Suboptimist

We’re here! We’re queer! We don’t want anymore bears!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am bringing back a feature that has long been sitting dormant in the vast expanse of the Internets: the Friday Fatwa. I don’t know if I can say how long it’s going to be back, but it should show its ugly face every now and again. Where to start…

First, there was recently a bear attack in Utah county in which a young boy died. The local news and opinion pages since then (Monday or Tuesday I think) has been saturated with the story and commentary about the incident. It’s really starting to grind on my nerves. Here are a few letters to the editors I found particularly annoying:

[From the Deseret News]

I know that all of our hearts go out to the family of the young boy who was recently killed by a bear in American Fork Canyon. It was a tragedy. However, I don’t understand why warnings were not posted when a bear sighting took place earlier that day.

If you were at a beach and there had been shark sightings, a warning sign would have been put up. Surely there could have been some way to alert campers

Kim Grant
Kaysville

What kind of sign is necessary? You’re in the bloody wild. Of course there are going to be bears. Welcome to Utah.

[From the Trib]

I read, with sadness, the article about Samuel Ives being killed by a bear. I am sure that everyone has condolences for the family.

However, the fault does not lie solely with the bear. The family was camped two miles above the campground, some distance away from the developed areas. The Forest Service cannot possibly follow everyone who goes into the mountains to see where they are camping and what they are doing. If people choose to reject safe camping procedures by staying in undeveloped camping areas, they also must accept any consequences.

Luke Osborn, the bear hunter, yelled, “Yahoo,” when he killed the bear. There is no reason for joy in that. A bad decision cost two lives. This was not the bear’s fault, not the Forest Service’s fault and not young Samuel’s. If people would learn to follow safe practices and respect the natural wildlife in the mountains, these unfortunate events would not happen.

Janice Klein
Park City

Frankly, I agree with him, but his letter elicited this response from TribTalk user ‘Brigham Nephi Taft Benson’:

God gave humans dominion over animals. That means we can do whatever we want to them. Animals have feelings? That’s a good one. Only a tree hugging hippie would think that, not a manly man like myself. Killing animals is fun! I love watching their soul leave their body and knowing that I was the one who caused that. Gives me quite a rush, kinda like you hippies get when you smoke your doobies or whatever you call them.

Sweet Jesus…that’s all I can say.

What I am waiting to see now is a letter similar to the kinds of letters the ill-informed listeners to conservative talk shows send in when talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Allow me to simulate a possible entry:

We, the American people, need to stop protecting bears. Good, honest, American people don’t go into bear caves and slaughter bear cubs, but the bears rip through tents and take innocent American children. We need to stop supporting the terrorist bears.

Alma Benson Young
American Fork

In other news, I frequent a gym that includes a large family pool full of children. Why is it that these kids can’t be bothered to towel off before they go into the locker room or the bathroom stalls, leaving the floor covered in a large pool of water? What’s worse is that the management has removed some of the floor mats, leaving dirty pools of water where I stand to change.

There is also a local Mexican restaurant I am fond of that serves its food cafeteria style. When I went there last night, the woman in front of me had a conversation with one of the line workers that went something like this:

Woman: What is the thing in the bowls I keep seeing? It looks like a taco salad.

Worker: It’s a salad.

Woman: Okay, I think I want that. What do I get in it? I want meat. What kind of meat do I get on it? Do I get cheese on it?

Read the bloody menu before you order.