How I Keep Getting Myself in Big Trouble

Could one of these elephants have been the victim of the Tupelo, Mississippi drive-by shooting?  By the way, Ringling Bros. announced this year that they were phasing  elephants out of their shows after years of protests.

So I’m wasting time on Facebook.  Nothing new in that.  As I am scrolling past pictures of kittens, placards extolling the virtue of vodka as self-medication for a wretched life, pathetic pleas to share a photo or be publicly exposed as a heartless beast, Obama is a Commie/Muslim/dog fucker exposés, liberals bleeding their hearts out all over the screen, snap shots of lunch, all the usual crap, my eye falls upon one of those this-story-is-odd-and-cute things.  I couldn’t help myself.  I clicked on the link.

What I found was one of those snarky news items on Gawker:

We may never know if the person who fired his gun into the BancorpSouth Arena parking lot in Tupelo, Mississippi at 2 a.m. Tuesday morning intended to hit the circus elephant traveling there while on tour with a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey show. We may never know if the shooter, in the heat of the moment, mistook the elephant for a much smaller human-sized human with whom he was having a personal conflict. We may never know what the elephant—an honor student, active in his church choir, well-liked and respected by his peers—was doing in the shadowy parking lot so late at night. (Probably just resting.)

What we do know is that in the wee hours of this morning, a vehicle drove to the area where the circus animals were being kept, fired a gun at the show’s Asian elephant, and peeled off into the night, perhaps in search of other budget safari options.

Todd Hunt, executive director of the arena where the circus is scheduled to perform April 11th through 14th, took to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal to reassure circus personnel that elephants are not usually shot in Tupelo, Mississippi.

“We want to assure them that Tupelo is safe and that this isn’t normal or tolerated.”

The BancorpSouth Arena and parking lot in Tupelo, scene of the crime.

We will assume that under the snark, there was an actual news story, but frankly I did not have the energy or will power to proceed with the level of investigation needed for so much on the web.

But what caught my attention were the comments, some matching snark for snark, but others from that special species of deadly earnest animal lovers who you dare not cross.  This one caught my eye:

Lambster—I don't find this funny on any level. How its even still legal to have animals in the circus is beyond me. And beyond disgusting. Anyone who takes their children to see animals performing in captivity deserve to be shot at ...not the animals 

These sell like hotcakes.  I am not kidding.

This is what I wanted to post in reply there, but didn’t because I did not want to get caught up in an endless round of sputtering indignation.  So I am going to post it here, because this is my pop stand and I can.  Some of my animal loving friends will be just as outraged.  In fact I am sure of it.  I may be stricken from some list of acceptable human beings.

Dear Lambaster—I recognize you, or at least the tribe to which you belong.  You are the person who reads about a house fire that kills a family of six—and weeps for the cat.  The person with icy disregard for the homeless who will spend hours finding a home for a schnauzer/poodle mix six states away.  The lady who screams at a six year old for tugging to hard on her puppy’s leash.  The guy who reads about some animal abuse and dashes off a blistering letter to the editor demanding a draconian prison sentence but can’t be bothered when his neighbor’s wife is beaten half to death.  And now you are the person who wants to shoot parents who take their child to a circus.

You love animals.  I get it.  You congratulate yourself twenty times a day on your compassion.  You just don’t have much use for people.  Or care about them apart from their duty to tend and care for animals.  What happens to them is not your concern.  Other people will take care of that.  You have a holy cause to which you must be totally devoted wasting no time on rotten humanity.

Of course, I don’t see you as quite as noble as you see yourself.  I see you as a morally despicable human being.  The difference between us is that I don’t want to have you shot.

Told you I would get into trouble.

P.S. This does not mean that I condone elephant abuse, morons with guns, or necessarily endorse the exhibition of animals.  Not that this will help much.