She could have killed someone -- she had every right to. It would have been a terrible tragedy. Not the loss of human life (the stupidity displayed by these people reveals that losing a few would only strengthen the gene pool), but the inevitable murder of the bear. When people go into bear country and think, just because they're in a "park," that the animals aren't really wild, they're more of an exhibit, like a zoo or a museum, these people act foolishly. That's when the bears defend their cubs or react according to their survival instincts and people get hurt. When people get hurt, bears get killed. The Park Service and other agencies will kill a bear that has "attacked" people because if that bear repeats the behavior, the lawsuits will come raining down upon them. Like most decisions in bear country, it's economics and politics rather than science that holds sway.
So to the tourons who endangered the lives of these creatures out of ignorance, next time stay home and watch a nature show on your tv. That's all the wilderness you deserve.
Okay, that being said, on with the episode. This week's poem, "The Earth" ("La Tierra"), is by my favorite poet, Pablo Neruda, from The Captain's Verses (Los versos del capitan), translated by Donald D. Walsh. Not only are the poems in this collection brilliantly crafted and expressed, but this may be the sexiest book ever written. Read it out loud to someone you love. It's more effective than dozens of love potion number 9s. Guaranteed.
Music for this week is "Nutty" from the Thelonious Monk Quartet album Misterioso (Riverside 1958). The album features Monk on piano, Johnny Griffin on tenor sax, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass and Roy Haynes on drums. Here's a nice Monk essay by Robert Christgau.
Click below to listen to the full episode:
Report #70
A friend of mine at work once told a story of when he lived in Montana and once saw from his backyard a "touron" drive in his Jeep down a road where there was a mother bear sitting on the side of the road. The man pulls off to the other side, gets his two small children from out of the car and then has them sit on both sides of this bear. Then he takes a picture and as he is taking his children back. The mother is acting as though he is taking her cubs away and starts to chase after him. He gets his kids into the car and then stand on top of his car for about an hour while the bear circles around him. Eventually the bear goes back into the woods and the man drives away, but you are so right.. It's incredible how stupid tourists can be.
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