Dread and Circuses

The circus is coming to town!

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is coming to Denver and they are advertising all over town with these billboards.

Fully Charged! Megawatts of Fun! From the text and the pictures of elephants I have to assume Ringling Brothers is following in the footsteps of that genius inventor Thomas Edison by electrocuting elephants nightly.

For those of you that are unaware, during the so-called "War of Currents" between AC and DC power, Edison electrocuted a number of dogs, cats, cattle, a few horses, and yes, an elephant. Here's a video.

And now Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is doing it live every night! Needless to say, I will be going to the circus. It will be awesome. And before anyone starts complaining about it being animal cruelty, remember that circus folk have to eat too, and I don't think you want them rubbing elbows with you at the lunch counter, now do you? So let them eat their elephant in peace. I can also hear some of you are thinking, "But aren't there only like 100 elephants left in the whole world? Won't this burn up all the elephants we have left?" Of course not. Think about it. There are elephants roaming all over India, doing fine without any supervision. Also, pretty much every zoo everywhere has a couple. Hollywood movie studios rent elephants all the time, so there must be lots of elephants in Southern California. Ringling Bros clearly owns lots of them. They wouldn't burn through their last couple elephants for one awesome tour, so they must have a bunch. See? Plenty of elephants. And besides, these elephants are the property of Ringling Bros. If I feel like electrocuting my ficus(a living plant) no one complains; Ringling Bros should be afforded the same courtesy.

Perhaps most importantly, the U.S. has fallen behind in circus dominance and frying elephants may give us a little boost in world popularity. All over Europe and Russia they have classic clowning and miming. France has that Cirque du Soleil thing, which is huge. Hell, John C. Reilly even made a movie about it. But the real powerhouse in the field right now is China. It's just one more area where America is losing ground to those yellow reds. I mean, check this out:

That's right. It's a fucking lion riding a horse. That's what circuses in China are doing right now. You know how great your kids birthday would be if you took him to see a lion riding a horse? Pretty great.

Man, look at that. That lion is loving it. The horse probably is, too. How cool is that? Animal cruelty? Maybe. don't care.

I mean really, in Europe they eat horses. In Africa they eat zebras(I assume) and they're just fancy horses. In America we just run them around in circles, women sniff them and go all wobbly in the knees, and maybe like 40 cowboys ride them at work. Also those horse cops. So this horse being part of an amazing spectacle is likely the best that that horse could have hoped for. And cruel for the lion? I believe we already established that he's loving it. Besides, lions are obsolete.

They also have a tiger.

It seems to me that we'd be letting the those un-American commies, and by extension the terrorists, win if we didn't electrocute elephants at the circus. We simply can't let relevance in yet another field slip out of America's grasp.

So pop the popcorn, spin the cotton candy, and uncap the conductive jelly! I'm going to the circus!