If You Run With the Bulls, You Get the Horns

I hate siding with PETA, even if just a little, but like the moronic animal rights organization, I feel very little sympathy for the idiots who have been gored and will be gored by bulls in Pamplona, Spain during this year’s running of the bulls. What did the morons think was going to happen?

One of my parenting goals is to instill into my children a deep appreciation for the law of cause and effect. I often find myself responding to my kids’ protestations that “it was an accident” with something like, “No, it wasn’t an accident. You chose to do ‘X’ and as a result ‘Y’ happened. I understand that you didn’t intend for ‘Y’ to happen, but your choice to do ‘X’ is the direct cause of ‘Y.’ It wasn’t an accident, because there is no such thing as an accident.”

That bit of expert parenting (if I may label it that myself) applies to the running of the bulls.

The 9-day festival, which is a build-up to the famed bull fights, is held in Pamplona, Spain every year from July 6-14. It involves anywhere from 6 to over 10 angry bulls running wildly through a section of the city. Reading those 2 previous sentences, any intelligent human being would conclude that staying off the streets designated for the bulls to run on is the smart decision. However, proving that humans are walking violations of the law of non-contradiction (idiots who frequently make decisions that run counter to our well-being), many people decide to voluntarily place themselves in front of the charging horde of bulls. Predictably, every year people are gored.

So far this year, 2 Americans have been gored while participating in Pamplona’s running of the bulls. No doubt, that number will have gone up by the time July 14 draws to a close.

One American, Jaime Alvarez of San Francisco, spoke to ABC News from his hospital bed while recovering from surgery and confessed that, “The joy and the excitement of being in the bullring quickly turned into a scare, into real fear for my life.”

Alvarez was in that hospital bed because a bull gored him in the neck. He’s lucky to be alive. Describing what it feels like to be hit by a charging bull, Alvarez said, “The impact was unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It was like being hit by a car or a truck. It was scary.”

Of course it was scary. Of course the “joy” turned “into real fear for my life.” My 8-year-old could have told him that would happen. If you choose to put yourself into the path of charging bulls, then you are saying that you are okay with being gored. Paraphrasing Vice Principal Richard Vernon from the classic movie The Breakfast Club, if you run with the bulls, you get the horns. Society should stop glorifying idiots who do idiotic things.