Crikey!!!

Amy Austin | September 4, 2006
I can't believe it...

Just heard that Steve Irwin died in a freak diving incident with a stingray. How sad is that.

tragic death of a wildlife icon

Tony Peters | September 4, 2006
for those of us who've been stung by a ray it's really wierd (and dumb bad luck) that he got it in the one place that it would be fatal...I feel bad for his family.

Jackie Mason | September 4, 2006
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Scott Hardie | September 5, 2006
He was a good man. He'll be missed.

Tony Peters | September 5, 2006
Paul, my guide for an outback hike in Perth Australia was a huge fan of Steve's. Paul was a one of the Naturalists called upon to guide Steve for a TV Special on Western Australia. Expecting the fool we all see he like all the rest were blown away by the interest and inteligence of his questions about their ecosystem. Steve Irwin was the Jack Hannah of Austalia and he will be sorely missed.

Anna Gregoline | September 5, 2006
I'm really disturbed by how often I'm reading all over the internet and in the press that this was a "freak" accident. If *I* was stung by a sting ray, that would be a freak accident - but in the case of him, it's more like an occupational hazard. If you fuck with wild animals that don't want to be fucked with for a living, you are bound to eventually either get maimed or killed. Nothing "freakish" about it.

I feel bad for his family, but I chalk this one up to karma and nature teaming up.

Amy Austin | September 5, 2006
Anna, the "freak" part of it isn't that it was he who was killed -- it could have been *anyone*, and it would still be a "freakish" fatality. A fatal encounter with a stingray is statistically crazy-unusual -- that is the reason it is being described as such. I don't think anyone would be all too surprised had he lost an arm to a croc or been fatally bitten by a snake... *that* would not be a freak accident for someone like him, while it would *definitely* be a freak incident for any one of us. But to die from a stingray barb to the heart? That's like a chef falling on a knife in his own kitchen... yes, he had a knife in a kitchen as an occupational risk (albeit a very low one) -- but to die that way would, in fact, be "freakish".

Jackie Mason | September 5, 2006
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Lori Lancaster | September 5, 2006
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Tony Peters | September 5, 2006
to understand that article you need to understand Aussie politics...in many peoples opinion it's easier to explain Cricket to Yankee's fan than to explain Aussie politics to anyone not aussie....I think that woman is a Labor Party Hack which can only loosely be compared to a left wing liberal democrate

Scott Hardie | September 5, 2006
Anna, Amy, if I may pass judgment, I think you're both right in a sense. When I read the incident described as a "freak" accident, I take it to mean: Who ever thought Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin would be killed by a safe little stingray? Those things kill something like one person every two years worldwide, so of course you're right Amy that it's weird he would die from one. But on the other hand, you expect Irwin to die by wild animal as Anna said, so it's really weird that after all the deadly animals he's fucked with, he was felled by a lowly stingray in the end.

Somewhere, Jackie Chan has just realized how lucky he is to be alive.

Haha@BTD

Anna Gregoline | September 6, 2006
Eh. I've been saying basically what I've said here to many people, and I don't think anyone yet, besides my husband, understands what I'm getting at - probably because this incident fits with my worldview (which I know is somewhat unusual) so neatly.

Lori Lancaster | September 6, 2006
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Anna Gregoline | September 6, 2006
Actually, that is not what I'm saying at all, and that is what everyone has been interpreting my words to mean.

So you might still not agree with what I actually think about it, but you did indeed miss what I was trying to say (obviously I'm not explaining it well to anyone - that's not your fault, but mine).

Kris Weberg | September 6, 2006
The really tragic irony is that the stingray shoot was actually meant to be a "safer' bit of filler footage, as Irwin had been forced to postpone filming a more "dangerous" special due to inclement weather.

I find it tempting to apply a version of the gambler's fallacy to the situation, but at the same time I realize that it's bad logic. Scott and Lori, I hate to pick on you, but your NASCAR example is actually statistically unsupportable for that reason. Probability is, as they say, "memoryless." One can't "use up" luck, because luck isn't sitting in a bank somewhere. Separate situations effectively start afresh where probability is concerned. You or I, in the exact same place at the exact same time, would have been exactly as likely as Irwin to be stung.

Unfortunately, a lot of the reaction to Irwin's death seems to have taken the deliberately "wild" character he performed and missed the underlying message he meant to get across -- that even a seemingly goofy and reckless fellow had nothing to fear from even the most apparently dangerous faunae so long as he was well-informed about their habits and instincts. At any rate, Irwin was smart in sticking to snakes, crocodiles, and arthropod invertebrates: by most measures, the deadliest species on the planet in terms of real fatalities are mammals.

Karmically, I have to say that this is maybe the last thing that should've happened to a dedicated conservationist who devoted his life to reducing people's fear of wildlife, and who leaves behind two young children, aged three and eight. The sad part is, by the odds, Irwin was more likely to die slipping in the shower or driving down the road than swimming with stingrays. The sadder part, again, is that the good he did for animals and the parenting he did for his kids are at an end.

But because we as humans need to find meaning in another person's demise -- for understandable reasons of psychology -- we do things like try to blame an occupation, or locate some mystical event or decision or trend whose alteration would have changed things so as to forestall the fatal event...or at least make it seem like something other than a senseless accident. Because the alternative is to think about just how little choice we have in the matter of death, and how unlikely it is we'll have control over the circumstances of dying.

Anna Gregoline | September 6, 2006
But because we as humans need to find meaning in another person's demise -- for understandable reasons of psychology -- we do things like try to blame an occupation, or locate some mystical event or decision or trend whose alteration would have changed things so as to forestall the fatal event...or at least make it seem like something other than a senseless accident. Because the alternative is to think about just how little choice we have in the matter of death, and how unlikely it is we'll have control over the circumstances of dying.

I choose both - I find meaning in how he died given my thoughts on how he lived and my worldview - yet I fully accept how little choice we have in the matter of death and that we likely have no control over when and how we go.

Amy Austin | September 6, 2006
Well said, Kris... I think Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would heartily agree. ;-)

Lori Lancaster | September 6, 2006
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Scott Hardie | September 7, 2006
Follow-up on Greer.

Kris Weberg | September 7, 2006
Ah, Greer's origination of second wave feminism and Greer's own brand of performing femininity as dangerous and powerful. And ah, what a horribly, poorly-chosen, and empathy-free time, place, and method to carry off that performance, a place and a time almost guaranteed to direct anyone who likes to write Greer and her otherwise sustantial intellectual contributions off as sensationalism, elitism, or simply lunacy.

When you're a regular columnist in The Guardian and a contestant on Big Brother and a regular on "top 25" lists of Australian intellectuals, you've arguably been coopted by the newer version of that estabishment that your radicalism was meant to oppose. Whatever the intellectual content of her statements, Greer has long since become someone whose public persona is little more than a name brand, and her provocations easily recontained with (on the right) a set of pejorative labels and (on the left) an easy application of terms like "provocative" and "radical" without concomitant movements of thought or shifts in practice. Give me Julia Kristeva or Luce Irigaray any day. For that matter, give me the Germaine Greer who wrote The Female Eunuch, rather than this UK left-liberal media darling/Australian right-liberal stalking horse.

Scott Hardie | October 18, 2006
Wrong, wrong, wrong. This girl is already going to have a messed up life, so let's not pour gasoline on the fire to make a buck, ok Discovery Channel?

Anna Gregoline | October 18, 2006
That's what television does, Scott!

Kerry Odell | October 19, 2006
I don't think I agree on Bindi's show. It was in production prior to his death and was obviously important to him since he was doing filming for her in his downtime. After seeing and reading various articles and interviews with Steve and Terri both, I believe that as a couple they are (were) extremely passionate about family and wildlife conservation, as were the people they surrounded themselves with.

Being a mother myself and seeing the interview with Terri after Steve's death, I can tell you that this "mum" has her daughter's best interests at heart and will defend her. No amount of money will make Terri force her daughter to do something she feels is wrong for her.

Everyone deals with grief differently and perhaps the full weight of it hasn't hit little Bindi yet, but I'd bet money on the fact that if Bindi said she didn't want to do it, Terri would pull the plug without a moment's hesitation.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether he was torturing animals or their number one champion - two small children lost their daddy, a father lost his son, and a devoted wife lost her soul mate. That is the tragedy of the situation.

Amy Austin | October 19, 2006
Word, Kerry!!! (That is my sister's name, BTW... same spelling, too. ;-))

Kerry Odell | October 19, 2006
Amy...

Cool...my mom picked the spelling cause it was different, but wanted to make my middle name Anne...nothing against the name, but I'm glad my Aunt saved me from being named for a song and suggested Lynne instead.

:o)

Amy Austin | October 19, 2006
You know, that's funny -- I was going to ask about your middle name, because Ann is my sister's! I know I remember discussing the choice of her name elsewhere on TC in the past (Wherefore Art Thou...?, I think), but the gist is that it was actually a merging of my parents' names (Kathy + Jerry) -- she was born on their anniversary (blech!), which left me feeling a bit "unspecial", since they had fought over my name! ;-)

Kerry Odell | October 19, 2006
Kerry's actually an Irish name meaning dark and there's a Kerry Blue Terrier that actually looks more black than blue. At least you're not named after a pooch!! LOL

http://www.petsmart.com/ps/guides/aspca_breed_guide.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673312905&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696500863&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=2534374302023689&bmUID=1161298710253

Amy Austin | October 20, 2006
Yes, well, "blue" in the world of canine nomenclature is really black/gray... though it is definitely a bluish-black, not dark brown/reddish-black. (And check out the remarkably similar Airedale!)

And yes, it is Irish... it's also typically a man's name. I don't dislike my name at all -- I was just always sick of all the pre-holiday hoopla that included my sister's birthday, parents' anniversary and (quite often) Thanksgiving... while mine falls 2 weeks after Christmas, when all the spirit/love/money is spent up! And she was the baby ("gotta' love the baby!") -- so naturally, there was some attention diverted/missed right before my 4th and thereafter! ;-) Little sibling envy -- who doesn't have that in some form or another?! ;-p

Scott Hardie | October 22, 2006
Being an only child, I didn't get the sibling-rivalry thing until my current job, where my Internet team often shares resources like space and equipment with the Programming team. What, is it because we both write code? We're totally separate teams who interact as infrequently as any other two, yet we always get stuck sharing the same space whenever the office is rearranged. I feel like a kid who has to grow up sharing everything with a twin sibling, forever arguing that we're separate and we shouldn't have to share.

As for Bindi's show, Steve's death is what makes it inappropriate, so whether it was in production prior and whether Steve once wanted it shouldn't matter now. Wasn't he actually killed filming footage for this very show? I know the girl has probably been used to the idea of her father's mortality for as long as she can remember, but the potential for all the aspects of this family trauma to screw up her life is already high enough without now also taping her own show on the subject. She shouldn't have to say it's wrong for anyone to realize it – besides, she's seven; she has no idea what's best for her.