Bullfighting...a little payback

[Tiassa]

Don't Click the Link

Looking at the picture is even painful—via Reuters:

Spanish banderiller Pedro Muriel is gored by a bull during a bullfight at the Malagueta bullring in Malaga August 22, 2010. Banderillers are bullfighter's assistants whose role is to weaken the bull's massive neck and shoulder muscles using harpoon pointed sticks known as banderillas (little flags). Muriel was gored in the right thigh but his wound is not serious, said his manager Ignacio Gonzalez to the magazine Mundotoro.​

Let's just say that's a very gentle description of ... er ... um ....

Okay, just go with it, and don't click the link.
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Notes:

"Pictures of the year: Strange and unusual". Reuters. 2010. Reuters.com. December 18, 2010. http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTXV2BU

 

[Bells]

I look at that image and frankly, the first thing that comes to my mind is "sucked in!".. My sympathy rests with the bull.

 

[Tiassa]

Score one for the bull, but ... ouch!

I look at that image and frankly, the first thing that comes to my mind is "sucked in!"

Yeah. It's ... yeah.

My sympathy rests with the bull.

I cheer for the bull on that one. But it's the sort of picture a couple of my friends would cuss me out for if I sent it to them without some sort of warning for the "ouch" factor.

And while we pause to think about how humans and animals get along, I'll note that's not the strangest one in the Reuters bunch. The one of the woman feeding the calf (#2 in the Reuters photoset) is a candidate for the strangest picture I've ever seen.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Just wondering, has anyone out there actually been to a live bullfight and if so what did you make of it? I can't figure what the appeal is, other than taking some strange joy in watching an animal tortured?

They're televised in Spain (well they were in 1973) and I saw one with the family I was staying with. It was disgusting. Only the men in the family appreciated it, the women left the room.

There are many forms of bullfighting in which the bull does not [die].

That's the Portuguese tradition. They do not kill or even seriously harm the bulls, and the bulls' horns are wrapped in padding so they cannot seriously harm the bullfighters either. Sort of a ballet, very civilized.

It's the version where they stick sharp things in the animal's body I have a lil issue with.

The person who does that is called el picador. The lady of the house I was in walked through the room and glanced at the screen for a moment just as he was doing that. She said, Ojalá que el picador caiga al suelo. "God, please let the picador fall on the ground."

It's worth noting that bullfighting is not much different from cockfighting, which is widely practiced. Sure, that may be a fair fight between equals, but still they're both going to be torn up badly and one of them is going to die. And how about dogfighting? As we all know now, dogfights are held right here in the modern, enlightened USA and famous athletes run them for big money.