Posted on 09/05/2006 9:05:46 PM PDT by Kitten Festival
R.I.P: Steve Irwin's body isn't yet cold and already the Pecksniffs are out, tut-tutting the late crocodile hunter's risky encounters with wild beasts. They miss the point: Irwin's life was about enriching humans.
Irwin, who died over the weekend after a freak attack by a stingray, did not live a riskless life. In fact, for those who've watched his Animal Planet shows, some wonder why a fatal encounter hadn't happened earlier. But it's indisputable that he mastered nature with a rare talent — a talent that took him to the edge of possibility. For the sake of the rest of us, he shared his gift.
Exclaiming "crikey!" Irwin wrassled gators, handled snakes and got close to creatures with sharp teeth, riveting us all with his sunny confidence reminiscent of the pith-helmet British empire era.
He seemed to defy the barrier of television. "When I talk to the camera, mate, it's not like I'm talking to the camera, I'm talking to you because I want to whip you around and plunk you right there with me," he once said.
Maybe that's why the scolds came crawling out of their cubicles, all but saying Irwin had it coming. Irwin's success seemed to have made them sick to the green gills. Now they stand on his grave and claim to have the last word.
Two classes of critics have shown up in Irwin's case, galled by his distinctly Australian enthusiasm and his brawny persona.
Some are safety-firsters who say no one should touch nature because it's just too risky. Others are cognoscente of sorts who say no one should go near nature because all human contact will spoil it.
On Internet sites like Daily Kos, for instance, the local consensus was to condemn Irwin for taking chances, something almost as "bad" as soldiers
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BTTT!
Ping!
He lived life to the hilt, which is more than 99.9% of his naysayers can prove. I for one found him entertaining, informative, and inspirational.
Me too!
Amen to that!
Dennis Prager did a show on Irwin today and the bigger implications of it all. Toward the end of the show, he made the comment to the affect, why couldn't the TV world lose MTV instead Steve Irwin. Follow link to listen to his show.
http://www.townhall.com/talkradio/Show.aspx?RadioShowID=3
I wasn't a fan, but that's because I just don't care about the material, not because I disliked him. Certain people seem to have jumped on his death for a very obvious, very sad reason:
He lived his life without asking anyone else for permission. He lived his life the way he chose to live it, not the way the Daily Kos or even FR would have proscribed.
Little people who live comfortable lives without adventure, without coloring outside the lines, expect congratulations and praise for Doing As They're Told. They want the applause, and the thrill of being alive, without doing anything to deserve them. They want to live lives of excitement, but they like things kept at a nice air conditioned 65 degrees.
These people HATE IT when someone else shows them that they made their own choices, and their choices gave them the lives they have.
We ALL make choices that lead to the lives we have, though our circumstances are different. Some people want to mope and say they never had a chance, they didn't get to choose, etc. But that's bull--we all get to choose how we deal with what we're handed.
Someone like Irwin committed the cardinal sin to these people--he lived a fun life. His death gives these little people a chance to crow that he was wrong, somehow, because he didn't live a long life. Yet he packed more adventure and fun and LOVE of life into his 44 years than most people would if they lived to be 150. (And they would like to live that long, though one wonders why.)
That pisses people off, this love and enjoyment of life, because it tells the Little People that they had the chance to live as they wished--not as Irwin did, but doing whatever it was they dreamed of doing before they conformed--and the person they have to blame for NOT living as they chose was the person in the mirror.
So whenever someone mocks this guy for dying in the course of doing what HE chose to do, that person is someone who was too scared to have a similarly adventurous life, and is confessing to having a soul the size of a dried pea.
Beautifully said!
He was a fool - but an entertaining fool. Shame he killed himself so young.
All these idiots go "Ooooh What nice pretty bear." "Aww - That tiger won't hurt you if you're nice to them." "I bet I'm faster than that cobra." "Let's pet that nice 5-foot barracuda with the 2 inch fangs."
Shows like this one simply perpetuated the myths that "our planet is nice and gentle and only WE are bad and can't everything just get along ... Ooooooohhhh.... Let's tap the heads of the great White Shark - poke Moray eels with fingers" ... the idiot list grows and grows.
The entertainment value is from the audience hoping for and betting on disaster which WILL come when luck runs out. That's why the Romans had their Colloseum (aka Colosseum) Games- the people enjoyed them - later they demanded the blood sacrifices of the gladiators to entertain them.
What will WE demand for blood sacrifice when our "gladiators'" battles grow boring ?
C.S. Lewis once wrote that beyond the great sea of the beyond is pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, more pleasure than anyone can imagine, real heaven.
Irwin seemed to have a line to that sea C.S. Lewis knew of and he has gone home.
Ps - I liked the guy personally, but honestly, who in here thought that he could go on forever taking those extreme risks without it catching up.
I feel sorry for his family.
Timothy Treadwell had it coming. Steve Irwin did not. The difference between the two is striking. One became a meal, the other a teacher of men, an entertainer, but no fool.
My heart goes out to his wife and kids. I know that he was doing a special with his daughter when he was killed, but does anyone know if his daughter was there when it happened? For her sake, I hope not.
Not just on Daily Kos, we had a few of them on FR.
Fortunately, not many. Kos seemed to be pecksniff central.
Very good.
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