On the Reggie front
I swore I wouldn't post about the non-event that is Reggie, but I figured this was worth mentioning. Apparently Steve Irwin's life has come to its natural conclusion.
life on the edge
daily musings about the oddities of san pedro, california.
28 Comments:
i dunno, i wouldn't call getting a stingray barb through the chest a "natural conclusion"
If you're Steve Irwin, yes. Anyone else, no. He made a career for himself by desperately seeking fame by deliberately mishandling, pissing off and irritating animals. He reaped what he sowed.
You're being way harsh and I'm felling pretty disgusted with you right now. The guy just died.
oh, am also feeling pretty disgusted too.
I agree with the previous post. Irwin was a very proactive preservationist and used his television fame to focus attention on the issue in Australia.
The Daily Telegraph in Australia (http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/) has some great articles highlighting his efforts and colorful biography.
His death is a large loss for more than just Animal Planet.
Calamari you can be a pessimist about things going down in San Pedro but this is out of line.
I'm sorry - I don't see how his death could come as a suprise or in any way be unexpected. Steve Irwin's death was the natural result of his choices in life. I don't approve of his choices, I'm suprised he (or members of his immediate family & crew) survived as long as he did. I see him in the same class of misguided "friends of the animals" as people like Timothy Treadwell, who love animals but don't respect them. I'm sorry if anyone takes offense at my critisism of the man, but I'm not going to retract my statement that his death was a natural result of his life.
I'm not much of a pessimist for what's going down in San Pedro - I'm pretty keen on the way things are going around town.
"He reaped what he sowed".
Sounds pretty smug to me.
Kid, just watch yourself because you keep sticking your foot in it. You're earning the reputation of "misguided friend of Pedro" with your arrogant, insensitive commentary. I, for one, am embarassed at the thought that folks may see you as any form of online ambassador of San Pedro.
You definitely don't represent my viewpoint.
I don't intend to represent anyone's viewpoint but my own and I have no intention of being an ambassador for San Pedro. No one has to agree with me or support anything that I say or do. If readers of this blog want to see me as a misguided asshole, it's totally their right to do so.
He did reap what he sowed - he put himself in danger and he got killed. It's a statement of fact. I'm not going to feel pity for him, and I don't see his death as tragic or unexpected. Death is a natural thing. It's going to happen to me, to you, to everyone you ever heard of, everyone has their time and that's it. We choose to do what we want to do with the time we get, and sometimes our choices hasten death. I imagine that Irwin probably knew that his work might get himself or others killed, and he chose to do his work anyways. That was his choice and his life.
His death doesn't change my opinion about him, frankly it reinforces my opinion that he was both a poor role model and that whatever good works he most likely did, they are lessened by his foolishness and willingness to endanger himself and others.
How exactly am I sticking my foot in my mouth here? You don't like my statements so my foot is in my mouth? I'm not following you on this one.
Calamari has the right to say/write anything he wishes
to. I have to accept that, but I don't have to like it and I don't.
though i disagree with his choice of words, i agree with calamari's main point.
if you play with fire, eventually you're going to get burned people.
this is the thing, as the child of an immigrant that i think native born Americans don't understand.
there is no fear. while good for some things, it's not always good for others.
like fearing crocodiles and snakes? probably a good thing. Fearing going in the ocean to surf? not so good.
it's a state of mind that our society embraces - the fearless macheesmo.
irwin knew the risks. but that doesn't mean he should be praised for what he did. his kids now have no father. was hea fool? i won't go that far. but he took risks when he didn't need to.
"Death is a natural thing. It's going to happen to me, to you, to everyone you ever heard of, everyone has their time and that's it."
Wow, that's quite the profound run-on sentence, broseph. Remind me to book a speaking engagement for you during the next local meeting of community college dropouts & pseudo-philosophical pontificators.
Let's see, if your only criteria for disrespecting the memory of a man is to disagree with the way he lived his life, then it stands to reason that someday, one could post a pithy little obituary about you and how appropriate it was that you bored yourself to death or something. So, Calamari, when you die this lonely death having choked on the uncontrollable spew of your own noxious prose, you're saying we don't have to show any respect for you either, ah? We could all wave it away and say you simply reaped what you sowed?
***********
Get this straight: Somewhere out there is a family member or friend mourning the loss of a man you really know nothing about. So if you have any sympathy for his loved ones or plain old common decency, you'll acknowledge that your comments were out of line. No one expects you to praise Steve Irwin. You just have to shut up and let the grieving have their time to heal before you start in with your self-righteous crap. It's called restraint. It goes hand-in-hand with maturity and you might want to consider exercising some of it.
Look Kirk - I'm not writing a technical paper here - I don't care much about critisism of my writing style (or anyone else's) on this blog. When folks start looking for reasons to attack other posters by taking apart their sentences, the discussion has usually degenerated to name calling and I don't care for that kind of BS. This is a place for causal statements, written casually. Did you understand my sentence? I presume you did (or felt that you did), given that you responded to them.
The idea that death is natural, is not a "profound" sentiment. It's obvious.
People can write whatever they like about me, whether I live or die. I don't equate having died with deserving the respect of strangers. You certainly don't have to show any respect for me, living or dead. Respect is earned, if I haven't earned someone's respect, I don't expect it. Why would someone's having died suddenly grant them respect that they lacked in life?
I know nothing about? Irwin was a public figure. I'm familiar with his body of professional work, and I'm critical of it. His death hasn't, and won't change things. I don't have to shut up, I don't owe anyone "time to grieve", and I felt that my original statements and my continued statements have exercised restraint. I have no desire to rake Iriwn over the coals (which would be easy to do, and inappropriate), any statement I've made characterising him was made in response to a reader. I respect the people that post here on the blog and I don't mind defending my statements, even if that means expanding them beyond and outside their original context.
I still have trouble understanding how someone could take serious issue with the original post. I kept it short and to the point, avoided critical issues related to Irwin's work and I felt it was relativiely neutral in character. I presume the statement "he reaped what he sowed" is what seems to raise the most hackles here? I consider that a neutral and appropriate description of the situation in which he was killed. I didn't (and wouldn't) use language like "he got what he deserved" because that would be smug, spiteful and in extremely poor taste, not to mention inaccacurate.
This is probably the most compassion you're capable of. Maybe one of these days, you'll really get why your posting raised as many boos and hisses as it did. None of us are here to teach you.
Australian's have a very different view of Steve Irwin that you Americans do.
He was kind of embarrasing but mostly harmless. Anyway, how about that death... You gotta gotta laugh at this
Of all the things to cause hysterical comments here on Life On The Edge...this?
Look, Kirk, what you feel is what you feel. But I just want to humbly suggest that media-generated "grief" for television personalities halfway around the world sucks up emotional energy that might be better spent on people in your own life who can appreciate it, and who might need it more than you think they do.
I really, really, really don't think that any of the people who truly grieve the loss of Steve Irwin--i.e., his family and friends--are currently scouring the Internet to see whether some blogger in San Pedro is making snarky comments about him.
You confuse grief with offense. A person doesn't have to be influenced by the media to be appalled at Calamari's posting.
This is not just about respect for the dead, but for his living survivors.
At least IMBG acknowledges the comments are snarky.
IMBG: "I really, really, really don't think that any of the people who truly grieve the loss of Steve Irwin--i.e., his family and friends--are currently scouring the Internet to see whether some blogger in San Pedro is making snarky comments about him."
Just because someone isn't looking doesn't make it right.
Of all the things to bring IMBG out of hibernation...this. He sees his buddy listing in the tide against him and decides to step in and defend Calamari's right to mouth off about a guy who just died. How does he do it? By characterizing commenters' objections as "media-fueled", typical of one of his gambits. If the offense people take to Calamari's post is the product of something akin to mass hypnosis, as opposed to the natural response of persons who govern themselves by certain ethical standards, then it serves to make Calamari's choice of post somehow more valid right? At least that's the way IMBG's little cameo appearance is supposed to work.
Tell us, what made you decide it was time to tag in? Was it the 3rd person who posted their objection? The 7th? 10th?
Let's change the subject shall we?:
Look what the Breeze printed in today's paper about the waterfront project.
This should make all you anti-development folks happy.
The reason I've been in hibernation is because I've been spending the summer actively grieving an actual person who was close to me. So death and grief are the only subjects that really get a rise out of me lately. (I wasn't even all that excited to learn about the Port's recent change of direction regarding B2B, although intellectually I understand that it's awesome news from an anti-shitty-development standpoint.)
Life is too short to spend getting offended on other people's behalf, is all I'm saying.
You guys are a little confused, BTW. When I posted here before, I used to spend most of my time arguing with Marshall, remember? Dude just happens to be blameless in this case. Steve Irwin was a public figure. He chose the limelight, and his death will be discussed, debated, and joked about in public just as his life was. BFD.
Derek, didn't you once pull something out of your ass about another poster here, that you disagreed with, being a criminal? And now you're crying crocodile tears (hyuk hyuk) because Calamari said something -true- about a well known celebrity. You've got some interesting standards that you set for yourself and others, pal.
IMBG: "Life is too short to spend getting offended on other people's behalf"
One can only take that logic so far. What about the little guy? Loads of people spend their time on this blog feeling offended for the faceless little guy. Why is it ok to feel offended for him, with the big scawy devewopers awwegedwy wunning him out of town, but not have sympathy for a more fortunate figure who dies an unfortunate death?
Double standard.
wally the wombat's link (above) could be seen as offensive, but at least it was funny. Calamari's post on Steve Irwin - not so much.
My post was not intended to be humorous.
"One can only take that logic so far. What about the little guy? Loads of people spend their time on this blog feeling offended for the faceless little guy. Why is it ok to feel offended for him, with the big scawy devewopers awwegedwy wunning him out of town, but not have sympathy for a more fortunate figure who dies an unfortunate death?
Double standard."
That was almost logical. Almost.
But of course there's a difference between running people physically out of town, displacing them, making them homeless, etc., on the one hand...and on the other hand, posting a critical comment on the Internet about a rich, famous guy who willingly became famous by taking risks in public.
Double standard? Yup...just like saying "it's OK for you to tap me on the shoulder but not OK for you to punch me in the face" is a double standard...a justified one, in this case.
Displacing somebody from his home = punching in the face. Criticizing somebody on the Intenet = tap on the shoulder. Get it?
Nice try, though.
No one is running anyone out of town, you fucking morons. And equating a hypothetical market-driven rising cost of living to a punch in the face is doubly moronic.
Is anyone holding a gun to anyone's head and marching him out of San Pedro? No. The fact that individuals get out-competed for a place to live doesn't make it unfair. Sorry, but the people who are winning at the game don't owe the losers shit.
When you look at the cost of living in a high-demand area like New York City, do you throw up your hands and whine about how you can't afford to live there? Waitaminute. Scratch that. This is Life on the Edge. Of course you do.
Hey, if they can afford the new San Pedro, they can stay.
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