About Stupid

Yes, I know we’ve moved beyond the mere torture and abuse of domesticated, eating animals though it’s far easier to generate sympathy for a mutilated cat or dog than it is of a Black citizen murdered by Police let alone some nameless first responder, wedding, or funeral guest reduced to a blood soaked spot of sand by some cowardly trigger finger thousands of miles away.

Did you know the French eat horsies? It’s called cheval and is said to be delicious when properly prepared. Think of that the next time you read about Chinese dog meat markets and Japanese warehouses of frozen whale and dolphin.

Don’t get the impression I’m some radical vegan. I like a nice rare steak. I just think some of our snap value judgements are… arbitrary.

Which brings us to the Festival of San Fermin, more commonly known as the running of the bulls. Personally I think Ernest Hemingway is a vastly over rated hack of an author and would be hard put to come up with a single work I didn’t completely despise (I think Faulkner and Fitzgerald equally bad and commend to you the study of Dashiell Hammett and Nathanael West).

Among his myriad sins is popularizing the “macho” qualities of getting chair falling drunk on plonk (any cheap and inferior wine, it doesn’t matter) and then stumbling down a street chased by bovines who have no particular quarrel with you but somehow sense that their ultimate fate is to be prodded with pointy sticks until weak and near death, then forced to chase a ball of yarn with some bizarrely costumed asshole behind it until he mercifully stabs them and lets them bleed out while all the Senoritas swoon at his bravery.

Matador gets gored? The Piccadores did a bad job and by rights ought to face a bull alone, no Piccing. That will learn you. I have no sympathy for any of them.

Which doesn’t explain or excuse this kind of idiocy-

7 Gored in Hair-Raising Pamplona Bull-Run
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JULY 8, 2016, 10:24 A.M. E.D.T.

Six foreigners, including three Americans, were among seven people gored in a hair-raising second running of the bulls Friday at Pamplona’s San Fermin festival, the Navarra regional government said.

A 58-year-old Spaniard identified only by the initials F.L.R., a 73-year-old South African man identified as M.H.O., and a Canadian aged 48 with the initials P.C.O., were in serious condition after being gored, a government statement said.

The regional government said one American, 55 and identified by the initials P.G.O., and another aged 23 years with the initials W.R.O., were gored but their injuries were reported to be less serious. A third, 46-year-old American with the initials J.G.O. and an Indian aged 26, with the initials N.S.O. were also said to have suffered less serious goring injuries.

The regional government said nine others were also taken to city hospitals for other injuries suffered in the run.
…
The nine-day fiesta became world famous with Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises” and attracts thousands of foreign tourists.

Runners dash along with six bulls down a narrow 930-yard (850-meter) course from a holding pen to Pamplona’s bull ring. The bulls later face almost certain death in afternoon bullfights.

It’s really worth reading for this bit-

One runner, American Cindi Campbell, had a close call when she fell as one of the bulls came behind her. One man tried to protect her on the ground while husband, Marshall Campbell, pulled the beast away by the horn.

“This was my first and last time,” said 53-year-old Campbell, an accountant from Cave Creek, Arizona, who only sprained her foot.

She said she had watched her husband and friend running Thursday and thought the bulls would just pass her by. The first one did but a second made a go for her.

“I’m lucky to be alive actually,” she told The Associated Press. “I still say I’m glad I did it. Because if I hadn’t done it I would regret it.”

Cindi, you’re a moron. Darwin is unpleasantly surprised you’ve survived and hopes that you haven’t reproduced.

A traveling salesman stays overnight with a farm family. When the family gathers to eat there’s a pig seated at the table. And the pig has three medals hanging around his neck and a peg leg. The salesman says, “Um, I see you have a pig having dinner with you.”

“Yes,” says the farmer. “That’s because he’s a very special pig. You see those medals around his neck? Well, the first medal is from when our youngest son fell in the pond, and he was drowning, and that pig swam out and saved his life. The second medal, that’s from when the barn caught fire and our little daughter was trapped in there and the pig ran inside, carried her out and saved her life. And the third medal, that’s from when our oldest boy was cornered in the stock yard by a mean bull, and that pig ran under the fence and bit the bull on the tail and saved the boy’s life.”

“Yes,” says the salesman, “I can see why you let that pig sit right at the table and have dinner with you. And I can see why you awarded him the medals. But how did he get the peg leg?”

“Well,” says the farmer, “a pig like that– you don’t eat him all at once.”