Brides and bears

It’s a little cloudy here this morning, but half an hour of “Today” show brought sunshine into my life. Don’t ya love the lead-up to the modest $2-3 million wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky scheduled for Saturday at Rhinebeck, New York? Golly.

Now Bill, Hillary and Chelsea, too, are my people --- but this all seems a little excessive, especially the price tag. In fact it’s obscene, in these troubled times or any other.

There’s always an Iowa connection, you know, and in this case it’s Marc’s dad, Ed Mesvinsky --- Ames native, U.S. representative from Iowa 1973-77 and crook extraordinarie --- and his second wife, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky. Ed’s out of jail now after serving seven years in federal prison for bank fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud.

So it’ll be just one big happy family out there in New York come morning.

And then there’s that mama grizzly that early Wednesday mauled three campers at the Soda Butte Campground in Montana --- about five miles from Yellowstone National Park. One of the campers, 48-year-old Kevin R. Kammer of Grand Rapids, Mich., died --- and there’s no sunshine in that at all.

In what could be the prototype for a new TV reality show, nature detectives took out after the bear and apparently captured her plus two of three cubs and now are relying on DNA tests to prove she’s the offender (dental records will be checked if DNA proves inconclusive). Once the case is closed, she will be killed. Apparently the cubs will be spared, but dispatched to zoos in the fear they’ve learned from Mother to look upon humans as too easy a lunch.

Of course grizzlies always have looked upon humans as lunch --- that’s just the way it is --- which brings up questions. Why is tent-camping by folks not that familiar with nature’s ways encouraged in bear country? And why would anyone other than hardcore outdoorspeople want to sleep in tents in bear country?

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I don’t know the answer to either question, but wouldn’t it be fun to drop a couple of grizzlies into the crowd at Chelsea’s wedding on Saturday and see what happens? OK. Probably not. I’m not an advocate of abusing bears.