The animals of the world clearly have it out for Dylan McWilliams, a 20-year-old from Colorado. While on vacation in Hawaii last week he was bitten by a shark. Luckily, he was able to make it back to shore and received a few stitches to his leg. But that wasn’t his first run-in with a deadly animal.
Last year, McWilliams was teaching a survival skills course in his home state when a bear wandered over and attacked him. McWilliams taught his students how to survive a bear attack that day, as at one point the bear had his head in its mouth. Authorities later hunted down and killed the bear. And even that wasn’t McWilliams’ first animal attack.
While hiking in Utah several years ago, he was bitten by a rattlesnake. Fortunately, there wasn’t much venom released, and the dose he got only sickened him for a while.
Congratulations, Dylan McWilliams, you are a shining example to mankind. But you may want to figure out why you’re so tasty.
PETA better watch out. Monkey artists are just as cagey and more likely to throw sh*tfits as human artists.
Nearly 100 years ago, the nation was gripped by the Scopes Monkey Trial, which disappointingly did not end in a tense cross-examination of a monkey. If that case about whether science teachers can teach evolution was the defining case of American society in 1925, then the Monkey Selfie Trial of 2018 is our generation’s.
The case of PETA on behalf of Naruto, a monkey who took some selfies using photographer David J. Slater’s camera and Slater later taking credit for the photos in a book, sums up pretty much everything about our creative culture today. Just as early 20th century Americans wondered if embracing the benefits of new science and technology meant giving up their spiritual identity, so too does Naruto (if that is, in fact, the monkey’s legal name) grapple with his own unrewarded vanity and questions about the true ownership of digital intellectual property.
Both are complicated topics that we will debate well into the next century, as we wonder when, oh when, will we see a monkey wearing a judge’s robe and barrister wig preside over a televised small claims trial. While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled Monday, upholding a lower court that, no, Naruto doesn’t own the rights to his selfie photos, we will also still wonder who owns the selfies that we shoot and share online.
But, what isn’t ambiguous? That, as hippy-dippy as PETA can be, nobody–not nobody–out-liberals the 9th Circuit Appeals Court.
The 9th didn’t have to weigh in; PETA and the photographer already settled. Mr. Slater will donate 25 percent of the earnings from his book to charities “that protect the habitat of Naruto and other crested macaques in Indonesia,” as PETA described it.
Instead of taking the obvious “of course the monkey doesn’t have rights” avenue, the court believes PETA, Naruto’s legal “next friend,” did not adequately repair damages to Naruto. The judges question PETA’s settlement, alleging that they abandoned Naruto to fund their own “institutional interests” instead of directly benefiting him.
Unless Naruto gets his pay day, and whatever other candy bars he deserves, this was not ethical treatment, PETA. You just got Ninthed!
Be on the lookout for diseased NYC mice. They’re somewhere out there.
Who among us hasn’t cried watching An American Tail? (It’s OK, the Internet can’t see you nodding.) Fievel Mousekewitz, a young mouse from Russia, emigrates to America to escape Cossack cats and ends up separated from his family in New York City. Of course it’s sad — because Fievel is an illegal immigrant carrying superbugs.
A study of mice throughout New York City reveals that Fievel’s great-great-great-great-great … (mouse generations are ridiculous) … great-grandchildren are carrying disease-causing bacteria, including a few antibiotic-resistant germs.
Three percent of the mice carried Salmonella bacteria, 14 percent carried disease-causing Shigella, 12 percent carried the food poisoning germ Clostridium perfringens, 4 percent carried enteropathogenic Escherichia coli and 4 percent carried Clostridium difficile, a notorious cause of often-fatal chronic diarrhea.
“Often-fatal chronic diarrhea.” Clearly, crying our lungs out at their songs wasn’t enough for these Trojan mice.
If you see signs of mice in your domicile, it is critical to take steps to either catch or kill them and clean up all possible surfaces with bleach to disinfect contagion due to urine and feces. And we have to act fast before these vermin go west.
The animals have always played fair, agreeing not to change into other animals — until now. If you live in New York City, now is a good time to panic.
A tiger, a real tiger, was reported on the streets of Harlem yesterday, sending authorities into a confusing and dangerous search. Residents were alerted on their phones to the danger of a loose tiger, and urged to stay indoors. Not long after, police said the beast was really just a raccoon, not a tiger. Yes, the NYPD wants us to believe that someone saw a raccoon, thought it was a tiger, and was so panicked that he or she called authorities, rather than just admitting that there is a dangerous tiger out there that has the ability to change its form.
For all we know, it could have turned itself into a human.
It’s easy for many of us to rail against our animal foes. We aren’t really near wildlife unless we take specific steps to immerse ourselves in the world of the animals. That’s not the case in Alaska, where you can get in a fight with animals at any moment.
In You Don’t Really Care What the City Name Is, Alaska, a man walked up to moose and her calf that were blocking his way. Frustrated, he kicked the bigger moose to get it out of the way. The moose kicked him back. Authorities say the man wasn’t seriously injured in the encounter, and the two moose had left they area before they could be questioned.
The lesson here, fellow warriors, is don’t try to beat an animal with strong legs at its own game.
It’s spring time here in the Northern Hemisphere, and that means the animals have moved from their winter quarters and are on the attack. The War on Animals is here again.
In Connecticut, it’s off to an early start. A bunch of hawks are terrorizing the good people of Fairfield. Local police have warned residents to be careful after several residents have reported hawks swooping down and attacking their heads. State and federal officials have even gotten involved. Hoping to relocate the offending hawks.
You would think they would learn that there’s only one way to deal with these creatures.
As readers of this blog know, humanity is under attack from many different groups: monsters, aliens, zombies, educators and of course artists. But the biggest threats are animals and robots. Walmart wants to combine the two.
Walmart wants to put bees out of business the way it did mom-and-pop stores across the country by using robots. The company filed a patents for robotic bees that pollinate crops. This is obviously very frightening. Walmart wants to put robots and bees at war with each other, and the winner will come for us next.
Australia is filled with crazy people and deadly creatures, and is pretty much deserted in the middle, which basically makes it Florida. And as the summer in the Southern Hemisphere wraps up, it seems like a good time to check in on our allies down under.
In Queensland, some fools decided to save a giant spider from flood waters. The whistling spider, also called the Australian tarantula, was dangling on a tree branch in an attempt to escape a flood, and some passersby decided to help it. Keep in mind this thing is larger than your hand and hisses. They then moved it to a tree in the center of town and probably thought they did a good deed. We can only hope that their arrests are forthcoming.
Also in Queensland, a family finally caught a deadly brown snake living in their yard with the use of a jackhammer. The snake, one of the most poisonous in Australia, had been living under some steps for months. They decided to jackhammer the concrete walkway outside their house to give the beast fewer places to hide.
The plan worked, and the snake was caught in just a couple hours. Well done, brave warriors.
If you have the urge to go out and kill some invasive species, Florida, as always, should be your destination.
The state, which is home to the annual python bounty hunt, is sending researchers to seek out iguanas and kill them by bashing their heads in. According to reports, iguanas have taken over much of South Florida, including many local governments. In an effort to fight back, state tax dollars are paying some scientists to go on an iguana murder spree.
Still think public funding for science is a waste?
There is an ongoing hostage situation in Eugene, Oregon, and unfortunately young people are among those being held hostage. The suspects: wild turkeys.
The campus of Lane Community College has been swamped by wild turkeys that don’t appear to be afraid of humans. The flightless birds are harassing people who get too close, and there are reports of turkey poop covering the campus. A city council member referred to the turkeys as “gangsters.”
If the turkeys refuse to leave a college campus even though no one wants them there, we suspect a better term for them is “alt-right free speech advocates.”
