Chunk the Bear

Who Did a Reverse “Biggest Loser”

Queen Elizabeth the First imparted a lot of physical and psychological misery on people, as Gideon so deftly described in his last post. She not only hanged people, but sanctioned the ripping out of their intestines before an excited public audience, while these “treasoners” were still alive, literally kicking and screaming as their guts were hanging like ropes outside of their body. A bullet to the head would have been kinder. Townsfolk watched and collected the blood of those who suffered as a “keepsake.” This is not like catching Ohtani’s flyball in Dodgers’ stadium, though I would definitely kill for anything Ohtani touches, spits on,or discards, but what would you do with a bucket of blood scavenged from a torture scene? Invite people over to come look at it?

We were even more appalled to learn of the torturing of animals for sport, specifically “bear-baiting,” which was popular entertainment in medieval times, for all ranks. It is kinda like the WWF but instead involves hungry and agitated dogs getting into the ring with a bear but the bear is chained to a wall and can’t protect itself while they are ripped from limb to limb by the hungry and agitated dogs. The bears were given nicknames like “Blind Bess” and “George Stone” and were briefly local celebrities until they were savagely rippled apart. Shakespeare even name-dropped some of these baited-bears in his play, “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”

But luckily, times have changed! Now, we laugh back at the monarchs for sport. And on a global stage! England’s Prince Andrew just surrendered his title as “The Duke of York” because of his “errant behavior.” He was besties with billionaire Jeffrey Epstein who procured a lions’ lair of teenage girls to have sex with him, like Virginia Giuffre. In a panic, Andrew hired a royal court police officer to get dirt on the “woman he never met” with whom he was never photographed.

Andrew was also said to have once admonished his assigned royal maid for not properly arranging his various collected stuffed Teddy Bear collection correctly on his pillows. I believe he was thirty-eight at the time.

Then there is the American/Canadian “royal” spectacle of Countess Luann de Lessups, a title she gained through an earlier marriage with a French guy. An original cast member of the reality TV series, “The Real Housewives of New York City,” and featured in the first thirteen seasons of the show, she was later booted down to the title of “Friend of the Show,” because she no longer lives in New York City. Luann has had a few run-ins with the law for disorderly intoxication and blowing the check at an upscale DC restaurant. In recent years, she began headlining “Countess and Friends,” a cabaret show of sorts and released her first single, “Money Can’t Buy You Class.” Truer words have never been spoken. But at least, Luann is fun!

So while that’s two strikes for the royals, let’s see how the bears are doing. According to the voters in Brooks River, home of Katmai National Park in Alaska, they are fat and happy. Each year, the park hosts their own kind of March Madness with Fat Bear Week, which is held for a week at the end of September. Voters can track and observe the bears via video cameras placed all over the park. And like basketball fans who obsess over their brackets, fat bear watchers come to the contest informed.

Here is the website:

As late September to early October is the time of the year that bears go into hibernation for the winter, they must bulk up. It must be nice to be encouraged to get fat. The rules are quite simple, you must vote for the animal that “exemplifies fatness and success in brown bears.”

Adult male bears average between 700 and 900 pounds around July, but by the late fall, they get up to about 1,200 pounds. Adult females weigh about a third of that, due “to the energetic costs of raising cubs.” It seems that a woman’s work is never done, even in the Animal Kingdom. The bears typically eat plant and animal food but come September, they feed on a lot of sockeye salmon, which are plentiful in its rivers. Aside from their girth, bears are judged on their adaptability, intelligence and individualism. Their success for survival depends on their knowledge and skills.

To be included in the bracket, bears must be present at the river through the summer so they can be captured in “before -and-after” photographs. It is like a Slim Fast ad in reverse. And who were some of this year’s contenders? There is “99,” a three and half year old bear with chocolate - colored fur. He has two siblings, “912” and “913,” and has been called “a bear of potential.” I like the sounds of bear “602,” who has grizzled brown fur and does a “peculiar stomping dance” when he is excited. All bets were on “Chunk,” one of the few bears with a name and not a number. A large male bear with narrowly-set eyes, Chunk returned to the river after hibernation this July with a freshly broken jaw, which added a little drama to the contest. Of the eleven bears involved, Chunk was the winner with 96,350 votes. That’s just a few votes less than Thomas Jefferson got in the 1804 Presidential Election. And like our broken-jawed Chunk, Jefferson had a lot stacked against him, especially with the slave-owner’s vote.

Lastly, Go Bears!