Courtesy of the Wikipedia. I wanted to read an article about "Old Bet," the Elephant that Hachaliah Bailey, of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus brought round.
Bailey originally planned to use Old Bet as a draught animal on his farm, but she attracted so much attention that he decided to found a travelling menagerie instead. He started out to show Old Bet with a wagon of hay, a horse to draw it, and an assistant. The admission fee for an entire family was either a coin or a 2-gallon jug of rum.
Trading a bottle of rum so you can see an elephant - that's great. I, like I hope all of you are, am now PROUD to be a human being.
On July 24, 1816, Old Bet was killed while on tour near Alfred, Maine by a farmer who thought it sinful for poor people to waste money on a travelling circus.
... All right! We had a good run, humanity and I. Any alien races taking applications? Fuck this, I'm out.
Last edited by Ice Cream Jonsey on Sun Dec 10, 2006 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
What animal has been shat upon by man more than the elephant? Actually, probably lots, but elephants look WISE. I can't handle it, I really can't. Some people are weird about dog cruelty. I think we can all safely say that cats deserve to have the stuffing beat out of them early and often.
But man, being mean to an elephant. They look like they suffer humans because someone promised them a prize in the afterlife if they didn't kill as many of us as possible. We take their ivory, we make wastebaskets out of their feet, we teach them that a rope is stronger than they are when they are young and then lead them around by a rope because they made a mental association, we kill as many as we possibly can and for all we know if they had better teeth they could live 200 years.
Honestly, I'm not saying I would like to die by being mauled by an elephant but if I went that way I'd at least understand. *
Also, my friend Andy was in the Peace Corps in Africa for a couple years. The parents of one of his Peace Corps associates came to visit her. The mother was killed by an elephant in a wildlife reserve. It's crazy to think that I know someone who knows someone who was killed by an elephant, but hopefully that makes you feel better that there are elephants out there fighting the good fight.
Roody_Yogurt wrote:Hey, you guys should come to Wisconsin and we can go to the Circus World Museum. Been meaning to go there for years.
It might be time to go to Wisconsin. You guys have ten thousand copies of like every arcade game EVER MADE over there. And I'm eventually going to want one.
You're close to Bruce and Amy as well, right? Maybe we should think about this for 2007. It's too soon for me to commit, but this should be researched. Someone should knock on Debaser's account as well. JC FUN FAX: lately, when looking for good threads to be added to the best of base, I just start following Debaser's post history.
Roody_Yogurt wrote:Also, my friend Andy was in the Peace Corps in Africa for a couple years. The parents of one of his Peace Corps associates came to visit her. The mother was killed by an elephant in a wildlife reserve. It's crazy to think that I know someone who knows someone who was killed by an elephant, but hopefully that makes you feel better that there are elephants out there fighting the good fight.
...
Good grief!
*The Penny Arcade guy would sooner rip his tits off than not put that word "understand" in italics.
icj wrote:we teach them that a rope is stronger than they are when they are young and then lead them around by a rope because they made a mental association
I didn't know that about elephants, thanks Jonsey. Who knew jc could be entertaining and informative?
Robb fucked it up. You CHAIN the baby elephant down when it is young. After a while it realizes it cannot break the chain. When it is older you can just tie rope around its leg and it doesn't think it can snap it and get away, figuring anytime something is tied to its leg it is unable to break it.
This is done so when you move/walk them as an adult you don't have to carry a 200 pound chain around, just lead them with a small rope. If anyone should know about the circus it's this humble clown.
I watched the same stupid show 20 years ago you did Robb. What was that from TIME-LIFE myseries of the unknown??
the last group complained, quite tellingly They said, "Why don't you have a spoon that just says 'Earth?' It would save time
Knuckles the CLown wrote:I watched the same stupid show 20 years ago you did Robb. What was that from TIME-LIFE myseries of the unknown??
I don't know, but my Nostalgia Sense is kicking in. I remember how much I wanted those Time-Life Mysteries of the Unknown books. I wanted them BAD. We used to go to the Merton Williams Middle School Library and check those things out during study halls. I didn't need to study during Middle School Study Hall because it was middle school.
(None of us did. I don't mean to imply otherwise.)
I am wondering how much those things would be on eBay or Abe Books or whathaveyou. Time to investigate! Knuckles may get a Christmas present that even he did not anticipate!
I don't think Bruce and Amy are an easy drive away, but it's something that could be done in a day, and Debaser, of course, isn't far at all.
There happens to be a place that sells arcade machines just down the road from me, and they do have a yearly convention at the State Fair Grounds (also just down the road) for arcade games. Can't remember what time of year it is.
Roody_Yogurt wrote:I don't think Bruce and Amy are an easy drive away, but it's something that could be done in a day, and Debaser, of course, isn't far at all.
Yeah, The Loo is about six-seven hours from Roody.
Jeff Foxworthy wrote:If you live in a state, where you can drive in any direction for 7 hours AND STILL be in the same state YOU MIGHT BE A REDNECK!!!!
If you think Wisconsin and Missouri are the same state, you MIGHT BE A FUCKING IDIOT!!!!
A note on the aforementioned Time-Life mysterys of the unknown books...
A friend of mine had them, much to my unknowing, and when I helped her move I discoverd them in a cardboard box otherwise occupied by old National Geographic mags. (why does NOBODY ever throw those out? Must be the glossy paper) I immedatly claimed temporary ownership of the seven or eight volumes and spent the next two or three weeks perusing them.
Results: You can find more information on the internet than by reading those books. Seriously, they may have been cool as a youth but they are mainly very thin info-wise as an inquiring adult.
Take one phenomenon... Let's take the Bermuda Triangle just as an example. There are three or four pages, complete with artist renderings of the missing planes and ships. Lavish prose extolls the dangers of either getting sucked up by a UFO or opening some weird time warp to Hong Kong in the late Ffifties or other suchlike nonsense.
Any topic covered in those slim volumes can be found with much more detail right in front of you as you read this! (unless you are reading this from your cell phone on a bus to Denver, in which case there is another mystery subject... )
