From the category of "When Animals Fight Back!" comes a news story from Venezuela: A 29-year-old student zookeeper was strangled by a 10-foot python. It seems that the intern was working the nightshift and decided to mess around with the snake, who then bit him, suffocated him, and tried to eat him—a sensible interaction if you are a python.

i190 / CC

Now, I'm certainly not saying that this guy deserved to be digested by a giant snake (although some might argue that taking a dangerous snake out without permission or supervision might earn him a nomination for a Darwin Award). What I am saying is that the killing of one human being by one snake in an isolated incident is instant news (just Google it for proof), but the killing of snakes by humans every day—to make Eva Longoria's gauche python handbag or Jessica Simpson's hideous tote—goes unnoticed.

And what's more, the python was just doing what pythons do, on instinct. He saw prey, so he went into his strangle-and-swallow routine. You can't possibly tell me that humans have a slaughter-and-make-into-purses instinct, can you? The python got beaten by the way, unlike Jessica Simpson, whom we just make fun of.

Let me hypothesize here. Maybe, just maybe, people are so fascinated by this kind of news story because they feel guilty for all the human-on-animal atrocities, and when something like this happens … well, maybe it's a sign that sometimes the tables are turned, and it scares us.

Do you get what we mean now when we say that "payback is hell"?

Posted by Amanda Schinke

Move over, National Garden Week! Out of the way, Waffle Week (OK, maybe you can stay). And get off my lawn, all you prevention and awareness weeks. This is the coolest week ever … Shark Week! Catch this (geddit?): The Discovery Channel's Shark Week is back for its 21st year, and I am pumped. When else do you get a whole week of programming dedicated to these pointy-toothed wonders?

Shark Week has another purpose, though, besides just being scary (which it totally is). Shark Week's programs teach viewers that shark populations on the coast of the Eastern U.S. declined by 80 percent in the '70s and '80s because of shark fishing for "sport" and steak.

Sharks are hunted not only because of the high price fetched by their teeth, jaws, and fins but also because of their reputation as human-killers.

True, an average of 10 humans die each year because of shark attacks. However, this is nothing compared to the 100 million sharks (and billions of other sea animals) killed by humans every year—so that humans can eat them.

When you think about the painful way that all fish are slaughtered for fun and food—suffocated, crushed to death, and cut open alive—shark attacks really don't seem all that unprovoked, do they?

On that note, check out our new billboard. It's going up in the cities that see the most shark attacks:

For more information on sharks and fishing, please visit FishingHurts.com—and watch Shark Week! I will!

Posted by Amanda Schinke