Cecil’s Revenge: Walter Palmer D.M.D. & The New Scorn

Posted: July 29th, 2015 | Filed under: Culture, Personalities, Ruminations | 1 Comment »

palmerInstant Karma’s gonna get you/ Gonna knock you right on the head/ Instant Karma’s gonna get you/ Gonna look you right in the face/ Instant Karma’s gonna get you/ Gonna knock you off your feet
                                                                             Okay, let me see if I can get a sense of what this might be like.

The guy is looking forward to his summer vacation, away from filling cavities, bonding teeth, root canals and Minnesota’s nettlesome summertime mosquito epidemic.

Going to slip off to an exotic part of the globe, feed his favorite hobby by spending his hard earned cash on his not so secret passion, after which he’ll have photographic proof of his joy, a shot of him smiling with bow and arrows, and a new adornment for the wall his den.

And there’d be the stories he could craft for his pals, life in the wild, the invigoration of the hunt, how his prowess again hit the mark as it had done so many times before.

So, Dr. Palmer, tell us all about your safari in Zimbabwe.

Dr. Palmer . . . you who . . . yo, Walt . . . where ya be?

We stopped by your office. But it’s closed.

We checked out your website. But it doesn’t seem to be there anymore. And, it looks like your Facebook page has been hacked by some folks, who seem to be very angry at you.

By the by, Doc, the authorities over there in Africa are looking for you too.

Which, I suppose, is why nobody seems to know exactly where you are right about now.

* * * * *

As anyone who spends any time at all on the highway we call the www. knows, Dr. Palmer is the Minneapolis-area dentist, an archer of some acumen, who likes to kill big game trophy animals in his off hours. Who apparently is willing to pay big moolah for the money shot. That would be a photo of him with a cocky-look-at-me-shit-eating grin, kneeling next to some exotic wildebeest or another that he has felled for the fun of it.

It could be a black bear, one of which you killed illegally right here in the U.S. of A.. Or a leopard. Or a rhino. Perhaps a majestic 15 point tule.

Unfortunately for Dr. Palmer, but not quite as unfortunately as for his victim Cecil, Africa’s most beloved lion, this dentist’s life has taken a turn.

Doc, welcome to the New Scorn. May you boil in it for the rest of your days.

You are the latest, and arguably the most severely derided victim of social media.

You see, Doc, when word got out you paid $55 large to bag a big one, that your guide hung some sort of carcass as bait over the grill of your vehicle to lure one of the jungle’s kings from his protectorate, that you nailed that creature with one of your arrows, but that you didn’t kill him, so you and your guides tracked the dying animal for over a day, until you caught up with him, at which juncture you pulled out a shotgun1 and finished the deal, after which, of course, you had to get a photo (after trying to discard the lion’s tracking device) . . . so, yeah, Doc, after word about all that got out, Doc, you see . . . well, people got pissed.

Really pissed.

Uh, really, really pissed.

And, as Willie the Shakes might have opined, had he not given up his broadband, hell hath no fury like social media’s scorn.

Thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of folks, aghast at the sheer inhumanity of your hobby, at the hubris of that sickening smile as you stand over your prey, at the audacity that you feel you have done nothing wrong when you extinguish the life of one of god’s creatures for a wall adornment . . . all those folks have weighed in on Yelp and Facebook and wherever to let you know what a disgusting creature you are.

My guess is your office’s voicemail is full.

* * * * *

I have always been stunned that there are human beings, who kill animals for sport.

But, that’s not really my point here.

I am even more astonished how Walter Palmer’s cautionary tale has proven beyond peradventure the power of the people in the new digital era.

How in the space of 24 hours, less really, he went from being a guy who couldn’t wait to get home from vacation to regale his pals with his exploits to being Public Enemy #1, somewhere in hiding, wanted by the authorities for his felonious act.

Doc, you knocked The Donald, Mr. Trump himself, out of the headlines.

Now that, my enemy, is an accomplishment of which you can be proud.

So, yeah, Doc, by next week we’ll be back wondering what idiocy some presidential candidate is going to attempt to foist on the public is truth, we’ll be buying the kiddos their school clothes and #2 pencils, we’ll be gearing for football and some cooler weather. We may even forget your name. You’ll become that Minneapolis dentist who sucker-killed Cecil the Lion.

But, you Doc, you set your own trap.

You’re a victim of the New Scorn. A victim of Instant Karma.

In a perfect world, the taxidermist you take Cecil’s head to will fashion a little smirk on his lips.

And you will be reminded each day of the rest of your life what a scumbag you are.


One Comment on “Cecil’s Revenge: Walter Palmer D.M.D. & The New Scorn”

  1. 1 Jeanne Blackburn said at 9:34 pm on July 29th, 2015:

    Makes me sick.


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