Rex Huppke
Contact Reporter
Stephen Hawking, the famed theoretical physicist, predicts that humankind has about 100 years to find a new planet. A promotion for a BBC documentary he appears in notes: "With climate change, overdue asteroid strikes, epidemics and population growth, our own planet is increasingly precarious."
Nothing worse for a planet than being overdue for an asteroid strike.
While Hawking is undoubtedly more intelligent than I are — I'm more of a theoretical journalist — other recent news has led me to believe that 100 years is too generous. I'm thinking we'll be lucky to make it through next week.
First off, in case you haven't noticed, we have an uncomfortably large number of world leaders who are: a) erratic narcissists; and b) armed with nuclear weapons.
We're all one poorly timed joke about Kim Jong Un's haircut away from becoming charred meatloaf.
In addition to that, there's a 2,000-square-mile hunk of ice about to break off the Antarctic Peninsula. The Larsen C ice shelf already had a 110-mile crack in it, but last week, scientists announced the crack now has a second branch.
Before long, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island will be adrift and sea levels might rise because the ice shelf was keeping ice from nearby glaciers from sliding into the water.
The nukes and the asteroids and the giant icebergs and the epidemics and the oceans enveloping us all sound bad enough. But the universe is also trying to kill us on a more up-close and personal level.
We know that if we don't exercise we're either going to die or not be ready for bathing suit season, two equally terrifying fates.
But now we learn that the gym where we get our exercise might also be deadly, thanks to the unspeakable filth left behind by grotesque fellow gym goers.
The fitness equipment rating website FitRated.com — it's where I go to research workout equipment I buy and never use — had a laboratory evaluate swabs from treadmills, exercise bikes and free weights at three different chain gyms.
Here's what was found: "The average exercise bike harbors 39 times more bacteria than a cafeteria tray. Typical free weights have 362 times more germs than a toilet seat. And the treadmill you're running on averages 74 times more bacteria than a typical public bathroom faucet."
Cool.
Knowing that most of us bring our phones to the gym, it's a good bet we're hauling all those germs home with us and our fingers should be quarantined in infectious disease tents.
A safer workout would be to just do pushups in a bus station restroom and then jog off a cliff.
Anyhoo, death is all but certain, so let me get to the part about murdering the deer.
A deer grazes as cars pass by in Valley Forge National Historical Park in February 2009. (Laurence Kesterson / McClatchy-Tribune)
For starters, I have never trusted deer. Their innocent, wide-eyed adorableness shtick always struck me as a cover for something sinister.
When I saw "Bambi," I hoped for a sequel — one where the hunter comes back to finish the job.
Turns out my gut was right. A recent article in Popular Science revealed that forensic scientists recorded the "first known evidence of a deer scavenging human bones."
The researchers were doing a study where they leave a human corpse in the woods to monitor how it decays and gets picked away at by various woodland creatures.
Let's pause a moment and consider the conversation that led to that corpse being volunteered:
"Hey Grandpa, what should we do with your body after you die?"
"Scatter my ashes in the ocean."
"Sure thing, Gramps! I definitely won't sell your corpse to scientists who want to plunk it in the forest and watch it get eaten!"
What a legacy.
A camera was trained on the corpse and what the researchers saw will forever change how you view deer. From the Popular Science report: "On Jan. 5, 2015, the camera caught a glimpse of a young white-tailed deer standing near the skeleton with a human rib bone in its mouth. Then it happened again on Jan. 13 — the camera caught a deer with another rib sticking out of its mouth like a cigar."
Like a cigar?!?!
These allegedly skittish mammals are just biding their time, waiting for us to kick the bucket so they can munch on our delicious ribs.
If death is around the corner — and it most certainly is — I'm ready to meet my maker, but I'll be darned if I'm going to let some bloodthirsty buck feast on my remains like a four-legged slob at a rib buffet.
No, we need to strike first and preserve the sanctity of our soon-to-be irradiated or gym-disease-ridden corpses. I want every deer dead as soon as possible.
Every human should be eating venison around the clock. You too, vegans. You're going to have to suck this one up for the team.
There can be no deer left when we are wiped out by giant slabs of ice or space rocks or whatever. Because if there are, those furry forest monsters will be licking their smug chops, prancing around with our rib bones in their mouths, knowing they pulled off a con for the ages.
Bambi, indeed.
Listen to Rex Huppke and WGN radio host Amy Guth discuss politics each week on the "Guth and Huppke on Politics" podcast at chicagotribune.com/guthhuppkepodcast.
rhuppke@chicagotribune.com
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