Heroic? So, some river boarder sees a squirrel on a rock and thinks: "awww, how cute. I'm going to go over there and see if he needs help, because clearly he couldn't have gotten there on his own by swimming. Hey little buddy, you want a ride on my extremely non-natural looking piece of flotation device, something which doesn't exist in your environment."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH. Terrifying man-thing. It's going to eat me. I just came out to this rock to wait while I gathered up my energy to swim the rest of the way across the river and some monster slithered down the river and emerged, all yellow and black and hairy looking. Leave me alone, vile beast! Curse you!"

"You look scared little squirrel, are you afraid of the water? Here, get on my board. Come on. I'll move a little closer to you to make sure you get on. Stop backing away."

"OH NO! He is moving in for the kill, quick, where can I run! Ha, the silly monster can't swim up river, I shall go there! I shall jump to that rock with the fast moving water on it and show this evil monster how squirrels swim. That will show him not to mess with my kind!"

*JUMP*

"Glub Glub. Blargh, this is turning out to be much harder than I thought. Ahhhh, glub glub."

"Oh no, the little guy jumped in the river again. I'll just swim over and save him from his ultimate demise. Silly guy, why did he do that? I was offering him a ride, why didn't he understand that was what I was doing?"

"Glub glub; AAAAAHH, it's coming closer. I am doomed. Farewell cruel world, I knew thee not long but I loved thee so well."

"Gotcha. Here, take a ride on my board. That's better, isn't it little guy? Here, I'll bring you to shore."

"Wah! You have trapped me! Are you going to take me back to your friends to feast on me together? Wait. What is this thing? What magics be this? How does this trap float so well. It must be made of some sort of advanced tree structure that only the giants know how to grow. I am tempted to jump back in the river but I am certain you will catch me again and my energy will have been wasted. No, I will play the possum and wait for my moment. Yes, just when you think you have got me, I shall spring away to safety. Silly giants, they do not know anything. You are bringing me closer to shore, yes. Closer. Closer. *Jump* Hahahahhahaha. Silly giant, now I am up a tree, you will never catch me. Of course, you could have avoided all of this by leaving me alone! Next time, don't waste both of our time and energy by trying to catch a squirrel, we are too smart for you giant monsters!"

"There you go little buddy, now you are safe. Shouldn't have jumped in the river like that, though. Next time you see a human, expect them to be trying to help you, man. Now I will go and cover myself in patchouli oil and smoke some weed."

Moral of the story: Leave wild animals the fuck alone.

Re: the too scary thing... I CAN see that. Yesterday I was at a post-Halloween sale. The store featured numerous high-end animatronic displays of some pretty grisly stuff. One mom was walking around with her little guy... maybe 5, 6. He was staring intently at the displays and from his face he seemed pretty upset. I think he understood they were machines, but the IDEA of them was probably freaking him out.

If so, what a weird way to put that. I would hope it was only 3 hours of hard scrubbing, not 47. Poor little guy!
It looks like it might need another hour of work still, I see a lot of matted fur. I also hope they didn't just release it back into the streets.

Love this little guy. *promote

That self defense class I took? Where I learned some skills that are available to me to this day?

They didn't teach them to men. The class I was in was women only (except for the martial arts instructors, a mixed bag gender-wise.) But they consciously did not offer those same skills to men.

Precisely because of your advice here.Which is why they don't teach those self defense skills to men.

A little guy pushing his erect penis into my ass on a sunny day is not a physical threat to me. Hell, I could have just pushed him and sat on him, and the fight is over.

Crushing someone's genitals is not something you do unless it is NECESSARY.

It is not "either/or." It is appropriate response to the threat. It was inappropriate in that situation to physically assault that man.

Turnabout IS fair play. He did not hurt me physically. He hurt me psychically.

The appropriate response is a psychic blow back.

And if every girl was taught to stand their ground (take that, Florida!!!) with their voice, this shit would end.

That was probably the saddest dog I have ever seen. Poor little guy... he truly was broken inside.

I love that moment when they get in the car, and he passes the dog to the woman, and then pets him, and the dog keeps his eyes closed. It's almost as he's saying "I'm going to be ok now. I'm going to be ok"

You go little guy

Poor little guy looks like he's gonna hurl.

Hate... Hate... Hate... THIS.

I'll be honest I didn't make it very far, and i might agree with a lot of what the little guy has to say. The problem is i don't believe for a second it's him saying it. Overly scripted, rehearsed and exploitative.

The point I'm driving at is that this is one of the cases where I think the end justifies the means.

People can take away what they like from watching it. "Aww poor kid", "Man those wrestlers are nice", "What a pack of bastards, exploiting the little bugger"... And that's fine, I'm not trying to tell people how to feel.

But one little guy who was suffering got a bright moment in the sun. I don't care if they go full idiot and publicise the shit out of it because it was worth it. Hell, I'd be pleased if self interest caused more people to be "altruistic" to high note themselves. It's the core of things like Ronald McDonald house, which is a PR exercise in it's purist form and yet still helps.

And if they hadn't publicised it, being an Australian who doesn't actually watch much wrestling, I probably wouldn't have heard of it at all.

Looks like an American Woodcock (snicker).

These well-camouflaged little guys spend most of their life tentatively creeping through the underbrush, effectively off-setting the sound of their own movements by moving "in-tune" with the rhythms of the forest and appearing as leaf-litter gently swaying in the wind.

I don't know, maybe a misfiring of that instinctual behavior when confronted with our own artificial rhythms might be what we're seeing here?

Hah, I love how there's just no reaction from the little guy.

Some people are saying now that he's said racist things, people are being unfair and using that to detract from the point of Big Government going after the little guy.

I'm worried about that too, that this racism thing will detract from him being proved to be a Welfare Rancher. He was wrong throughout this entire episode and has surrounded himself with fellow ignorant idiots. Now those in the public eye are getting hammered because he says some racist shit? NO they should be hammered because they wrap themselves in the Flag and then support this moron who is wrong on every avenue.

You have to pay your taxes or you're stealing. You have to pay for the raw materials that keep your business going and profitable. You can't just refuse to be a member of the society, benefit from it and sell your wears to it. Then when the government that represents the people goes and tells you to knock it off threaten to "do what's necessary" and get a ton of Militia members to come protect your tax avoiding ass.

I wonder if Wesley Snipes thought "Well I'll just get some brothers with guns and hole up in my house, they'll never do anything!" How fast would 20 black people be killed cause they looked like they were threatening officers?

SO uh....mom probably did abandon it or thought it fine, if it had been in any real danger of predators chances are good there aren't toooo many black bear
bobcat, lynx, cougar, or coyote in Hudson NY, river town (har)...smallish, quaint, lotta antique shops...cops with terse tones t'wards defenseless animals (probably bullied in school, hope he doesn't have kids). Why call animal control, free the little guy and let him loose back into the food chain, he/she looked fine innit?? Not like it was frikkin' choking on those xmas lights.