This jackass did the world a favor. I just wish he had been a little more considerate regarding his methods and not put the firefighters' in harms way as a result of his idiocy.

Hey, you know how when someone kills a bunch of people, and the media takes a big steamy dump as if all gun owners are murderers?

Don't you hate that?

So why is it OK when applied to other groups?

Burning Man may not be for you, but it's not full of bad people or the insane. It's just got big enough that it has to deal with a full cross section of the population now. Except maybe BLM, not sure if they're burners. Not sure if Antifa is loose enough to be burners.

Anyway, it's not just hippies and wasteoids. Many of my friends have been burners for now decades. I've refused numerous invitations, because while I love the idea, I don't like baby powder sand.

An instructor at a class I took last summer is over the communications division for Burning Man's emergency services. Red has told me several times that if I want to work it he'd get me in. I'd love to go out there and do it, but couldn't make it happen this year. Next year is a possibility though.

I would love to go.

I hope that man is now free of his demons and I hope his loved ones find peace.

It wasn't me!

Good to see you, Thayer. Been a long time.

Once in a lifetime photographs, little eerie considering what they represent.

He's dead Jim. Gonna be a long time too.

Man was 41, originally from Oklahoma, living in Switzerland.

http://www.rgj.com/story/life/...nt-center/629576001/

I have to wonder, ... Did he think he'd make it through? I mean, he didn't even put down his water bottle.

He fried doing what he loved...

It's better to burn out
Than to fade away.
~Neil Young

i don't know anything about the party or the guy or the circumstances. But that is tragic. Those are some incredible photo's. I wonder if he is American Indian looking at the first photo.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
i don't know anything about the party or the guy or the circumstances. But that is tragic. Those are some incredible photo's. I wonder if he is American Indian looking at the first photo.

Maybe in an Elizabeth Warren kinda way.

In the Wicker Man, he was trying to escape the burning man. Differing scenarios. Maybe this idiot did it the right way?

I'm glad I read this thread because I, unwittingly, was under the impression that the folks who attended Burning Man were hippies and drug addicts. Now I know the truth - that they're made up of a cross section of society and that many of them are Libertarian. It's always great to learn the truth about a thing!

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
i don't know anything about the party or the guy or the circumstances.

Just spoke to a work friend who came back from BM last night. She said nobody really knew why he ran in. Apparently he was not depressed, a real nice guy who was having a great time at his first burn. Speculation among my friend's group is that he was dosed or took a hallucinogen.

Having been around bunches (a few to hundreds or more, maybe thousands in some cases) of folks on garden variety hallucinogens (mushrooms and LSD, generally) and coke or other amphetamine based things, a few hundred times or more in my life, in close quarters (after parties, small clubs, homes, etc) and big festivals and such, IME - which is not small - those substances don't really do those sorts of things to people.

They don't jump into fires, or traffic, nor do they see "dragons jump out of walls" or think they can fly, either. The quickest way to tell if someone is full of shit when talking about an acid trip or similar is when they start describing some over the top hallucination like that, much of which is borne of urban myth and such. I have had perfectly cogent conversations with friends who, at the time, were on anywhere from 1-10+ hits of LSD, and all manner of other combinations, at lakes, busy downtowns, in crowds, and surrounded by normal and random dangers and risks, etc, and nada...

That said, there are new(er) things (in terms of trends) I'm unfamiliar with, and can't speak to, like DMT and Datura and Bath Salts and such, much less random combinations of recreational drugs, or mixes with Prescription Rx, or preexisting mental issues, and so on.

But suffice it to say that regular old alcohol, weed, mushrooms, lsd, ecstasy, etc don't make people run into giant fires or traffic, etc. If that were true, even 10% of the time, tens of thousands or more would die like this each year, hell - each summer. Shit, in any big city on any given Saturday night, across all the clubs and other places to hang out, you can bet your ass there are several hundred or more people taking drugs like that at any given time, and nationwide or even world wide, the number would be very, very large, week in, week out. Most that I know who did such things did so for years and turned out fine, careers, families, good and healthy kids, just like most everyone else. Those that didn't were fuckups all along, or otherwise broken before recreational drugs.

This is an anomaly, and an exceptionally rare one.

Tragic, no doubt, but not as simple as "drugs" or hallucinogens.

As always, no one should mess about without careful consideration or while operating heavy machinery.