Excuse Me? Tigers in Basement – Tigers in VegasInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

“I Need A Cig,” the nice tiger said.

I have journalism in my blood. Close
family members of mine (as opposed to close family members that are not
mine?) have worked on the city desks of many a major metropolitan daily
and of course I used to be Barbara Walter’s Boy-Toy in the late 1990’s.

So
I know the need journalists and editors have to fill space and time
with anything that will grab the attention of the reader and hold it
like a deprogrammer would clutch a recently kidnapped cult-member as he
or she tries to rant the cult mantra and dive out the window.

But maybe there is a limit? Sure, it was nice to have a couple of interviews with victims on television recently. Who could forget the compelling interview with Jessica Lynch as she told America that she doesn’t remember anything? Well,
actually, I would have suggested thatthere was not a need to interview
Private Lynch to hear that she couldn’t remember the horrors she
experienced.

But that’s me. I’m not a full-fledged journalist ? just a former Boy-Toy.

Well, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (“IFAW”)has issued a press release to ride the horrible events of October 3^rd that nearly cost Roy Horn’s life, to boost its drive to stop the…

“I Need A Cig,” the nice tiger said.

But that’s me. I’m not a full-fledged journalist ? just a former Boy-Toy.

As
many of you know, because of the terms of a settlement reached between
Inside Magic, its parent company Tobacco for Tigers and the American
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (“ASPCA”), we cannot
take a stand one way or another on issues of “tigers or lions living in or domiciled near a home or children’s play area.”

(Additionally,
we’re not allowed to try to sell cigarettes to be consumed by “tigers,
lions or any animal of the cat family” nor are we allowed to sponsor
any sporting event in which a “tiger, lion or any animal of the cat
family” may “drive, prepare, repair, customize, simonize or
biggie-size” a “NASCAR vehicle or NASCAR-type vehicle.”)

We
don’t take a position, then, on whether it made sense for some man in
New Jersey (admitted into Union in 1787) to keep multiple tigers and
lions in his basement for years as pets. We can
say, however, that the plight of lions and tigers in New Jersey
subdivisions is different in substance and style from Siegfried and Roy
keeping trained ? although still wild ? animals in palatial natural
habitats.

The
difference between the two situations ? New Jersey basement versus
Palatial Vegas park with pool and tons of meat ? is lost on the IFAW. They
use the tragic attack on Mr. Horn as a hook to sell their press release
supporting the need to let all big cats return to big cat land.

You can see the press release here if you’d like.

It
should be noted, however, that there has been no scientific study or
literature to support the claim by theIFAW or any other organization
that a tiger or lion is less able to drive a NASCAR-type vehicle while
smoking a filtered cigarette designed for the larger members of the cat
family.

In
fact, Tobacco for Tigers, our parent company, funded an independent
research study that showed a tiger driving a NASCAR-type vehicle while
smoking is only 60 times more likely (within statistical error)to kill
someone than a commuter drinking coffee and using the cellular phone at
the same time.

But,
when the same tiger and same commuter were put onto a non-smoking light
rail commuter train, there was a ten times greater chance that the
commuter would provoke or agitate the tiger to the point of being eaten
by that same tiger. Clearly, the danger is not Big Cat Cigarettes, but how they are used and when they are prohibited.