Took a longer-than-usual walk today so Richard could look for signs of bears in the city. We didn't find any more scat or any tracks, but we did see the odd cache of berries in the photo above...
Also saw a woodpecker and got some video of him that I might post later.
Cooking up some veggie rattatouie with summer sqash and zucchini. Richard went to the farmer's market last Saturday and came home with four monstrous zucchinis and two horrendously large summer squashes ("they were cheap!"), so we'll be eating them until December.
This week it's back to normal for us; Richard's vacation ends Wednesday and he'll be starting to work on theatre posters soon, I think. I have a dental check-up tomorrow and a one-act committee meeting next week. Nothing overly exciting.
The Crocodile Hunter thing is all over the news, of course. Richard and I debated this a bit this morning, 'cause he has some respect for these look-at-me-I'm-a-macho-wilderness-guy-even-though-I-have-to-take-a-gigantic-camera-crew-with-me-everywhere types, like the shoeless guy who molests tree frogs on the Outdoor Life channel. He pointed out that Irwin promoted environmental issues and crocodile protection in Australia, and for that I guess he does deserve some credit. But - with all due respect to Steve Irwin's family and friends, for whom I feel deeply sorry - you can't just go around poking and prodding wild animals for entertainment. You might be more familiar with a certain type of critter than the average person, and capable of surviving in their midst longer than the average person, but if you're careless and disrespectful of what are, after all, wild animals, you will get bitten in the ass eventually. (Look at poor dumb Timothy Treadwell, thinking he was some kinda Bear Whisperer.) I may be an a**hole for pointing this out at a time like this, but Jacques Cousteau died of natural causes...
And to all those people who said it wasn't really dangerous for Irwin to haul his baby under his arm in front of crocodiles... well, I won't say anything to that. It's just like Michael Jackson dangling "his" baby over the balcony railing; we can only wonder "what if....?".
2 comments:
I agree with you. Irwin was rolling the dice everytime he held a snake, wrestled a croc, or whatever. I wrote about this on my blog, and again in the comments in response to other comments. The parallel with Treadwell didn't escape me, either. All that being said, though, I liked Irwin as a character and enjoyed his shows. I do agree with Richard, too; he promoted all kinds of environmental stuff and wasn't purely doing this for the sake of his own ego, as I believe Treadwell did.
Ditto, on all accounts. As he got older, Irwin became far more aware of animal rights isssues and set up some wonderful conservation areas but as unfortunate as his death was, I'm not entirely surprised.
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