even the experienced need to be cautious and respect wildlife. "The Montana man was a long-term seasonal employee of Medcor, the company that operates three urgent care clinics in Yellowstone. An experienced hiker, he had worked and lived in Yellowstone for five seasons. His body was partially eaten and covered." http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/08/us/yellowstone-grizzly-bear-attack-hiker-dead-feat/index.html</p>

<p>But I doubt the now deceased hiker stopped to take his selfie with the grizzly!</p>

<p>Donald's story sounds more familiar to me. I would have judged the chain link fence as scaled to keep me out and assumed the scale was the same for the animal on the other side, keeping it in as if it were another 'me'. But it's a different animal on the other side, and it may see the scale differently. At the San Diego Wild Animal Park the fences keep the grazing residents in, but at least initially the fences weren't scaled to keep the local mule deer out so the mule deer would come into the 'grass lands' area of that zoo.</p>