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Enough With The Gorilla Thing

I’m calling it – enough with the Gorilla story.

What prompted me to write this? I suppose it’s because this is still a news story.

Parents of the boy who fell into gorilla enclosure will not face charges: https://t.co/12GlLAUrD3 pic.twitter.com/pPyN2Ny66Q

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) June 6, 2016

(Full disclosure: I sometimes write for The Daily Beast.)

Now: OF COURSE the parents won’t face charges! That would ridiculous. If for some reason the zoo didn’t have the proper fencing in place, that’s who would face charges. However, by all accounts that I’ve read, the zoo DID have the proper barriers up. Unfortunately, a small child got through them and landed in the gorilla’s area.

Here’s some video. It’s not that shocking but if you don’t want to see it for whatever reason, you’re not missing much, in part because half of it is blocked by a tree. But it doesn’t feature the gorilla getting shot, or the child being harmed.

Here’s Jack Hanna, animal expert, defending what the zoo had to do, which is kill the gorilla.

It’s sad that the gorilla, named Harambe, was killed. But what were they going to do? Let the kid get killed? The gorilla was dragging him around like a sack of potatoes.

By the way, this isn’t the first time a child has fallen into a gorilla habitat. I don’t think this particular gorilla was a Silverback, but that’s only because I don’t know stuff like that. (It appears to not be a Silverback because it doesn’t have a silver back, but I’m color blind, so who knows.) Here’s a video from — wait for it — 2015. You know, a year ago.

This incident worked out much better because EVERYONE was OK. Not saying the circumstances are the same. However, in the 2015 video above, you can see the barrier and in theory it should be enough. It wasn’t.

Oh look! Here’s another time a kid wound up in a gorilla habitat at a zoo. In 1996.

As Kimberly Harrington pointed out on Medium, “do accidents happen anymore? Especially when a kid is involved?” (That’s just a quote from the headline. The whole article is worth reading.) Kimberly posted a lot of memes/tweets that resulted from the Harambe incident, but these two really horrified me.

I mean… wow.

Here’s a quick quote from Ms. Harrington’s excellent article:

This is the perfect (shit) storm for the Internet, especially the American variety, because it involves: a) kids, b) animals, and c) parenting. All of the things that the Internet likes to flip its collective wig over. All of the things that allow the Monday morning quarterbacking to gush forth in a rage orgy. Someone needs to pay! She’s a woman? Let’s call her horrible names! This is our chance, Internet!

Yeah. That pretty much says it all. In 1996, maybe all the Prodigy and Compuserve chat rooms were aflame with enraged parents and animal rights activists digitally duking it out. But I sort of doubt it.

Bottom line: everyone needs to take a breath and calm down. Jack Hanna says the choice was between a human life and a gorilla life (paraphrasing here) and the zookeepers chose the child. It is absolutely sad. But there’s no excuse for the kind of vitriol shown above. You can see much more at the link below.

Me? I say enough. No más. It’s over, Johnny.

Except that these are the Interwebs. It’ll never be over. Well, maybe when something else shows up to outrage people.

See also: Hey America, do accidents happen anymore? Especially when a kid is involved? — Be Yourself — Medium

Getting Kids To Exercise While Being Afraid To Let Them Out Alone

Is there anything more important than teaching kids to exercise? Well, yes, technically there is. But in an age when there are an endless number of screens that children are exposed to, it’s more important than ever to teach kids that it’s important to GET OUTSIDE and run around.

This link is to the American Heart Association web site. Of course, most kids don’t spend a lot of time perusing sites like that. So people come up with cutesy ways to convince them to do it.

I like the NFL’s Play 60 program; I don’t know how effective it is but the idea is certainly a good one. Here’s a video report I did for AOL ParentDish about it. Read more »