On Sep 4, 2006, at 1:37 PM, Mark Roberts wrote: >> He was a genuinely honest bloke who when asked a straight question >> gave a frank & honest answer no matter how much it embarrassed >> him, or >> those around him. And in an age of constructed media >> personalities, he >> was certainly refreshing. > > You know, all through this thread I've trying to decide to myself what > I really thought of the guy. I think you summed it up nicely here.
In my original life I was a zoologist and learned quickly to have a healthy respect for wild animals. Almost any wild animal can be dangerous if you don't exercise proper care. My problem with Irwin was that his apparent reckless behavior (even if sham) encouraged his viewers to follow his example. That simply was not good. As a person he seems to have been as you say, honest, straightforward and very enthusiastic. I would probably have liked him personally if I had met him. But I did not like his approach to dealing with wild animals. He claimed in TV interviews to have a unique talent to communicate with them and said he could do things with them that on one else could do. Perhaps that was true. But watching his program really was scary to me. Nigel Marvin is another one who seems to take unnecessary risks for the sake of "show business". Bob -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
