Dangerous African Snake Stalks Pedestrians In Winnipeg
Fact: Has the biggest fangs of any venomous snake
Fact: While it doesn’t have the most dangerous venom is has the ability to deliver a lot of it in one shot, making it very deadly.
Fact: It is a very lazy snake. Experts call it the couch potato of snakes.
If you haven’t heard, the guy was apparently bitten on the lip by the snake (I’m betting big money the guy was drunk and was showing off to his girlfriend… “watch me as I make out with this snake.” And got what he deserved).
The story has been on the CBC news every half hour for the last two days. We are learning all about how it is a very docile snake and doesn’t usually attack people. How they flew the drugs from Ontario because we don’t have th right antidote in Manitoba (and why would we? this is the first time ever anyone has been bitten by one of these snakes in Manitoba and will probably be the last).
The thing that make me believe that news just continues (if not starts) a cycle of fear is some of the questions that people ask in interviews. They haven’t found this snake yet and so the hosts of shows ask people if we should be worried… as if this snake poses any serious threat to people…. I am sure the mental picture they are going for is a giant AFRICAN snake squirming along the sidewalk looking for innocent-looking people. When it does find just the right victim it leaps up the five foot six inches off the ground sprouting wings as it goes, fangs bared, and grabs the poor guy by the face and then swallows him whole, growing larger and larger with each person until it is an unstoppable super snake destroying the whole world… seriously… IF, and it is a very BIG if, this snake is loose outside it has for sure gone and curled up somewhere to die. It was 0 degrees outside last night. I’m no expert but I am sure this snake is either hiding out in the house somewhere, or else dead and some stray cat has had a feast. But the lovely people on the radio want to make you think that it is still out there posing some serious risk to public safety. Personally I think the whole thing was an interesting story, but now has been way overblown and the only reason people are talking about this and not the fact that hundreds of thousands of children will die this week because of malnutrition is because big ass snakes are scary.
Ok… one more example of this. Today an unnamed exec for the NHL mentioned that they were looking at giving Toronto another NHL Team. This is, of course, is Manitoba where the big two dreams are having a good football team and the return of the Jets. So on the call-in show today the lady was asking what people think about the talk that Toronto will get another team, and she had this guest on who has been working on bringing the Jets back for a long time. He comes on and in two minutes says, this is all talk, there is nothing here, forget about it, to which the host passes over faster than Scrooge would dive for a penny. The host just kept pressing about this possibility and what people thought. Listening to this I thought the guest had pretty much closed the conversation but apparently I was wrong. There was still some anger that could be stirred up among rabid Jets fans, and fear that we might get passed over so that Toronto could have two teams that will never win the Stanly Cup.
These are only two of the MANY stories that I could point to that I hear in a day. I kind of feel like one of those crazy right wing commentators on the radio in the States who is blabbing about how you shouldn’t listen to the “liberal” media because it’s lying to you. To be clear I think that most of those guys are a few screws short. But I’m starting to think that they have a valid point. Too much of what we hear is meant to scare us, or to get a reaction. And it all serves to distract us from what are real issues in the world. Perhaps it is the news media who will share the lions share of the blame for the death of children from malnutrition, shortage of clean drinking water for choosing stupid stories about an idiot who got bite in face over the real problems in our world. That’s my trip down the rabbit hole today.
