New Series - It's a FUBAR World Now

From time to time I'll be posting articles under the title, "It's a FUBAR World now."

FUBAR is an old military acronym that took SNAFU up a notch as shown in the illustration above. It means "Fu@ked Up Beyond All Recognition." FUBAR stories can be funny, bizarre, sad, infuriating - anything that depicts how our civilization is becoming FUBAR'ed.

First a mild one. Tigers. From The Guardian an account of how there are more tigers living in captivity in the US, often domestically, than there are in the wild around the world. Few of these captive tigers are sheltered in zoos. A lot of them are living in peoples' homes, sometimes in their backyards, a situation that often ends in gunfire.

Seven thousand of the big cats live in US captivity, whereas, despite increases, there are as few as 3,890 wild tigers worldwide. Most of the captive animals are kept in unregulated conditions, as the BBC reported last week. Only 6% are housed in zoos or facilities approved by the US Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The rest live in private breeding facilities, back yards, even urban apartments. In some states, it is easier to buy a tiger than to adopt a rescue dog.

In 2011, an owner of exotic pets in Zanesville, Ohio, released his menagerie into the community; 18 tigers and other animals were shot to protect people. In 2001, Texas was forced to pass a law demanding owners register their animals after a pet tiger ripped off a young boy’s arm. “Since 1990, there have been hundreds of dangerous incidents involving big cats in the US. Four children lost their lives and dozens of others lost limbs or suffered other often traumatic injuries. Nineteen adults have been killed and scores have been mauled,” says Debbie Leahy, the manager for captive wildlife protection at the Humane Society of the United States.

This one goes out to the guys at Burger King. As you may have heard, the FIFA World Cup is underway in Russia. To celebrate the great event the Russian branch of Burger King set up a great promotion - free burgers for life for any woman who gets impregnated by a participating soccer player.

On Tuesday the burger chain announced a promotion on VK, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, offering women 3 million Russian roubles ($47,000) and a lifetime supply of Whoppers if they get impregnated by football players competing in the World Cup. 

Shortly after announcing the campaign they pulled it due to backlash. Burger King posted a statement on VK apologizing and said it had removed all materials related to the promotion. However, evidence of the stunt lives on in screenshots.

 I was going to wrap this up with a report on how municipalities in the US (and some in Canada) are making their homeless disappear by giving them bus tickets to other cities, sometimes long-distance trips to other states and provinces. I think I'll pass. Domesticated tigers and Russian burger promotions is probably about all you - or I - can stomach in one sitting.