Killing Kong
In the digital world where no kindness goes uncriticized and no act goes unjudged, it’s maybe not surprising to you that the mom of that kid who managed to slip into the gorilla’s cage last week is under more crossfire than a Marine in Afghanistan. The zoo shot the gorilla in a scene right out of King Kong and the Twitter Universe unleased its full and unadulterated outrage. At the mom.
Now I love gorillas as much as the next South Ender. Supposedly they’re endangered elsewhere, but not so much here. We got plenty down this end of the island, mostly guys who beat their wives and spend far too much time watching ESPN on the cable TV they really can’t afford. But then, they don’t snap up wayward kids who wander into their unmowed junk strewn yards. If they did, we’d bring in the SWAT boyz and the TV crews and the internet trolls looking for fresh targets to vent their pent-up rage on. Pity the moms. Pity the gorilla. Pity the poor schnook at the zoo who had to make the decision to shoot Kong.
But pity is a hard commodity to locate these days, especially if you’ve been following presidential election politics this hunting season where pity is deemed fit only for losers. We’re growing sharper claws and longer teeth. We’re molting our old skin and growing a tougher hide. Pity? Forgiveness? I don’t think those words live in the new vocabulary of grunts and shrieks. When the weak stumble, they become prey.
I guess it’s the anonymity of the internet. Used to be you could flip off a fellow motorist from the safety of your one ton automobile or your two ton Hummer fighting machine, pretty much drive off feeling smug and righteous, but now, behind the screen of a laptop, you can lob missiles with no fear of retribution. Nice to think the worst in us comes rising up, the toxins we held in check out of politeness or fear or peer group pressure, what we once thought of as civilized societal norms. You know, before the internet jungle hid us in its strangler vines.
I’m going to miss that gorilla I never even met. I like to think he was protecting the little toddler, maybe even planned in a simian sort of way to raise him up in gorilla values. I’m real glad he didn’t hurt that kid who I hope will grow up to be kind to animals, even the human ones. He’d be almost a hero if he did, just not in the Twitterverse.
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