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I was watching a show about African lions this morning. At one point the scientists crept up behind a lion and began observing. They were all quiet until one of them—with a British accent—enthusiastically said, “Wow. Look at the testicles on that thing.”

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Later in the show, the scientists were trying to get a sample of lion poop to test how efficiently they break down food. One of the scientists was sitting in a jeep when the camera shifts to a lion 50 feet in front of them. The lion squats, takes a dump and walks away. “Incredible! Absolutely majestic. That lion just walked to a spot 50 feet from us, took a dump, and walked away.”

It would be weird to take a dump with people watching. I feel bad for dogs. Sometimes I see dog owners taking their dogs out on the sidewalk and I want to tell them to show some respect and look away while the poor dog suffers the humiliation of defecating in public. You’re already dragging it around the streets of Chicago naked with a leash around its neck, at least have the common decency look away and allow it to cling to its last shred of dignity.

Quick animal poop tidbits: Giraffes are very picky vegetarians and their dumps look like milk duds. Elephants eat pretty much any non-meat item in sight and their dumps look like piles of mud. Lions only eat meat and are known for having the most rancid smelling dumps in the wild.

Lions also have surprisingly small penises. A lion’s intercourse usually only lasts ten seconds, but a male can have sex 40 times a day. I’d imagine this gets annoying for the woman.

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Here’s a well written story about Dharun Ravi, the Rutgers student who used a webcam to spy on his gay roommate and tweeted about it. The roommate eventually killed himself—many argue as a result of Ravi’s bullying—and Ravi is facing up to ten years in prison for aggravated invasion of privacy (aggravated for being a hate crime), evidence tampering and witness tampering.

The author implicitly argues that although Ravi doesn’t deserve any Nobel Peace Prize nominations for his actions, he probably shouldn’t be put in prison either. Regardless of what happens in court, it’s not going to be easy for Ravi to hide from this, which brings up an interesting thought.

If not for this incident, Ravi appeared capable enough to someday earn a living in the tech world. He is an asshole, but we’ve all been assholes at some point, and he’s young enough to outgrow it. But even if he’s found innocent of all charges, he’s still going to be stuck with the stigma of this incident for the rest of his life—especially because a lot of what was initially reported was exaggerated (he didn’t “out” the roommate, he didn’t record anything, and he didn’t have a viewing party.) Whenever he applies for a job and gets googled by a potential employer, they’ll find hundreds of articles about the incident citing court records of his personal e-mails and text messages. And I’d imagine any woman he dates will google him and learn the same stuff. So my question is: will he change his name to get away from this? Will others with easily googeable pasts change their names to make life easier?

(An unexpected effect of this story is getting a glimpse of what college is like with computers and cell phones.)

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Sophomore year of high school I had first period gym, and two seniors used to torment me in the locker room every morning. It was annoying. They didn’t know me and had no apparent reason to bother me other than being physically able. I don’t remember exactly what they did, it wasn’t enough to where I felt compelled to alert any faculty or friends, but I remember they were two big goons and I used to dread going to my gym locker every morning.

Since they were seniors, we were never in the same gym class activity until the classes combined for basketball. I was pretty good at basketball, plus I was small and generally un-athletic, so no one knew I could play.

The teacher split us into teams to play full court games to five; winning team stays on the court. I had the same teacher the year before and he knew I could play, so he liked putting bad players on my teams to force me to be aggressive—and then he’d get a kick out of trash talking everyone on my behalf. So of course, he put both of the goons on my team.

The goons were terrible, but they were competitive and wanted to win. Once in a while they’d grab a rebound or get a steal, but they’d balance out their rare contributions with dumb fouls. On the other hand, I played my best and we ended up staying on the court the entire class. The goons were smiling and having a good time winning.

Back in the locker room after class, not only did they stop bullying me, but they wanted to be my friend.

It was ridiculous. These guys had spent the last month tormenting me, and now, because I helped them win some gym class basketball games, they wanted to be my friend. It was almost more annoying than when they were bullying me because it showed how fucking fickle they were.

The problem with bullies is that they’re dumb.

I wish I had some advice for victims of bullying other than to have sympathy for their bullies. Chances are they’re dumber than you, and much less secure than you, and to make themselves feel better, they take their frustrations out on you. Victims of bullying should take pride in being bullied because the bullies are acknowledging that they think you’re better than them, and they want to bring you down to their level. And that might be all there is to it.

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(I almost fell down in the shower laughing from thinking about the "Look at the testicles on that thing" line.)