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2009 Darwin Award Winners Announced
Greg Lindahl writes "From the woman who jumped in a swollen creek to rescue her drowning moped, to the man who hopped over the divider at the edge of the highway to take a leak, and plunged 65 feet to his death, 2009 was a year both exceptional and unexceptional for Darwin Award-worthy behavior!"
If they died honorably rescuing people or something, yeah. Jumping in a creek after a freaking moped, not so much.
These are Darwin award worthy?
First off, the rigor. Minor complaint, but it'd be neat if they linked to a police report, or a newspaper article on these incidents.
Second off, the stupid. These are by far not the stupidest deaths I've read about last year. the DAs are getting weak.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
We're all just one failed experiment or innocent mistake away from being on the Darwin Awards list.
Sure, that guy who jumped over the barrier to relieve himself should have been more careful. But does that mean we need to celebrate his death?
That priest with the balloons--OK, he should have bailed earlier, or figured out his GPS in advance of his trip. Clearly he made some mistakes. But he was trying to do something for a charitable cause.
Lots of smart people make dumb mistakes; we're all only human. An old saying "There but for grace of God go I" seems to apply in many of these situations.
That DUI woman who drowned in the creek--she's a pathetic sort of person, obviously lacking in common sense. But not knowing the full story (the author speculated and extrapolated an awful lot in this case) I hesitate to condemn her as deserving of the Darwin awards.
All in all it was a mediocre set of awards this year. I've seen better.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Ha! Died while posting!
I do take this kind of seriously. When I was 10 and in school, one of my classmates, in fact her entire family, died instantly when they drove off an over pass or a freeway. I was brought to school over this overpass everyday. At that time there was very little traffic. To this day i wonder what the parents were thinking about, or doing, instead of driving, that was worth the life of their children. It may be disrespectful to the dead, and I admit I cannot know the circumstances around the incident, but I do certainly hold those parents in low regard.
I can't help but feel these cautionary tales are a good public service. They remind us that the world is dangerous, and the miracle is that we humans have a brain that we can use to survive. Unless we don't.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Priest does a "Lawn-chair Larry" for charity.
You mean "for the church." I'm not sure many would consider raising money to open chapels for truck drivers "charity" (I know I don't).
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Right. The lady in question was driving a moped because she had a prior DUI. She ran a police roadblock into a flooded street and ended up going over an embankment into a flooded creek. The police rescued her. She then jumped BACK into the creek.
Yes indeed, could have happened to any one of us.
But yes, things are less funny when people die because, you know, we've got so few people and it's so hard to make new ones.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"And when you go around mocking the people who died doing something stupid, often times you are too busy laughing to know the whole story."
And how would knowing the whole story make her actions any less stupid? Her actions led to her death. Mocking her actions is a good thing-it might encourage others not to do similar things.
I'd like to think I would never do anything as stupid as that but if I do, I fully expect to be mocked for it. Because I'd deserve it.