Bear Attack vs. Matt Lauer

As I'm sure many people are aware, there was an attack by a black bear on a family who was out wandering around at a wilderness park in Tennessee.

I'm really not a heartless guy...honest. Ask any of the people who know me. However, I have to wonder at the news industry and the way that they have reported this story, particularly a recent interview that I caught on NBC's The Today Show with Matt Lauer and the family of those who were injured in the attack.

I think what bothered me the most about the way this story was presented by Lauer was that he acted as if the family had been attacked by some knife-wielding maniac in their bedroom in the middle of the night. At one point in the interview, he even said to the father "do you feel that by the recent capture of a black bear in that area that justice may finally be served for the attacks on your family?"

Uhhh....what? OK, first of all, let me reiterate....this black bear did not come wandering into their room at the local Days Inn. The PEOPLE were in the BEAR'S hood. So you know what, folks? Sorry you got attacked but you're asking to be some bear's idea of a picnic snack when you go playing around in something's backyard that has a heckuva lot more right to be on that land than you do. Just remember...people reallllly need those houses, roads and so forth that destroyed the bear's habitat and food supply in the first place, right? I mean hey...why should the white man limit himself to Native Americans when it comes to putting people/things with land rights somewhere out of their way?

The sad thing is that they killed a black bear to check its stomach contents to see if it had been the one that attacked. Of course, it wasn't the right bear. Justice indeed.

So what have we learned, Dorothy? Bears and other animals have no rights when humans come trotting up into the few acres that we've given them to live in. We should probably kill anything that MIGHT attack us, or perhaps expand our legal system to try animals for murder/attempted murder. Hire some Yellowstone ranger as counsel for the defense. Then, Matt Lauer can truly say that justice has been served.

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