One of the more made-for-TV bits of jackassery in the past few days has been brought to you by Luis Moreno, a Colombian soccer player. In a recent match, the opposing teams mascot, an owl, made the mistake of landing on the field during the game, and was unlucky enough to get hit by the ball. The refs stopped the game, at which point Luis Moreno decided it would be a humorous jape to walk up to it and kick it.
[youtube DrKmKSF3qLQ]
Getting hit by the ball apparently broke the birds wing. Getting kicked did it no good either. Soon after, it died… apparently from stress due to all the humans fretting over it. Moreno has been suspended, fined, and now the death threats are apparently pouring in.
Dude. It’s Colombia. What, did you think pissing the people off there would be a safe thing to do? As Michael Vick found out, sports fans think it’s a hoot (get it? A hoot? Bah. Screw you guys, I’m crankin’ out comedy gold here) when athletes try to tear each others heads off… but they start howling for blood if athletes abuse critters.
The story is sad on it’s own. But what kinda gets me is a brief instant in the video above. The camera zooms in on the bird after it’s been hit by the ball, and it’s just sitting there on the field looking kinda stunned, holding it’s wings out. As Moreno walks up to it, it turns its head to look at him. And it just looks to me like the bird is asking if Moreno will help him.*
The answer, clearly, was “No.”
* Yes, yes, that’s unwarranted anthropomorphism. It just looks like the bird is asking for help, is all.
5 Responses to ““Are you here to help me?””
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This guy sounds like a real idiot…no common sense….poor bird.
The first thing I wondered was what the hell was the owl doing walking around on the field during a game? You want to avoid a repeat of this incident, get a jaguar as the new mascot, and let somebody kick that to see what happens. 😀
However, you can see this becoming new Colombian soccer slang; if somebody flubs a simple goal, they will say he “Kicked The Owl”.
Regards anthropomorphizing:
Given the owl was a mascot/pet that was acclimated to humans, and had been cared for and fed by humans, it is not unwarranted to think he was expecting help.
If he thought it was fun to go out into a place where people were running all over the place and kicking a ball around, he may have needed mental help.
I don’t see why they would let him get onto the field anyway; even if the bird wasn’t in personal danger, it would be a major distraction during the game, like having a fan running around on the field.
All he had to do was take his shirt off and drape it over the thing to calm it down, and scoop with a wastepaper tray on a handle to avoid claws/bites.