Grr.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's terrible. Maybe it's uncouth to say, but I find the mauling of Roy by his trained tiger, to be both sad, and really, really funny.

And in thinking about it, there is often a sense of, "He got what he deserved" whenever someone who trains animals for the amusement of us humans is injured by the animal--say, when an elephant is forced to stand on stools and carry people around has had it and stomps his trainer. But at the same time, there is not that same sense when someone knowingly engaged in an equally dangerous endeavor purely for amusement (football, NASCAR, rock climbing, stuntmen).

And so is it our secret feeling that nature should not be tamed? That when the tiger stands up to his master, somehow nature is beating us, and we have the secret suspicion that we somehow deserve it? That somehow it's perverse that while we've decimated the tiger population, (and regardless of whatever good S & R have done for the species--something I assume but don't know for sure), at the same time we travel to Vegas to watch the big kitties act tame and silly for us as we hold our plastic cup of quarters, drink our Mai-Tai out of a six-foot tall replica of the Eiffel Tower, and dig the soft pack of Kool's from our fanny pack so we can light up the second we step outside the goddang non-smoking theatre. But if it is just about nature getting it's ass-kick on, why do I not feel secretly pleased when a tornado knocks down some homes? Or an earthquake levels a city?

One gets the sense that the prognosis is not good. And that's very sad. And so perhaps if the outcome is death, any amount of humor I find in the situation will disappear. I sort of hope so, but I'm not counting on it.

What's the conclusion? I'm not sure. Gallows humor is nothing new, and nothing that can be wiped out, no matter how many recriminations of "That's not funny!" you hear.

Because you know what, for some strange reason, it kind of is.