Big Jim is a tough act to follow, especially when trying to be serious, but here goes....

There is no question that what happened here was tragic, and I can't imagine the hurt it would cause me to lose one of my kids that way. I will buy that they should have put up signs, but I don't buy any argument that suggests doing so would have done anything to prevent this freak attack from occurring.

I know this is easy to say from the outside, but I understand that I am responsible for my own safety and that of my family when I take them into the woods. Frankly, if I arrived at a campsite with my family and saw signs indicating that bears had been active in the area, I would not turn around and head for home. I would go about the business of spending quality time with the family in the great outdoors, just as I set out to do. Whether there are warning signs or not, I know that bears, cougars, etc. exist and are potentially deadly, but I also know that the odds of anything bad happening, even if there is an encounter, are very slim, to the point where it isn't really worth worrying about. My guess is that this family would have done the same thing. Of course, I can't prove that any more than the attorneys who defended the Forest Service in this case, and therein lies the problem.

I think it sucks (a lot) that millions of tax dollars that were intended to benefit all of us (okay, that's a stretch) have been awarded to this family (and their attorneys) on grounds that the Forest Service failed to cover their asses by doing something that wouldn't have affected the tragic events that occurred. Where's the honest justice in that?

I'd like to think that the family will put their money to good use, but given the mentality that makes people think money compensates for the lost of a loved one, I have my doubts. More likely, little Samuel's dying legacy will be a bunch of consumer crap that ends up in landfills and the middle of the Pacific. I really hope I'm wrong.

Sad all around. Hope the little guy is happy, wherever he is. Hopefully, he's in a place where common sense rules the day and bad things don't happen to little kids.