How many times in the past two days have I heard that phrase uttered?

Did you hear about that kid that shot that pig?

Whatever. Leave me alone. Why am I supposed to care about some boy shooting a pig? What’s so fascinating about this story? Yes, I understand that a 1000-point boar is obscenely large. Yes, I understand that the kid is 11 years old.

If the story were to stop there, I’d already be pissed off at the kid’s parents for putting a loaded gun in the hands of a kid, and I’d be even more pissed off at them for putting said kid in harm’s way to face a 1000-pound boar.

Yeah. If the story stopped there.

But what if we pay just a little more attention? What if we read on, and learn that this was not the ferocious wild beast we’ve been led to believe, but rather a farm-raised pig that was purchased just 4 days prior to being slaughtered. [link]

And what if we read on to learn that this wasn’t some brave kid who faced fear and bravely took out a giant beast coming to kill him, but instead it was a spoiled brat who was chauffered around a fenced-in hunting ground by his dad, who shot the pig nine times over the course of three hours before it died. [link]

This isn’t bravery, it’s sadistic. If you locked Rosie O’Donnell in a high school gymnasium and a group of children circled her on roller skates while shooting her with spit-balls, they would ALL be more heroic than this lying little turd.