Is it such a crime to merely find a place to soak your feet?
Whether criminal or not, there is apparently a penalty at Yellowstone National Park.
A 21-year-old man and his sister visited the geysers last week. They stayed on the park-provided boardwalks—until they didn’t. The waters seemed too hot and the pools too inaccessible for their purposes. Ignoring the overlarge signage ordering sightseers to STAY ON THE PATH! (signs are EVERYWHERE) they left the safety of the boardwalk and drifted across ground dotted by smaller, yet still sizable, pools.
A place to sit quietly, remove the shoes, and let the feet soak was all they really wanted.
The young man—whom I shall not name here out of respect for the dead—stepped close to a likely-looking puddle and dipped his finger to check the temp. Something went wrong, he slipped, and fell in.
The water was later measured at 100C, which as I recall is boiling point. Here in the flatlands, that would be 212F, and AI tells me water boils around 199F at Yellowstone. Either way, it sounds too hot for a finger-in-the-soup test.
Unfortunately, when the young man fell into the pool (maybe the involuntarily jerk of the finger in boiling liquid pulled him in?), he floated—or maybe bubbled—far enough from shore that he could not be easily recovered. Park Rangers showed up and were unsuccessful in bringing him back to solid ground.
The man’s sister, in a move that would make anyone swear off everything electronic forever, captured the entire sequence on her smartphone. Not exactly home movie footage.
The body sank and the Park Rangers departed, thinking to recover the young explorer’s remains the following day when they could bring suitable equipment.
However, in one more cruel twist to demonstrate just how serious Nature can be, the next morning they found… only his wallet and his shoes. There was nothing left of the body.
Nothing.
They concluded the high temps and acidic makeup of the Yellowstone water had completely dissolved him, clothing and all.
Yeeeesh.
Number 3. Dagens dot com. Man found consumed by papier-mache stegosaurus.
Near Barcelona, a 39-year-old man visiting a city named Santa Coloma de Gramenet, managed to drop his cellphone in an unlikely place.
Posed as an advertisement in front of a decommissioned theater building was a papier-mache statue of a dinosaur, specifically, a stegosaurus. Apparently the steg had a hole in his leg, and the cellphone managed to lose itself inside.
I can appreciate the catastrophic nature of such a loss… if I lost mine I wouldn’t even know who to call for help. (Which is an enigma I will have to think about.)
The cellphone owner did the manly thing and went in after it.
The “went in” part required tearing away additional fragments of papier-mache and then maneuvering his body into the structure.
Gravity always having a vote, the phone had obviously run downhill once inside the steg’s appendage. The man followed until he was virtually upside down inside the leg. How he climbed up to a place where he could descend head-first, and then get stuck, is not covered in the article.
The Preacher of Ecclesiastes warned about things like this: “Woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.”
Passersby a few days later noticed an unpleasant stench coming from the prehistoric statue and alerted authorities. Which, in a way. was also foretold in the Scripture: “By this time he stinketh.” (John 11)
After fire fighter recovery operations, the stegosaurus was “removed from the site.”
Oh, sure… blame the dinosaur.
Number 2. CBS News. Chicago CTA combats violence by posting signs asking riders to not be violent.
This should do it.
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) boasts that crime has fallen 30% this year. Still, in their on-going efforts to demonstrate to subway riders every possible good intention short of actual solutions, Cook County has gone public with a fresh message.
In 1,500 railcars and 2,000 buses, new signs have appeared, urging customers to non-violence. The message warns that for those who are arrested for being violent, “The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office will prosecute and seek pretrial detention.”
It might be churlish to suggest that only those who can read will be able to understand the message… and the bigness of the words might be a roadblock to internalizing the threat.
Acting CTA President Nora Leerhsen explained how this fresh, new approach is… fresh and new [Explanatory notes are added for clarity]: "More than ever before [We have a higher budget than last year], we're investing in new strategies [Let’s do signs! We haven’t done signs yet!] to ensure appropriate resources [See? Signs! Right there in plain English!] are available to riders [There’s a sign in every car!] and that action is taken [We actually INSTALLED the signs!] to keep your journey safe. [If you get attacked now, it’s probably your own fault.]"
Good message, Nora. I hope it works. This makes me want to go to Chi-Town and ride the El.
Number 1. Townhall. British award for empowering women goes to woman wearing full coverage chador.
Nothing displays a woman’s unbridled empowerment and complete liberation like wearing a full coverage chador.
Once again this year, the British Citizen Award (BCA) has sought out the perfect Subject of the Crown who reflects traditional, high-minded civic leadership.
And the winner is… Khadija Patel. I would show you her picture, but all you can see of her is a thin strip some eight inches long, five-and-a-half feet off the floor, showing two eyes and the bridge of her nose.
Ms. Patel’s burka (or burqa, chador, hijab, or niqab—I don’t want to leave anything out, because there could be heck to pay) covers everything else.
The award in this person’s case is for her outstanding efforts in empowering young women.
The empowerment, according to this article, clearly means taking bold steps to embody subjugation to a male-dominated culture that insists on full body coverage, denies education, prohibits working for pay, forbids doctor visits (because only men can be doctors, and women are not to visit a male doctor), and treats rape the same as adultery, for which the penalty is death by public stoning.
Those are all aspects of Sharia Law—again, according to this article.
And if you play your cards just right, it’s coming to a town near you. At the current rate of growth, give it about fifteen years.
In the meantime, let’s find more people just like this whom we can publicly lionize as symbols of our future.
How old will your granddaughter be in fifteen years? Just curious.
And thanks for joining The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, August 14, 2026.
Speaking of dinosaurs, we saw plenty of bones at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah last week. No better dinosaur docent could be found than retired geologist Tom, who graciously spent the week with us ‘splaining the skeletons. The phrase, “It takes one to know one,” comes to mind, but I’m not sure how to employ that here in a complimentary way.
But seriously: Thank you, Tom and Nancy, for making us feel right at home among the dinosaurs!
Have a good weekend!
