Prepare The Handbaskets

Is the world about to end, and nobody told me? I don't mean like in-the-year-2012 end. I mean like, tomorrow, end. Actually, I just mean the U.S. I don't know that the rest of the world has been showing its a$$ as much as we have. I haven't noticed animals milling about willy-nilly like they do just before an earthquake. But people have become increasingly stupid lately.

A boy swims with alligators, loses his arm, and blames the animal rights activists.

A different boy ignores two signs marking an off-limits area, climbs two fences, and loses his head to a roller-coaster. His parents are planning to sue the amusement park. I can't figure out why they need an autopsy.

A model jumps from the 9th floor and loses her life. Guess she won't be blaming anybody. Her parents might not even sue the manufacturers of her antidepressants. She was Russian, after all. Perhaps they are not so litigious as our society. To further complicate matters, it seems that the reporter found it necessary to mention that she was wearing jeans and a tank top, but no shoes. Umm...does that mean something? Should she have paid more heed to her suicide ensemble since she was a model? I don't see anybody talking about the clothes of that alligator swimmer or roller coaster un-artful dodger.

A man shoots two burglars in the back, killing them. The jury acquits him. Doesn't matter that they robbed his neighbor's house, not his. Doesn't matter that he was watching them from inside his own home, then went and got his gun and went outside. He says they were in his yard and he was afraid. I don't know about you, but I don't go outside toward the thing I am afraid of. Do you think it mattered to the jury that they were illegal aliens? Guess who's not getting a civil lawsuit.

A 15-year-old girl competes in a 24-hour bicycle race in Far North Bicentennial Park in Anchorage, Alaska, and is mauled by a bear. She didn't even lose a limb or her life, by cracky! But you can bet I would never let my child go enter that bike race, especially after a grizzly had tried to attack a hiker in that park two weeks earlier. I've been to Alaska, people. And near Juneau, which is even farther south than Anchorage, I saw a bear. It was a cub, and it was across a rapidly-running creek, and I was grateful. I wondered why my uncle, who lived there, had let us go walking through those woods, even after we saw a big ol' bear footprint. Maybe those people do it all the time.

Just like the kid who swam with alligators.