BARB RHUBARB
By now you’ve heard that “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin was stabbed through the heart by a stingray.
Can you stand it?
When I saw the headline Steve ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Irwin Dies appear in my Yahoo! news alert, I said to myself, “let it be eaten by crocodiles, please let it be eaten by crocodiles” but no… it’s even better! Stabbed through the heart by a fucking stingray!
I feel bad for his wife and for his kids, especially his youngest, who is only two and will never know his father. But when he’s swapping stories in the Dead Dad Club, it’s going to be hard to top “stabbed through the heart by a stingray.”
Which, by the way, is my new default answer for when things get shitty. “Well, at least I didn’t get stabbed through the heart by a stingray.”
posted by craig at 11:40 AM
4 Comments:
Personally, I find his death tragic (and not in the least bit funny). Steve Irwin was one of the greatest environmentalists of our generation. He brought awareness about environmental and wildlife conservation issues to many people that would never have had a clue without him. Sure, he was a little bit crazy, but he was passionate about his mission, and it was that craziness that endeared him to people around the world. His vibrant personality will be missed.
12:23 AM
I thought of you as a bit of a scuz bucket over your smarmy little rant about Katie Couric, but your nearly "giggly" remarks about the death of Steve Irwin make you seem more scuz than bucket. Your "sympathy" for his wife and kids has a tinny echo.
6:32 PM
Look, I refuse to feel bad about someone who died while purposefully putting himself in unnecessary and stupidly dangerous situations. Steve Irwin may well have been a remarkable man and conservation activist, and there’s no doubt that he was beloved on several continents, but that doesn’t change the fact that his entire shtick was antagonizing dangerous animals while acting like a clown. I know that this was part of the act, and I’d bet dollars to donuts that he was in fact quite a smart guy, and clearly passionate about what he did. His show wasn’t for my tastes, and that’s fine. However, I’d also bet that for everyone he educated about various animals, he also motivated a kid or dim-witted adult to go out into the wild and handle animals best left alone.
Am I callous in attitude about his death? Yeah, I am. I didn’t know the guy, I’m not into animal conservatism and Steve Irwin didn’t really make any sort of impact on my life one way or the other. I’d also argue that his buffoonish persona makes it easy to think of him as not a real person, but just a character on TV.
And finally, “Anonymous,” you may find it difficult to believe that I can be both indifferent toward his death and sympathetic to his family’s loss, but I am. As far as my feelings toward Katie Couric… we can discuss that at a different time.
9:04 AM
Steve Irwin the "environmentalist"? Well, he was entertaining, I imagine, kind of along the lines of fart jokes for male humans at or above the age of 18 months, but for anyone who knows anything or has any real interest in animal behavior, he's a buffoon. "Crikey!" A real live "Gorgeous?!" buffoon. He should've heeded his own "Danger! Danger! Danger!" instincts, left critters well enough alone and he'd be here today to watch his own offspring grow up. He's dead, that's a shame, particularly for his famiy, but it's his own damn fault.
12:59 PM
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