Stars Charged With Animal Cruelty

I don’t get it. "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here,” a reality show filming in the Australian Outback, requires animal welfare officers on the set during filming if any animals are used. Officers were absent during one episode of the British TV show in which two of the actors cooked and ate a rat.

Chef Gino D’Acampo and Stuart Manning were charged with animal cruelty as a result and are facing up to three years in prison.

“The killing of a rat for a performance is not acceptable. The concern is this was done purely for the cameras," David O'Shannessy from the New South Wales RSPCA.

It kind of makes moot the term “reality show,” doesn’t it? By the way, the photo is of Lou Diamond Phillips, the season’s winner.

I really don’t get it. That’s understandable since I don’t watch TV at all. With programming like this, I’m not missing a thing.

Inbox: Darwin Awards

I just received the latest email circulating about the fabled Darwin Awards. These awards are supposedly given to “those who died in the stupidest manner, thereby removing themselves from the gene pool.” No, this is not confirmed, and the email notes the source of this story as the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, the largest newspaper in the state. Here’s this year’s winner:

Two local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday. Woodruff County Deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday. 

Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc, and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock, were returning to Des Arc after a frog catching trip.  On an overcast Sunday night, Pooles pickup truck headlights malfunctioned.  The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older-model truck had burned out.  As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the 22 caliber bullets from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering-wheel column.  Upon inserting the bullet the headlights again began to operate properly,  and the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge .  

After traveling approximately 20 miles, and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged, and struck Poole  in the testicles. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exiting the pavement, and striking a tree.   Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident but will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles which will never operate again as intended.

Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. "Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his balls off, or we might both be dead," stated Wallis.

"I've been a trooper for 10 years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me.  I can't believe that those two would admit how this accident happened," said Snyder.  

Upon being notified  of the wreck, Lavinia ( Poole 's wife) asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck.  Priorities, after all!

Though Poole and Wallis  did not die as a result of their misadventure as normally required by Darwin Award Official Rules, it can be argued that Poole did, in fact, effectively remove himself from the gene pool.

Online, You are Really You

If Time says it’s so, then it must be so. Today, an article proclaims that most people assume that people using online social forums go out of their way to portray themselves as something that they are not. It’s even logical, in their assuming way, to infer that people will choose the most attractive photos of themselves, post only “pithy and clever” thoughts and choose only books and movies that make them seem sophisticated.

To Time’s surprise, the results of a study – however questionable and limited it was – done by psychologist Sam Gosling found that 236 college students’ Facebook profiles were as consistent with the personality questionnaires they completed. In other words, Gosling says that online profiles are accurate depictions of each person’s actual personality. He noted that those who tried to present an “idealized version” of themselves failed miserably. Yep, a ‘real world’ jerk is a jerk online too.

It’s interesting to note the recent surge in studies and articles about the positive aspects of online social networking. Not so long ago, all we heard about were psycho mothers causing teen suicide and pedophiles using networks to entrap their next victims. It’s another faulty assumption to think that all the deviants have lost their knack of presenting themselves as angels in disguise.

I’ll believe otherwise only when a study is done on a far more representative sample, and a demography other than college students who, by the way, are more akin to aliens from outer space than the general population.