Tiger Victims . . .

. . . were asking for it. 

The picture that's emerging is that they were drunk, showing off by climbing on parts of the exhibit that were dangerously close to the tigers and off limits to the public, and probably taunting the tiger and throwing things at her.

The dead kid gets a Darwin Award.  The dead tiger gets what?

Comments

[Icepick]

The dead tiger gets what?

Hot lead.

[William]

Whatever these kids did to provoke the tiger, let's not lose sight of the fact that the tiger's enclosure was not sufficiently designed and constructed to protect the public from possible attack.

[Ron]

It doesn't matter that they were drunk and taunting the tiger; the tiger should have been in the proper space, regardless of what foolish people do!

[wj]

The tiger's enclosure may have been less secure than it should have been. But it had held the tiger for years without problem . . . until some young men deliberately tried to provoke the tiger.

In short, these guys really have only themselves to blame for their injuries. Much as they might now like to ride the usual enthusiasm for blaming everybody else into a large financial reqard.

[amba]

Both statements are true.

Someone introduced me to the concept of "euthenics," which started in I think 19th century London: you don't tell people not to throw their chamber pots in the street; you build a sewer system. It's the kind of design that improves the lives, and maybe even the behavior, of unimproved people.

People being what they are, and tigers being what they are, there needs to be an unbreachable fence between them, for the sake of both.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

While it is true that the tiger paid the price for human incompetence (the zoo failed to adequately protect it from the public), and for acting like a tiger, but it would have had to be put down once it did what it did whether or not the victims lived. The humans involved, OTOH were apparently acting like drunken humans often do. Fortunately for the surviving two, we do not put humans down for being so incredibly lame-brained and cruel. Yet. Be that as it may, the odds are good that the zoo will be found liable for not having done its proper job to begin with. And they ought to be taken to task for it, too, I think. (If I were on a jury, I'd probably vote for reimbursement of medical bills, and maybe lost wages, but that's about it.)

[reader_iam]

I rarely, rarely, rarely share online stories or discussions with my son.

As I imply, there are exceptions.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

Based on the free-for-all after your comment on Althouse today, I understand why you don't. (Notice that even I refrained from that one and haven't looked in since it headed south, and quick ;-). But I digress, this does seem to me to be one of those rare opportunities to let the circumstances make the point, with a wee bit of guidance for good measure.

[amba]

Free-for-all? Comment? I don't even remember what I commented on!

[amba]

Oh I see, you're talking to reader ... which post was that?

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

The Monica anniversary thread. Jonah Goldberg's book ends up be tossed back and forth, largely by people who have never read it. Godwin's Law in action.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

BTW, I think I'm not going to win a popularity contest over there any time soon. The list of people who ignore my responses to their comments has appears to be growing. I've been pretty direct in comments everywhere lately, but Heaven forbid I say what I really think! *lol*(Reminds me a bit of when I first finally got around to commenting there, when there really were only about a dozen regulars and outsiders' comments were generally ignored. ;-)

[reader_iam]

This is what I was going to first post in my comment, in response to Based on the free-for-all ...: which one?

But now I see you've answered it (gracious, I'm always happy for the reinforcement of the discipline "read all first"! Which, truly, I do probably somewhere up in the 90th percentile, or higher).

Anyway, I would have thought you were referring to the hunting thread, had I not read your next comment.

And, in a further anyway, I'm a little ... puzzled? bemused?

Because, in my mind I was offering (depending on which thread) personal perspective/individual experience and/or informational links in an effort to suggest a different, more "step-back-a-moment, view more broadly" approach, not to dictate POV, opinion or conclusion. (Not even, or especially, mine. At least, that wasn't the intention.)

Eh. Whatever. I'm not sure what to think about all of that, except: there's probably a message in there somewhere, and I probably won't like it. All the more reason to think it over.

[reader_iam]

One more thing, related to the previous comment, as I mull:

Since when is posting a link to an actual original (well, except that it's in translation) source a weird or outlandish & etc. thing to do in furtherance of discussion?

I can recall, and not so long ago, getting whacked for NOT doing that, and on more than one occasion, and with the whacks not coming from just one side--meaning, it was a spectrum-criticism, duly noted.

So--what the heck?

[reader_iam]

Hey, IR: I'm not pinning any of that on you, or saying you were implying any of that. It's just what inspired me what to express a couple of ... frustrations, that's all. Me, not you.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

While I do realize you were the one who linked to the platform in its entirety (which I thought was pretty interesting myself), I was thinking of the responses of the others when I said free-for-all. I imagine that there's no way any discussion of Goldberg's book would not be a free-for-all, or that very few of those debating its content would actually have stooped to read it.

As to the hunting, I looked in early on that one, saw a pretty decent exchange of thoughts, and wasn't interested enough in the subject myself to return. Thus, when I noticed the large number of comments some time later, I figured something was up, it probably wasn't good, and there was no point wading in as the comment total was approaching 100, at which point he loons are usually flocking around.