Of Squirrels and Men

A friend sent me this link a few weeks ago, of a few men “wrecking havoc” in a way that “sparked anger around the world” (direct quotes from the reporting). What could it be? A serial killer? Genocide? Something racist? Some U.S. ambassador punched a foreign head of state in the face? Another U.S. ambassador brutally murdered just before Obama went to another Vegas fundraiser?

Nope. A squirrel kicked into the Grand Canyon sparked national outrage. Yep. And there is a $15,000 reward for the capture of what appears of French tourists in the U.S. If the lowlife squirrel-snuffer-outer bolts to the U.K. or France… there are rewards for his capture there too.

My honest reaction was a raised brow and a half-chortle with an audible “Wha…?” I mean, its sick. But it’s hilarious. But it’s cruel. But it’s pathetic. Would I say it was “heart stopping,” as the reporting says? No, I’d say the story I read of ISIS literally ripping a woman in half who wouldn’t convert to Islam by tying her arms and legs to two cars going in opposite directions was “heart stopping” for me, personally.

You can watch the news video in the link, but even if you just skim the written article, here’s my favorite part:  “It’s not clear whether the squirrel died, but it was likely. The canyon’s average drop is one mile.” So… there’s still hope? Seriously? Did I just read that right? “It is not clear…”? Well if we’re offering $15,000 for the perp, how many dollars are we sending to helicopter rescue pilots and forensic detectives? The public has a right to know if this squirrel survived a mile-long drop.

Or, how high did it bounce? Was it a splat, or a crunch? Did a bald eagle or a peregrine falcon grab it in mid-plummet? These are important questions, people.

Sure, it’s sick (soccer players could also say the kicking form was substandard). I wouldn’t do it (unless the squirrel stole something from my wife’s purse). But it’s not extraordinarily sick. I’ve been to the Grand Canyon, and those squirrels are nothing but furry pickpockets. Honestly, my wife and I took a picture of the Grand Canyon, and then immediately chased away a squirrel with its front half scrounging around inside another lady’s purse. It stole a case of some sort and tried to drag off the whole purse.

Maggie the newscaster says in the news story that although they have all seen some stuff, “This video sent gasps throughout our newsroom.” I’m just wondering… what reaction does your staff have when shown pictures of partial birth abortions? Aren’t humans more impor….SQUIRREL!!!

The news video continues with “local nature lovers are stunned.” Stunned in the way that I am when I read about a morgue worker in Cleveland having sex with 100 corpses, one of them a decapitated woman?

And what about local human lovers? I’m just saying… a U.S. journalist was just beheaded on camera by an ISIS terrorist with a British accent, at a time when the British government admits they have more Muslim citizens fighting for the terrorists than they do their own army. I mean, it’s almost li….SQUIRREL!!!!

Now, I’m not saying these squirrel-kicking goons shouldn’t be ridiculed and even prosecuted. But it’s odd when the reward offered for their capture by animal rights groups like PETA ($15,000) is three times the maximum penalty the courts would impose ($5,000).  Which is just ridicu….SQUIRREL!!!

Again, from the article, PETA Director Martin says the video was “sadistic.” OK. Sadistic. C.S. Lewis told us: “Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” If squirrel-punting is “sadistic,” what is female genital mutilation (i.e. burning off a woman’s clitoris so they will never feel pleasure in sex). “Super very sadistic?

I’m not sharing my views on this because I think kicking squirrels into canyons is an issue for the next Gallup poll. But we do often shift our collective rage to very stupid things while the civil society crumbles. I mean, was there even a $15,000 international reward for the capture of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who kept baby feet in jars and killed babies as they cried in his toilet? This is a squirrel – a single squirrel, possibly with a criminal squirrel record, possibly very unpopular with the other squirrels, possibly a squirrel that cheated on his last mate while she was bed-ridden with squirrel flu, possibly a squirrel who cussed out the human in the native squirrel tongue. Maybe it was squirrel karma for the time he chased a rival squirrel off the cliff to its untimely demise.

I’m 25, and there are talking heads on TV longer than I’ve possessed the power of speech, but I still want to share some wisdom with gasping newscasters in newsrooms across the county: “Be thou not flabbergasted for one squirrel, when thy country hath snuffeth out 55 million human babies.”

Seems obvious, but it’s… squirrel.