Wow...you sure hope something like this will turn out to be a hoax, but it sure looks legitimate:
Steve Irwin dead:
http://www.couriermail.com.au/
Apparently, in a freak accident, a stingray barb went through his chest.
Makes me glad I had the chance to see him live last January at the exhibition. I don't know...maybe I am jinxed -- the last time I was in NYC, rather than waiting for long lines at the Statue of Liberty we decided to go up in the WTC.
-- Swannie
Posted by admincms on September 04, 2006
The story broke about 1:30 AM US EDT last night. Apparently before his family had even been notified. My sympathies to his friends and family.
Beyond that (and I will probably be the grump on this one), while I respect his business success and his success at promoting what he believed in, I won't miss him in the marketplace of those promoting Australia. While there are many in the Australian government and elsewhere who felt he was a great salesman for Australia, I didn't. What he sold best was himself and his TV programs.
The Australia he represented wasn't the image needed to properly sell Australia in this country. He was a caricature of the Australian male of 2 generations ago. Not only is that image bad for Australia's image, it is bad for tourism to Australia in the longer term. But he was popular with some officials and because of that they listened to whatever he said.
During Aus Week in LA I attended a business briefing on marketing to Australia and from Australia to America. They are still dealing with the negative image of some aspects of Australian culture and his involvement was plainly highly controversial to those in attendance at that briefing. Not that Foreign Minister Downer was there.
-Rob