The kids in Thailand

Panumat Sangdee, 13, one of the trapped kids.

They've rescued four more kids from the cave in Thailand. At this pint, there are four more kids and the coach waiting to be rescued. One diver has already died. Some of the kids don't know how to swim and none of them have used diving equipment. It takes hours to get them out.

A few years ago, there were two Florida middle schoolers who disappeared in the ocean where they went alone in a 19 foot boat to go fishing. There was a spate of younger and younger children who wanted to break the work record by being the youngest to sail around the world. It's not just the kids. There are people think they can casually climb Mt Everest. You can phone your family from there if you have a satellite phone which creates the illusion that it's sort of safe.

We need to teach children a deathly fear of nature. There was Werner Herzog's documentary, Grizzly Man, about failed actor Timothy Treadwell who went hiking alone into the Alaska wilderness. Bears do this thing where they'll charge at you. Sometimes they keep coming, sometimes they stop before they reach you and are just trying to chase you away. But Treadwell didn't know that. When a bear charged at him and stopped, he thought it was because he showed no fear and figured that so long as kept showing no fear he could freely cavort with the bears. And he managed to do this until one killed and ate him.

But Treadwell was engaged in "educational" activities, visiting schools and telling children that gigantic prehistoric predators are nothing to be afraid of.

Treadwell had nothing to do with this, but some pre-teens in Brooklyn broke into the zoo so they could go swimming with the polar bears. Only one went through with it and he was killed partially eaten. Journalist Alexander Cockburn thought this was because of the anthropomorphized bears they keep putting in children's books.

I've told this before. I had a great uncle who was half American Indian born in the 1880's. He had an amazing ability to find his way through the woods even in total darkness. He did things that amazed his white in-laws. BUT HE WAS AFRAID TO GO INTO THE WOODS ALONE. He'd take his (white) nephew with him on jobs that took him into the woods which is how word of this got around the family. They were out in the forest, it got dark. They couldn't see a thing. Can you stay behind me? he said. His nephew said, I guess so, and they walked through the woods at full speed straight to their parked car.

This came to mind when a hiker out there alone amputated his own arm after having it stuck in some rocks for several days.

I have a brother, a musician by trade, who was offered a job on a cruise ship. He didn't want to do it. They're terrible gigs. Then he found out it was part of a round-the-world cruise and that people paid over a hundred thousand dollars just for the leg of the cruise he would be on, so he took the job. They stopped in Kenya. He went on an excursion to see the wild animals. The tourists were excited to see the elephants out there in their natural habitat while the Kenyan guides seemed extremely nervous and wanted to get out of there.

It was reported in the local paper that a young woman saved her money and took a trip to Kenya. Out there at night, she was so happy to be there that she walked into the veldt until some armed men in a Land Rover roared up and arrested her. It's illegal to walk around out there at night because you get killed doing that. She was taken before a judge. She was alarmed because she didn't have money to pay the fine. But the judge had mercy on her because she was "a stupid white person".

The case of Christopher McCandless immortalized in the movie Into the Wild. The poor guy burned his money then walked into the woods in Alaska. He got stuck out there, living in an abandoned school bus. He dug up roots to eat but hunting for them burned more calories than he got from them and he died of starvation.

Now fans of the movie who want to see the same spot in which McCandless found himself trapped keep finding themselves trapped and have to be rescued.

And something along these lines that didn't involve hiking anywhere: I heard a call from a listener on a NPR. They were talking about mushrooms. This guy had been at a family reunion. A young semi-hippie relation had brought some mushrooms she picked to the potluck. The caller knew he shouldn't but he ate one and had to be rushed to the hospital where they barely managed to keep him alive. The guest on the show said that at least half the mushrooms growing wild in his region of the countries were potentially deadly.

Stay away from nature. It's just awful. People who live out there are terrified of it. We have cities for a reason.