2008 Woodie Awards
And the Winner is...
Katrina Cockerill, Opinions Editor
Issue date: 2/12/08 Section: Opinion
Stupid people are like the tiny pebbles in our shoe. They are annoying, you don't know how they got there and somehow, whenever you try to get rid of them, you can't. I believe that most of us have felt this annoyance. Yet, when all hope seems lost, we can always remember the person who brought us the continuum of intellectual progress- Darwin. Oh yes, the man who brought us evolution and best of all, survival of the fittest.
As a true Darwin believer, there have been a few times when I have come extremely close to losing faith. It almost seems like an everyday battle to contend with the stupid people of our generation. And although I feel someone may have put too much chlorine in the gene pool, I can only hope its doing its job, ridding us of all the harmful bacteria.
I may have done a few dumb stunts in my day, but I always feel better knowing that someone can top me. I give thanks to Wendy Northcutt, for giving us that little glimmer of hope saying; "Hey, maybe I'm not that dumb," for these stupid rights have already been awarded to the best of the best.
Upon entering Ms. Northcutt's website, www.DarwinAwards.com, we are presented with many stories containing examples of people's attempts to defy good common sense, and, surprisingly, leading to their deaths. For example, most people know that alcohol can impair one's judgment. And most of us know that bears and humans don't always interact very well. So we can only imagine what would happen if we combined human indulgence in beer and a bear in the same picture. Unfortunately this happened to a 23-year old man who basically fed himself to two bears at a Zoo. The Zoo director responded to the incident with, "Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage."
The man's naked and completely mangled body was found inside the habitat, along with several beer cans. His clothes were completely untouched, meaning that he approached the bears naked by choice. What were the bears thinking when this staggering, drunken, naked man stumbled toward them? Probably some thoughts along the line of "survival if the fittest" would be appropriate.
As a true Darwin believer, there have been a few times when I have come extremely close to losing faith. It almost seems like an everyday battle to contend with the stupid people of our generation. And although I feel someone may have put too much chlorine in the gene pool, I can only hope its doing its job, ridding us of all the harmful bacteria.
I may have done a few dumb stunts in my day, but I always feel better knowing that someone can top me. I give thanks to Wendy Northcutt, for giving us that little glimmer of hope saying; "Hey, maybe I'm not that dumb," for these stupid rights have already been awarded to the best of the best.
Upon entering Ms. Northcutt's website, www.DarwinAwards.com, we are presented with many stories containing examples of people's attempts to defy good common sense, and, surprisingly, leading to their deaths. For example, most people know that alcohol can impair one's judgment. And most of us know that bears and humans don't always interact very well. So we can only imagine what would happen if we combined human indulgence in beer and a bear in the same picture. Unfortunately this happened to a 23-year old man who basically fed himself to two bears at a Zoo. The Zoo director responded to the incident with, "Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage."
The man's naked and completely mangled body was found inside the habitat, along with several beer cans. His clothes were completely untouched, meaning that he approached the bears naked by choice. What were the bears thinking when this staggering, drunken, naked man stumbled toward them? Probably some thoughts along the line of "survival if the fittest" would be appropriate.