posted
A New York man suffered potentially paralyzing injuries when he was thrown by a young cow in a mock bull fight at the end of the first day of Spain's famed running of the bulls.
posted
I'm sorry...I just can't have any sympathy for people that get injured in acts like this. Why would you be surprised that a huge animal like that could seriously hurt you?!
From the article:
quote:Ducharme was injured in what is known as a vaquilla, in which hundreds of people chase five cows and pull their ears and tails in the bull ring where the runs end. The cows are much smaller than fighting bulls, and have smaller horns, but still weigh nearly a half-ton each.
Not only did he put himself in with five unrestricted large animals but he & group were there to TAUNT the animals by pulling their ears & tails. 'Nuff said.
-------------------- "I reject your reality and substitue my own!" - Adam Savage, Mythbusters Posts: 411 | From: Indiana | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
When someone does something that is obviously dangerous for the sole purpose of getting a thrill, I have real hard time feeling sorry for them when they are hurt or killed. When the deadly activity also involved harming another person, or an animal, I have a real hard time not giggling.
I take heat from my wife for this attitude when there is something on the news about someone getting killed or hurt due to their own jack-assery. She says it is not very Christian of me, and she likes to rebuke me in the name of Jesus for it.
Posts: 154 | From: NewCastle, DE | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
"I cheer when a bull at Pamplona sinks his horns deep into the lower intestines of some drunken European macho swine. And my cheers grow louder when the victim is a young American macho-jock tourist asshole. Especially if the bull is able to swing the second horn around and catch the guy right in the nuts."
George Carlin
-------------------- Ralphie, get off the stage sweetheart. Posts: 2041 | From: Yuba City, California | Registered: Apr 2002
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Canuckistan
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
quote:She says it is not very Christian of me, and she likes to rebuke me in the name of Jesus for it.
People still do that?
I used to see that a lot at the Pentecostal church I used to go to. As I grew up, I found it hard to take said people seriously.
-------------------- People need to stop appropriating Jesus as their reason for behaving badly. It's so irritating. (Avril) Posts: 8429 | From: New York run by the Swiss (Toronto) | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by DougW: I take heat from my wife for this attitude when there is something on the news about someone getting killed or hurt due to their own jack-assery. She says it is not very Christian of me, and she likes to rebuke me in the name of Jesus for it.
Mathew 7:
quote:3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but don't consider the beam that is in your own eye?
4 Or how will you tell your brother,'Let me remove the speck from your eye;' and behold, the beam is in your own eye?
5 You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye.
-------------------- IIRC, it wasn't the shoe bomber's loud prayers that sparked the takedown by the other passengers; it was that he was trying to light his shoe on fire. Very, very different. Canuckistan Posts: 3694 | From: Arizona | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
ohhh. The *correct* response to that.... is to immediately drop to the floor and start writhing and foaming at the mouth... ...but that's not a very christian response either, I guess
-------------------- Windows cannot open this file. To open this file correctly, defenestrate, then try running the file again... Posts: 5383 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
I love this Pearls Before Swine strip. Sums it all up nicely.
Posts: 19 | From: Redwood City, CA | Registered: Dec 2005
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ThreeQuarks
I'll Be Home for After Christmas Sales
posted
My fiance ran with the bulls a few years ago, being an idiot 19-year-old (but he was at least smart enough not to tell me, or his parents, that he was doing it before the thing was safely over). At least in his experience, very few people were actually taunting/tormenting the bulls: most consider their hands full trying to run from them!
The run through the streets ends in the vaquilla, which he didn't know about before actually running it. In a cramped, crowded ring with five angry animals, he found it very hard to keep track of where all of the cows were (he wanted to keep away from them, not yank their tails or other idiocy).
This kid may not have been trying to hurt the animals at all. Not that I'm arguing his actions weren't dumb ...
Posts: 109 | From: Pittsburgh, PA | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: I take heat from my wife for this attitude when there is something on the news about someone getting killed or hurt due to their own jack-assery. She says it is not very Christian of me, and she likes to rebuke me in the name of Jesus for it. [/QB]
She actually rebukes you in the name of Jesus? How very old-fashioned of her.
Anyway, this guy was running ahead of enraged bulls on purpose, he knew the risks, so no sympathy here either...
-------------------- Free the West Memphis Three Posts: 98 | From: Romford, Essex, United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
I find this "he knew the risks, no sympathy" argument pretty strange. Sure, they get less sympathy than an innocent bystander, but they still get sympathy. I still feel for athletes of all types who get hurt in their chosen sport - including dangerous sports like motor racing or hangliding.
I'm not going to shed tears for them (actually, I think I might have when Ayrton Senna died), and I'm not going to donate money for this person's recovery, but I still feel basic human sympathy for the hurt suffered by another person. That he knew the risks doesn't make him undeserving of that.
-------------------- You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. Posts: 87 | From: Seoul. South Korea | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I lose a lot of my sympathy when someone gets hurt teasing an animal, even if they are picking on someone bigger'n them. Most other sports that involve risk only involve risk to the person playing, they do not have risk and injury to a feeling being (who had no choice) as part and parcel of the whole. To sum up my position: I feel sympathy if you are behaving like an idiot and fall out of a tree; I don't feel a lot if you were teasing the neighbor's dog and he jumped over the fence and bit you.
-------------------- "Accompanied by the ghosts of dolphins, the ghost of a ship sailed on..." Terry Pratchett Posts: 660 | From: Gainesville, FL | Registered: Dec 2005
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DemonWolf
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
quote:Originally posted by CaptainWunderpants: I find this "he knew the risks, no sympathy" argument pretty strange. Sure, they get less sympathy than an innocent bystander, but they still get sympathy. I still feel for athletes of all types who get hurt in their chosen sport - including dangerous sports like motor racing or hangliding.
True, but the hanglider is not participating in his chosen sport for the purpose of tormenting seagulls.
This guy was tormenting a bull. The bull injured him. That is why we have little sympathy for him.
Had a haglider crashed, I would feel more sympatheric.
-------------------- Friends are like skittles: they come in many colors, and some are fruity!
posted
Hm. Personally I hope the bulls take every chance they get at sticking one back to mankind - all the bulls die in the ring eventually, even if they don't just die in the street which they often do, exhausted, terrified and with drunk idiots lauding over them.
So, sympathy? Not from me, in fact I urge you try again next year - give bullkind another shot at ya
Yup - that rolled up newspaper's gonna do you a lot of good...
-------------------- This is where I come up with something right? Something really clever... Posts: 6552 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2002
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posted
I once had a rather slimy landlord who used to go to see the running of the bulls each year - we always kind of hoped a bull would catch up with him. However, I don't think he actually ran but just watched the mayhem from the sidelines.
-------------------- So many books, so little time. Posts: 1192 | From: McDonough, Georgia | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by DanielCraft: Anyway, this guy was running ahead of enraged bulls on purpose, he knew the risks, so no sympathy here either...
Just a slight nitpick, he wasn't running with the bulls, he was in a ring with cows. Still stupid, but at least blame him for the stupid thing he actually did.
quote:Originally posted by CaptainWunderpants: [QB] I find this "he knew the risks, no sympathy" argument pretty strange. Sure, they get less sympathy than an innocent bystander, but they still get sympathy. I still feel for athletes of all types who get hurt in their chosen sport - including dangerous sports like motor racing or hangliding. /QB]
But he's not an athlete- he's someone who thought it was a good idea to get in a ring with hundreds of other excited people (a stupid idea in itself) and try to escape from large, dangerous, tormented animals.
EDIT: it's not a sport, either.
Do you feel sympathy for people who complain that they have a hangover after drinking?
Do you have any wine? All of this would go a lot smoother in an altered state of reality. Posts: 779 | From: Southampton, England | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
It's the difference between "he deserved it" and "he had it coming". I think the former means "he received what should be the usual consequence of his actions" and the latter means "he received what is the usual consequence of his actions". While I don't think that people who travel long distances specifically to help torment animals at great risk to themselves necessarily deserve to get gored, I think that they do have it coming. Either way, I don't have much sympathy, although in general I am not in favor of people getting paralyzed.
-------------------- Fools! You've over-estimated me! Posts: 3745 | From: New York City | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Jay Tea - The rolled up newspaper is his program to tell the bulls apart from one another.
Posts: 94 | From: Milwaukee, WI | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Well, can't say I'm for the bull running, basically amounts to animal torture for the amusement of drunken idiots (American and European alike) which I really cannot get behind, in fact I'd wager there are really only two reasons that people, as a whole, aren't more outraged:
(1) Its been going on for a pretty long time and has become somewhat commonplace.
(2) It involves an animal that people don't tend to consider cute and cuddly, more large and dangerous (and food, in the case of cows).
If tomorrow I started a "running of the dogs" where I released a handful of dogs into a crowd and we all took part in harming and tormenting them and ultimatly killing the ones that weren't done in during the festivities I doubt too many people would think well of me.. Same thing, different animal.
Though, to be fair to mankind, animals are my weak point, don't get me wrong I understand their place, animals that are thretening me, or simply being a pest (mosquetos I'm looking at you) are going to have to go one way or another and I enjoy all mannor of meat and as such understand the need for farming and hunting, but torture is a different.. Uh.. Animal all togather. Tormenting, harming or killing an animal for no other reason then to amuse yourself is not only wrong, IMO, but scary as well as I don't tend to like people who have such a disregard for life.
Slapping a fly thats bothering you is one thing, pinning it down and taking pleasure as you pull off its wings and legs is another, same thing can be applied, and of course modified as necessary, to all animals.
-------------------- "All people are responsible for the good that they didn't do" Posts: 4774 | From: Virginia | Registered: Feb 2004
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