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Die and Learn

May 2001

Unnatural Selection

Darwin Awards celebrate the theory of evolution by commemorating the remains of those who improved our gene pool by removing themselves from it in really stupid ways. Support your species! Put a bill in our tip jar! Read 46 Favorite Darwins! 28 Top At-Risk Survivors 19 Best Personal Accounts 10 Zaniest Urban Legends.   India's Monkey Man Have you heard? Zeebarf Men are leaping from the roofs in terror, women are shrieking and fainting all over India. Do you know anything about this so-called Monkey Man? I'm wondering if it's a monkey, a wacko, or mass hysteria. Monkey Man Menace! Jackass Have you noticed how many TV shows encourage dangerous risks?  Since I never watch 'em I can't comment on their merits but so many Jackass submissions arrive in my email box that I feel I must speak out. Should Jackass participants and their ilk win Darwin Awards and At-Risk Survivors? Sure we're "lauding" those who snuff themselves in stupid ways -- but my aim is to encourage common sense, rather than to egg lunatics to greater heights of stupidity. People who are addicted to publicity shouldn't be encouraged in their reckless stunts! A person who (all but) kills himself while attempting to achieve Jackass fame is indubitably a fool, but I prefer not to feature him on the website. That would be akin to feeding a drug habit, and to my mind, unconscionable. There you have it: my moral stance! What do you think? RealAudio Feature House Hunting Gone Awry ( Read the Story )   Wrong Way Wang Wei Many of you nominated the pilot of the Chinese aircraft that buzzed the American spy plane. Was this man a Darwin winner or what? Wang Wei. America patrols the border of the International Waters observing China. Maybe they define that line themselves sometimes. Naturally enough the Chinese don't like that. Chinese pilots are presumably under orders (or tacitly expected) to push them back. This one got a little too close. He reportedly enjoyed buzzing the slow-moving spy planes. What highly-trained, testosterone-crazed and aggressive fighter pilot wouldn't? The other pilots knew to keep their distance. This one went a little too far. It occurs to me that the American plane might have deviated from its course to give the Chinese plane a scare. If that's the case then Wang Wei would be a victim, and not eligible for a Darwin. Wang Wei: Darwin or No? YES give the pilot a Darwin! NO he should not win. THIS is not FUNNY. I heard that the American pilots spent time destroying the plane before they went into captivity. Talk About Wei. Literary Reference "It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others."

Fifteen New Stories! Darwin Awards Intersecting Darwins Killing Time Dry Spell BulletProof Fast Food Fatality Hanging Around Jail Fifteen Minutes of Flame At-Risk Survivors Call Girl Dumb Drunk Tumble Dry Trash Compactor Disarmed by Tiger Personal Accounts Tube Snake Monkey Business [ Last Month's Stories ]   Lawyer Darwins George supplied these dubious "frivolous lawsuits" from the professional magazine, California Lawyer. Each of the plaintiffs appears to be a Darwin Award waiting to happen. A widow sued McDonalds for adding MSG to McNuggets, claiming that the MSG had combined with chemicals her husband was exposed to at work, and caused him to go on a shooting spree. A father who happened to be a lawyer sued the maker of Crackerjacks because his daughter did not get a toy in her box. (Did the lawyer settle for peanuts?) Pace University in New York was sued by two computer science students because their basic computer-programming course had too much advanced math, and their instructor "expected us to know trigonometry and algorithms." A man cut off his right hand, thinking it possessed by the devil. He refused to allow hospital surgeons to reattach it. He then sued the hospital and doctors for damages from the loss of his hand. (The right hand didn't know what the left was doing.) A bank robber tucked the money he'd heisted into his pants and fled from the bank. When the dye pack exploded, it injured his genitals. And after collecting his Darwin Award he turned around and sued the bank for his loss. The jury took fifteen minutes to return a verdict in favor of the defendant. RATTLESNAKE A medical research article on unusual rattlesnake bites described several bizarre human-snake interactions, including an intoxicated 45-year-old man who was "bitten on the tongue after placing his pet rattlesnake's head in his mouth in an attempt to calm the snake." The authors note that "although human beings are not rattlesnake prey, envenomations (commonly) follow intentional encounters with snakes." Bill Geissert found this information in Rattlesnake Envenomation, DA Tanen MD et.al., Arch Intern Med. 2001;161:474-479. Darwin T-Shirts, Fish, and Hats nothing fishy about this shirt Dozens of Darwin Mottos

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