Fat guy dies because he didn't want to go to the zoo...

[SuperFerret]

Is Ice Man still around? I think that's a bit before Rainbow's time (unless he's an old face under a new name).

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

10% and 90,000 people dying a year is rare

Not medically speaking, it's not. For example, a disease is said to be epidemic when it infects 1% of the population. If I gave you ten-to-one odds of getting an infectious disease or agent, would you consider that a pretty good bet worth taking the risk for? It's your health and like we're talking about here.

Also, nosocomial is also used in veterinary medicine, although the root may have originated with reference to humans.

Yeah, but since you were referencing human-only environments, the only applicability of the term would be in human hospitals. You'd said nosocomial infections are rare in human-only environments, so veterinary medicine wasn't relevant there. The term just refers to infections obtained at a hospital, so it definitely applies to vet clinics as well.

I'm sure it is a top priority, considering that zoos are open to the public and rely heavily on entrance fees and such to operate. Nevermind the fact that their staff is usually mostly human, and it's imperative to keep them healthy.

Except that they mostly maintain only emergency medical services at zoos -- people injured by animals, including staff, for example are treated quickly while an ambulance is called to take them to an actual hospital. Go look at the sites for the Memphis Zoo, the DC Zoo, the Chicago Zoo -- big zoos, among the ones with huge numbers of people visiting them and big staff, so you'd think that they might have larger medical facilities for people if in fact that is a top priority. But they have pretty much just emergency medical services to stabilize and treat people until more help arrives or until a person is transported to a hospital. So if you define top priority by the amount, quality, and type of services offered for it, it doesn't appear to in fact be a top priority at some of the largest zoos with the most people and staffers.

My point is that most diseases that we can catch are caught from humans, not animals, and most of the zoonotic diseases are from other primates, which would be the highest risk factor in a zoo (or anywhere people work in close proximity with non-human primates) and is recognized as such, therefore it is monitored and regulated much more thoroghly.

It was the use of "all human environment" that really made it confusing, since it didn't fit with a point about humans mostly getting sick from other humans, and the zoonosis comment seemed to imply recognition of the danger of human infection from non-human animals at zoos. I see now you meant that the zoo probably had the capability to deal with any potential danger of zoonotic infection and could mitigate the odds of that happening. Still not sure where the noxocomial infection point really fits here, though.

This is like saying that I've already went skydiving, but I don't want to cross the street because it's dangerous. Yeah, I might get hit by a car, but I also might choke on my burger. Life is full of risks, and it wasn't fear that prevented him from going to the zoo, it was pride.

Well, it's more like saying I've gone skydiving, but I don't want to go skydiving from a lower altitude with a different sort of chute. The National Research Council has done research on how widespread medical problems and infections are at the National Zoo, and it was bad. Same for San Francisco's zoo. There's no shortage of investigations and reports of zoos that demonstrate less-than-ideal conditions and medical care. So I don't think it's necessarily very accurate to assume that the medical facilities at a zoo would automatically be fine and clean etc.

My point wasn't claiming this was a factor in the guy's decision, though (although we don't know if it might've been something he wondered or worried about, maybe part of the embarrassment was the idea of being in a vet clinic where animals have been and where it might be unclean). My point is that nobody can just assert that they know he'd have been fine and lived had he gone to the zoo, or that the zoo's facilities would've been ideal or as safe for him as a hospital.

People who die based on their own faulty decisions do deserve sympathy, and courtesy (which is often confused with respect), and it is unfortunate that this man died for his pride. However, it's only natural and is a fact of life that people will joke about the morbid and tragic, and it's perfectly fine to do, in certain company.

People aren't just making jokes about a tragedy as part of a way of dealing with it or addressing it. This is cruelty and mockery, and has repeatedly included assertions that it's his own fault and that he deserves no respect or sympathy. Which all implies a sort of "he deserved it" mentality. There's a clear mean-spirited tone here, and it's gone too far in several posts. Some people have defended mocking this guy's death in very insulting and cruel ways, and upped the ante of meanness with each post.

The obsession with noting his "pride" is also disturbing and not just little bit strange. Not wanting to feel humiliated is not exactly the same as just saying "my pride won't let me do that". Sure, when someone cries and can't bring themselves to commit a humiliating act -- after likely a long time of feeling embarrassed and being mocked -- then there's "pride" technically behind it. But is it legitimate to focus like a laser on their "pride" as opposed to realizing it's more complicated than that, and that humiliation and shame are technically parts of "pride" but also entirely their own qualities?

Now, were we in the presence of the man's widow, or if someone on here knew the man, in all likelihood, we'd be polite. That's not the case, and this situation, as unfortunate as it is, is humorous, thus we should be allowed to joke about it.

No, it isn't humorous. Any potentially humorous aspect disappeared after the first couple of mocking and mean-spirited posts. A humiliated man with an unfortunate life died. People made one insulting joke and comment about him deserving no respect after another. When a few of us complained, the man was derided even more with worse jokes and worse claims that he deserves no respect. Not a SINGLE comment of regret about any of the jokes, not one statement of "yeah, that was probably too far, I apologize." Only more ridicule and scorn for the man. And more defense of such behavior.

And how exactly do you or anyone else know that someone here doesn't know the guy, or more likely that someone here hasn't had a friend or relative who is obese and who suffers bad health or died from it? Because the mockery isn't just some ribbing about weight, it's cruel jokes about obesity in general AND very focused assertions that it's "his fault" and he should be disrespected for being so overweight.

Ya know, in fact I hope every overweight person on these boards comes in here and makes some personal comments about everybody who mocked this guy's death and who made general comments about how overweight/obese people deserve no respect. I have no doubt some dirty laundry and personally embarrassing info has been admitted by most folks posting these degrading comments in here, so if insensitivity to fellow Hypesters is going to free-flow then how about some parity?

 

[Spider-Vader]

This story made me life..... Yes, I'm cruel but I hate fat people unless they have the condition where you get fat uncontrollably.

 

[Batman713]

okay, I'll show some respect... I'll ask for seconds tonight at dinner in honor of him

Haha, you sir are awesome.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

The tax payer should pay for it right? I should pay for a hospital to get a hippo x-ray machine installed because it is not feasible for them to use the one at the zoo? Right! We wouldn't want to embarass a man that can't walk, can't wash himself, can't drive a car, can't sit in an airline seat because he eats 10,000 calories a day by making him use an x-ray machine at the zoo. Pride!

Pfft, you pay for other people all the time. It'd be great if we lived in a world were you didn't have to care about anybody else, nobody had to contribute to collective good-will, society could function without any social contract, and so on, right.

You pay more because people are old than you pay because people are fat, I got news for you. Social Security and Medicare eat up plenty of what you pay as a taxpayer. You also pay to subsidize crops and banks and Wall Street. And I pay to help pave your roads, just as you pay to help pave mine. And so on. It's called society, and humans use the model because it's the best way to get along and live without worrying that the guy in the cave next door is going to come over and bash your head in with a rock to take your elk dinner away from you.

But actually, no, the taxpayer doesn't have to pay for the machine -- the hospital paid for one that was smaller. I'm saying hospitals should, when they have to get a new one or spend a lot to repair/service the old one, instead invest in a larger one. Since they get to use it on more people, they get more use out of it and thus charge more money for using it. And if any cost is spread to other patients to help subsidize paying off the equipment bill, I got bad news for you -- you already pay out the wazoo for other people at the hospital. A HUGE amount of hospital visits are emergency room visits, due to people not using preventative care and waiting until they are much worse before going to the doctor. Of the people who make appointments for treatment, there's a pretty good chance they got diagnosed after visiting the emergency room with a condition that now requires far more treatment (and thus more expense) because they waited too long.

You can't get through life free of this sort of thing. Those people are by far the biggest cause of you paying more at the hospital, more than the 500 lbs people. But hey, he's an easy target, so why not gang up on him to mock him and say that being fat means someone deserves no respect? He's dead, not many people are arguing against the mockery and mean-spiritedness, so sure make this guy into a villain. That way, you can more easily justify the fact that you are insulting a sad, humiliated dead man.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

Oh, and for the record, if you are offended by having to pay for other people with your taxes based on their life-choices, how about all the folks in here who have student loans? Go ahead and tell them they get no respect and are just sucking at the taxpayer teet. I'm sure all they'll do is make a boob joke anyway. But if you wanna disrespect some people taking taxpayer money, there's a nice target with the added benefit of being immediate -- you can tell them to their face why you don't respect them for taking on schooling they couldn't afford themselves and had to take some of YOUR money to pay for. Let 'em have it.

 

[chaseter]

Uh you repay student loans. And, an 18 year old kid trying to go to college with no money because his parents are dead or they didn't work is different than a fat guy eating 10 cheeseburgers a day.

Trying to better yourself with an education =/= turning down medical services at the zoo.

 

[Sentinel X]

Being fat is not that simple. Yes, most of the time it is over eating and just being lazy and all that good stuff. However, when it comes to being MORBIDLY obese and you're eating yourself to death, I would stay that stems from severe psychological issues. Nobody in their right mind would want a life of constant ridicule and humiliation.

The point is morbidly obese people are addicts. Usually people do not laugh at people who are drug adicts, alchoholics, etc ...but when you're morbidly obese I guess it all changes. This person had an addiction to food.....and his inner demons eventually won. Wheres the funny?

 

[chaseter]

Being fat is not that simple. Yes, most of the time it is over eating and just being lazy and all that good stuff. However, when it comes to being MORBIDLY obese and you're eating yourself to death, I would stay that stems from severe psychological issues. Nobody in their right mind would want a life of constant ridicule and humiliation.

The point is morbidly obese people are addicts. Usually people do not laugh at people who are drug adicts, alchoholics, etc ...but when you're morbidly obese I guess it all changes. This person had an addiction to food.....and his inner demons eventually won. Wheres the funny?

If you choose to do heroine instead of having a good life then you deserve NO sympathy. If you choose to drink your life away, you deserve NO sympathy. If you are offered help and turn it down, then you deserve to be lol'd at.

If you eat 20 cheeseburgers a day and turn down medical services because it might embarass you when you are a 600 pound man, then you deserve no sympathy.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

Uh you repay student loans. And, an 18 year old kid trying to go to college with no money because his parents are dead or they didn't work is different than a fat guy eating 10 cheeseburgers a day.

Uh, "repay" because you took money from other people because you couldn't afford it at the time. Plenty of people work their way through school, paying as they go, waiting when they don't have the money. Bottom line, you take a student loan because you chose to go to school but don't have the money to enjoy that choice for yourself at the time. Why should I be forced -- I don't get asked whether or not I have to subsidize your loan -- to pay your way through school on the promise that you'll eventually pay it all back? Plenty of people pay late, default, etc.

It's no different than having to pay more at the hospital because of unhealthy people or elderly people or people who have accidents. Other people pick up the tab due to someone else's choice, be it hospitals or college.

Trying to better yourself with an education =/= turning down medical services at the zoo.

Expecting other people to pay your way through school because you'd rather not work your way through or delay college until you save your own cash to pay for it = paying more at the hospital because of other people's health choices or accidents or inability to pay. Your comments were about tax payers having to foot part of the bill for hospitals to be able to treat a wider array of people, so the comparison is entirely legitimate.

My point still stands: if you want to complain about tax payers footing the bill for other people's choices and how unfair that is, you have a great opportunity to speak directly to people relying on tax payer money right here. Namely, the folks who've talked about their college loans. Go for it.

If you choose to do heroine instead of having a good life then you deserve NO sympathy. If you choose to drink your life away, you deserve NO sympathy. If you are offered help and turn it down, then you deserve to be lol'd at. If you eat 20 cheeseburgers a day and turn down medical services because it might embarass you when you are a 600 pound man, then you deserve no sympathy.

If you're so socially and emotionally stunted that you lack compassion for other people just because their terrible situation started as their own bad choices, you deserve to be ostracized and mocked by everyone around you. If your personality is so mean-spirited and myopic that you think other people's plights deserve mockery and laughter and disrespect, you deserve to be a very lonely person who most people find it difficult to love. If you laugh even at someone's death because you can't sympathize with anyone who makes a bad choice or has the misfortune of having a bad choice snowball into something that ruins their lives or kills them, you deserve no sympathy for any of your own suffering or problems or cries for help.

Except that most of us aren't borderline sociopaths, so even when an obnoxious cruel person suffers and needs help, we don't stand nearby and laugh at their misery. Perhaps, though, we should, at least then such people would be a bit less inclined to subject the world around them to their emotionally and mentally stunted development.

This story made me life..... Yes, I'm cruel but I hate fat people unless they have the condition where you get fat uncontrollably.

And I can only hope you have something in your own life that is a source of humiliation and suffering, and that you enjoy exactly as much sympathy and basic human compassion as you're expressing here. Maybe it will force you to re-evaluate your mentality and admitted cruelty and change into a more decent person.

The utter lack of respect and decency that's taken over the comments from so many of you here is pretty shameful. Makes me think about the recent situation where the girl was raped and a large group of people stood around watching and taking photos and laughing about it, saying it was the girl's fault, etc. I can't help wondering how many of you would've been right there among the crowd.

Jokes are one thing. I have a fairly twisted sense of humor most of the time, and I often think it's acceptable to find humor in bad situations. But there's a point at which a normal person knows a line has been crossed, when things have moved into a mean-spiritedness that goes too far. The joking becomes justification of the jokes by turning the person into a villain and dehumanizing them, and the jokes get worse and worse. That's what's happened here, and it speaks volumes about the people involved.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

If you choose to do heroine instead of having a good life then you deserve NO sympathy. If you choose to drink your life away, you deserve NO sympathy. If you are offered help and turn it down, then you deserve to be lol'd at.

If you eat 20 cheeseburgers a day and turn down medical services because it might embarass you when you are a 600 pound man, then you deserve no sympathy.

Totally 100% agree. I don't feel any sympathy for addicts, drug addicts, food addicts, alcoholics, it's a number of personal choices going down that road and continuing on it. However, I do have a lot of respect for people who realize they've screwed up and take the necessary steps to get their life back on track.

 

[chaseter]

Uhhh loans have nothing to do with taxpayer money.............................................


For all of us lonely, myopic, evil, satanic, horrible people that we are...I suggest reading The Darwin Awards. It is a compilation of idiotic deaths from idiotic people.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

Uhhh loans have nothing to do with taxpayer money.............................................

...Someone needs to read more. There are federal student loans, there are banks and institutions that offer student loans through federal programs, banks that offer them independent of overt government aid are loaning money from the BANK, etc.

Try again.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

Oh, and can I complain about GRANTS people get for college? Because those don't even have to be paid back! Talk about a bunch of freeloaders!

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

For all of us lonely, myopic, evil, satanic, horrible people that we are...I suggest reading The Darwin Awards. It is a compilation of idiotic deaths from idiotic people.

See, I read the Darwin Awards. I read News of the Weird as well. And I find them humorous.

But if you can't see the difference between that, and the comments being made here and the steady slide into acting like the guy deserved to die etc, then you have something wrong in your brain.

And I can find those awards etc humorous without going on to say I don't also feel any sympathy etc. Again, big difference.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

Makes me think about the recent situation where the girl was raped and a large group of people stood around watching and taking photos and laughing about it, saying it was the girl's fault, etc. I can't help wondering how many of you would've been right there among the crowd.

How is this in any way a valid comparison? A girl being assaulted and raped is in no way the same as someone eating themselves to a quarter ton.

 

[chaseter]

...Someone needs to read more. There are federal student loans, there are banks and institutions that offer student loans through federal programs, banks that offer them independent of overt government aid are loaning money from the BANK, etc.

Try again.

You didn't type 'federal.' Someone needs to read more

It doesn't matter anyways, it isn't tax payer money or a tax payer burden. Student loans are repayed with an interest rate. So, those institutions make money. There are special programs where you can get a 0% interest rate for special needs for a certain amount of time.

I think you are mixing up loans and grants

 

[amazingfantasy15]

Oh, and can I complain about GRANTS people get for college? Because those don't even have to be paid back! Talk about a bunch of freeloaders!

Many times provided for a person's past excellent performance and set up by companies and individuals that want to reward that performance.

 

[chaseter]

See, I read the Darwin Awards. I read News of the Weird as well. And I find them humorous.

But if you can't see the difference between that, and the comments being made here and the steady slide into acting like the guy deserved to die etc, then you have something wrong in your brain.

And I can find those awards etc humorous without going on to say I don't also feel any sympathy etc. Again, big difference.

You laughed at those horrible accidents in The Darwin Awards. You are evil

Or here, you are all this:

If you're so socially and emotionally stunted that you lack compassion for other people just because their terrible situation started as their own bad choices, you deserve to be ostracized and mocked by everyone around you. If your personality is so mean-spirited and myopic that you think other people's plights deserve mockery and laughter and disrespect, you deserve to be a very lonely person who most people find it difficult to love. If you laugh even at someone's death because you can't sympathize with anyone who makes a bad choice or has the misfortune of having a bad choice snowball into something that ruins their lives or kills them, you deserve no sympathy for any of your own suffering or problems or cries for help.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

You didn't type 'federal.' Someone needs to read more

How very... sad of you. I said "loans", which means ALL loans. Federal, independent, banks -- ALL of them are funded directly by other people's money. Oops, you lose again! Have a cookie.

It doesn't matter anyways, it isn't tax payer money or a tax payer burden. Student loans are repayed with an interest rate. So, those institutions make money. There are special programs where you can get a 0% interest rate for special needs for a certain amount of time.

No, it DOES matter anyway. It IS tax payer money, and it IS a tax payer burden. People pay their money into the government, and it gets given out to people who can't pay for their own schooling. I don't care if you pay it back later -- see, the key word is "later", as in "you didn't have it when you went to school, and you expect me to help pay your schooling today". This isn't rocket science, you should be able to get this a lot quicker.

I think you are mixing up loans and grants

No, you're mixing up "paying for your own school" with "somebody else pay for my school". And, duh, I brought up grants separately. I don't care if you pay it back later or not, you are taking money today to go to school, and other people have to foot the bill, period. You complained about the whole "tax payer's paying for other people at the hospital" thing, and this is the same situation. Try to understand this, okay?

Many times provided for a person's past excellent performance and set up by companies and individuals that want to reward that performance.

And the most common is the Pell Grant, a -- wait for it -- GOVERNMENT grant funded by -- wait for it -- TAX MONEY. And I really don't care if someone was excellent or not. Good for them, have a cookie. Why is it fair to make me pay for them to go to school? If they are so excellent, go be excellent at a job and excellently pay for your own school if that's your -- wait for it -- CHOICE. Hey, don't be mad at me, I'm just applying "chaster"'s logic and complaints about the hospital-tax-payers thing. Not saying I actually oppose student loans.

You laughed at those horrible accidents in The Darwin Awards. You are evil
Or here, you are all this:

It's called "reading comprehension". Get some. I noted the difference between sympathizing and not sympathizing, saying they deserved it etc. Ohs noes, you loses agains!

How is this in any way a valid comparison? A girl being assaulted and raped is in no way the same as someone eating themselves to a quarter ton.

Another case for reading comprehension. I didn't say those two situations were comparable. I said the attitude and mean-spiritedness here and the justifications and borderline sociopathic commentary from some people reminds me of the coarseness and lack of compassion and voyeuristic nature of what those creeps did by watching that girl get attacked. I'm comparing attitudes and mentalities, not the guy's death to the girl's assault.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

When you get a loan or grant to pay for school, they don't just poop the money out for you, and the bank president doesn't go into his own wallet and give you the money. The money comes from somewhere, and that somewhere is from other people, mostly tax payers who pay for it with taxes or their own bank accounts. That's the simple fact.

Why not just say, "Yes, I couldn't pay and borrowed money that other people paid into. But society is better off the more of us there are who get an education, and it's a good thing and a good trade-off. It's money well-invested, and we all benefit from more educated people with better-paying jobs." That's the truth and it's rational.

Just as it's rational to also say, "People get sick, people have accidents, and sometimes they can't pay for it or it ends up being more expensive because of their choices -- diet, jobs, accidents, waiting too long, etc. But society is better off in the long run when we try to keep people healthy, and when people can get medical care when they need it. Yes, it means we all pay a little more for our own services, but in the long run we are better off because there are less sick people and injured people and dead people. My bus ride and shopping excursions would be a lot less pleasant if I am surrounding by sick people and injured people."

It's a social contract, and sometimes you're the one benefiting from it and other times someone else benefits. It's not perfect, but no system is. You try to fix mistakes and make it better, get rid of inefficiencies, but you don't take advantage of it when it suits you and then whine about it when it benefits someone else.

 

[chaseter]

Oh my goodness. You vast knowledge of the banking industry is astounding! Loans are a burden on tax payers!!! Someone call Bernanke...my taxes are going up because people are taking out loans.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

Oh my goodness. You vast knowledge of the banking industry is astounding! Loans are a burden on tax payers!!! Someone call Bernanke...my taxes are going up because people are taking out loans.

Ah, and yet no actual attempted refutation from the voice moments ago asserting that student loans aren't "tax payer money". So the pattern is (a) make a false assertion, (b) get refuted, (c) act like being refuted somehow demonstrates weakness in your opponent's argument. Repeat as necessary. And it's oh so very, very necessary, it seems. Good luck with that.

 

[chaseter]

I already made my point. Not going to argue in circles with you.

You likened being fat and not getting an x-ray at a zoo to the likes of getting raped and being a poor individual trying to go to college. Grants are free money, loans are paid back. So, I wonder which one are a burden to tax payers? Money that is never given back or money that is given back, with interest. Which would one would cause taxes ro rise depending on how much is used? Which one would help increase the national debt depending on how much is used? I wonder...

 

[Lantern Venom]

If you choose to do heroine instead of having a good life then you deserve NO sympathy. If you choose to drink your life away, you deserve NO sympathy. If you are offered help and turn it down, then you deserve to be lol'd at.

If you eat 20 cheeseburgers a day and turn down medical services because it might embarass you when you are a 600 pound man, then you deserve no sympathy.

Totally 100% agree. I don't feel any sympathy for addicts, drug addicts, food addicts, alcoholics, it's a number of personal choices going down that road and continuing on it. However, I do have a lot of respect for people who realize they've screwed up and take the necessary steps to get their life back on track.

Wow. I'm simply aghast at the opinions in this thread. You seriously believe that you are justified in disrespecting a person's entire being because they made choices that led to their premature death. My next statement will offend you (and you need to be offended ) but that is a morally bankrupt viewpoint.

No more posts for me in this thread, boys and girls. It's too depressing to hear attitudes like this.