And the death of one diminishes me
Sep. 5th, 2006 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumIn keeping with the last entry, which I saw as a public statement of private things, comments were disable because I don't think sharing them there would benefit the the piece, nor us much, I am going to continue, a tad.
From![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
klwalton:
If there are one or more people on your friends-list who make your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.
It ain't just one of you, it's a host.
But LJ is a small part of the growth of the world through shrinkage. First came books, rare, and strange and wonderful. Hard to reproduce, but Marco Polo let the world know of China, just as Herodotus let them know of Egypt, and the Plinys let them know of everything.
Then we got the press, and the world exploded, Haklyut gave us the world anew, and all the old guys (the Plinys, Thucydides, etc.) were resurected, and the past was as brilliant as the far flung present.
Radio let us hear the world, and television let us see it.
Steve Irwin was a modern day Marlin Perkins, with a difference: he went out to look at the animals himself.
I understand that much hullaballoo and vitriol has been spent here (on LJ) about him. I can well imagine all the people who are carping at the things he did, the insanity of the risks he tooks (I have it on good authority that some are going past the point of saying his death by animal misadventure was to be predicted, to the point of saying he "got what he deserved," and that is diminshment of a different sort. As William Muny said in, Unforgiven "We all have it coming, Kid,", so the back of my hand to such as them).
For all, or perhaps because of, his theatrical nature, he made a lot of people look at more animals (and "icky" ones) and decide they were cool. Anyone can make lions and zebras look cool, it takes a special talent to make ill-tempered tarantulas look cool. That was his talent, and his gift. He took crazy risks, and Maia and I have gasped at the sheer folly of his snake-handling (don't try that at home). He had some close calls, snake-bite, near snake bite, aggressive crocodiles, Ghu only knows what all else.
He seems to have internalised his famliarity with crocs, and projected it to others (leading to the cries of his abusing his kid, because he took/allowed him to be taken into pens with crocs). I can understand that, and forgive it. Parents do that all the time. I've seen kids in cars without seatbelts. We take what we feel to be safe and extrapolate our knowledge and experience onto others. It's only human.
There are a lot of shows out there which try to emulate him. So far as I can tell, they fail. He loved animals. All of them, even the truly icky ones, and he shared the love; his childlike fascination with them (I have a friend who teaches kindergarten/first grade, and she takes pictures of bugs, spiders, snakes, scorpions and any other strange looking creature to school. She keeps fish, and tortises, and a king-snake and a tarantula in the classroom, because, "they don't know what's yucky yet," and she is going to do her damndest to see to it they keep it that way). The world is a fascinating place, full of wonders and he went to find them, and to share them.
The world is a richer place because things like television, and radio, and the internet (from newsfeeds to LJ, and yes, even to MySpace) bring it together. It is a poorer place when people like Steve Irwin shuffle off.
Good on ya, mate; Hail, and farewell.
From
klwalton:If there are one or more people on your friends-list who make your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.
It ain't just one of you, it's a host.
But LJ is a small part of the growth of the world through shrinkage. First came books, rare, and strange and wonderful. Hard to reproduce, but Marco Polo let the world know of China, just as Herodotus let them know of Egypt, and the Plinys let them know of everything.
Then we got the press, and the world exploded, Haklyut gave us the world anew, and all the old guys (the Plinys, Thucydides, etc.) were resurected, and the past was as brilliant as the far flung present.
Radio let us hear the world, and television let us see it.
Steve Irwin was a modern day Marlin Perkins, with a difference: he went out to look at the animals himself.
I understand that much hullaballoo and vitriol has been spent here (on LJ) about him. I can well imagine all the people who are carping at the things he did, the insanity of the risks he tooks (I have it on good authority that some are going past the point of saying his death by animal misadventure was to be predicted, to the point of saying he "got what he deserved," and that is diminshment of a different sort. As William Muny said in, Unforgiven "We all have it coming, Kid,", so the back of my hand to such as them).
For all, or perhaps because of, his theatrical nature, he made a lot of people look at more animals (and "icky" ones) and decide they were cool. Anyone can make lions and zebras look cool, it takes a special talent to make ill-tempered tarantulas look cool. That was his talent, and his gift. He took crazy risks, and Maia and I have gasped at the sheer folly of his snake-handling (don't try that at home). He had some close calls, snake-bite, near snake bite, aggressive crocodiles, Ghu only knows what all else.
He seems to have internalised his famliarity with crocs, and projected it to others (leading to the cries of his abusing his kid, because he took/allowed him to be taken into pens with crocs). I can understand that, and forgive it. Parents do that all the time. I've seen kids in cars without seatbelts. We take what we feel to be safe and extrapolate our knowledge and experience onto others. It's only human.
There are a lot of shows out there which try to emulate him. So far as I can tell, they fail. He loved animals. All of them, even the truly icky ones, and he shared the love; his childlike fascination with them (I have a friend who teaches kindergarten/first grade, and she takes pictures of bugs, spiders, snakes, scorpions and any other strange looking creature to school. She keeps fish, and tortises, and a king-snake and a tarantula in the classroom, because, "they don't know what's yucky yet," and she is going to do her damndest to see to it they keep it that way). The world is a fascinating place, full of wonders and he went to find them, and to share them.
The world is a richer place because things like television, and radio, and the internet (from newsfeeds to LJ, and yes, even to MySpace) bring it together. It is a poorer place when people like Steve Irwin shuffle off.
Good on ya, mate; Hail, and farewell.
