If you don’t succeed in learning from Long Bo, you are still a scholar who is dedicated to the imperial edict. As the saying goes, “One who cannot imitate a swan is still like a duck.” A tiger cannot be like a dog." ”

This famous quote comes from "The Book of the Later Han Dynasty: Ma Yuan's Biography". It is Ma Yuan's words to exhort his nephews. He hopes that his descendants will learn from Long Bogao, and even if they fail to learn, they can "carve a swan and not be like a swan." ”, he is still regarded as a “respectful person”; but if he learns from Du Jiliang, if he fails to learn the essence, he will become a dandy and become the laughing stock of the world.

This motto is the origin of the commonly used idiom - drawing tigers to resemble dogs. In history, there are countless self-defeating things like "painting tigers is not anti-dog", which happened in the United States in the 1980s. There was an oolong incident regarding charity, which was the infamous Balloonfest'86 incident.

01

After the Second World War, the economies of developed European and American capitalist countries were stable. With the growth, the comprehensive national strength has been increasingly improved. The government has implemented a welfare state system and established a relatively complete social security system. At the same time, private charity has also flourished, and public welfare activities have become popular.

Twenty. In the 1980s, the United States also held a famous charity fund-raising event. The United Way released nearly 1.5 million balloons in Cleveland Square, raising one dollar for every two balloons. Although the original intention was to contribute to society, it caused serious consequences. The biggest charity mistake in world history led to a tragedy. In the end, the money raised in the name of charity was far from enough to pay the compensation for the 1.5 million balloons that caused harm to society.

September 1986. On March 27, this charity event, which had been prepared for nearly half a year, was held with great fanfare in the square in the southwest of Cleveland. The organizers spent a lot of manpower, material and financial resources, prepared 2 million balloons, and hired many students to provide these balloons. The balloons are inflated and everything is ready, just waiting to be released on that day.

The organizers also prepared a giant three-story woven mesh cover to cover the sky in advance, ready to wait until all the balloons are inflated. Then they were released together to achieve the spectacular sight of millions of balloons taking off at the same time.

02

On that day, the square was crowded with people, eager to see the millions of balloons taking off at the same time. At the grand occasion in the sky, people jumped for joy and looked forward to it. They donated balloons one after another and flew them over the city. They were all looking forward to the final wonderful moment.

This event also set a Guinness world record and broke it. It set a record for the number of balloons released at Disneyland at the same time.

This was supposed to be the best of both worlds, but unexpected events occurred.

On that day, the Observatory predicted that a balloon would be released in Ohio. Heavy rain, this is the beginning of tragedy.

In order to reduce losses as much as possible, and at the same time to complete the release of the pledged balloons and maximize the benefits of the event, the organizer decided to release the balloons in advance and will The number was reduced to 1.5 million.

"The clouds are dark in the wind, and the desert is dark in autumn." The storm is coming fiercely, and it will sweep through Cleveland Square in an instant.

At this time, Millions of balloons have also taken to the skies.

Millions of balloons were unable to rise due to contact with cold air, and heavy rains knocked a large number of balloons back to the city, thus causing a huge disaster.

03

How bad are the consequences of this event?

The large-scale fall of balloons has blocked important roads in the city, affected traffic, and blocked the sight of vehicles and pedestrians. Some drivers even caused several accidents because they were unable to avoid the falling balloons. Serious car accident.

The balloons also landed on the runway of a nearby airport, and staff had to close Burke Lakeside Airport for half an hour in order to clear the runway.

A large number of balloons fell into the lake, causing pollution to the environment, and the cleanup work was very difficult. Some balloons even crossed the border and reached the shores of Lake Erie in Canada, causing trouble for neighboring countries.

A more serious consequence is that these balloons triggered two compensation cases, causing the organizers to be involved in multi-million-dollar lawsuits and indirectly causing the death of two people. This is also the reason why this event will be notorious forever. .

04

These balloons landed on a ranch in an Ohio county, frightening the ranch owner's valuable horse and causing permanent damage to the Arabian horse. Rancher Louis sued the United Way of the United States and took it to court. In the end, Louis won and the United Way compensated him US$100,000 before the matter was settled.

On September 26, 1986, a fisherman named Raymond Broderick and another fisherman named Bernard Sulzer disappeared near Lake Erie. The police After receiving the alarm from their family members, they urgently launched a search operation and found suspected shipwreck near Echitovo Park, but the two men were nowhere to be found.

It stands to reason that they should be arrested in time, and there is still hope for the two of them to survive.

But at this time, Ohio's million-balloon launch event caused Lake Erie to be filled with colorful balloons, making it impossible to identify the presence of people. The Coast Guard and helicopters were forced to stop search and rescue operations and postponed the search until September 29. When officers found them, both of them had already drowned.

This fund-raising event indirectly led to the death of two people. One of the fisherman’s wives was so distraught that she could not bear the result and filed a lawsuit in court, seeking compensation for US$3.2 million from the American Federation.

The organizers raised hundreds of thousands of yuan in the name of charity by releasing balloons, but in the end it was not enough to compensate for the losses caused by the disaster. It is really ridiculous and ironic.

05

The intention of doing charity is good, but too many gimmicks will only arouse the resentment of society. As mentioned in the ancient text, "painting a tiger cannot be anti-class." Dogs", on the contrary, endanger society and are self-defeating.

If you want to convey love, contribute and repay society, you should be down-to-earth and do practical things. "Empty talk will harm the country, but hard work will prosper the country." At the same time, we must do enough homework, plan carefully and meticulously, arrange scientifically, and respect objective laws. We should not use unscrupulous means for the sake of efficiency, disrespect nature and conform to nature, and insist on flying balloons even though we know that a heavy rain is coming, thereby polluting the environment, destroying ecology, and causing tragedy.

Even if your ability is not that strong and you can only do small things, you can still help those in need.

More than thirty years have passed. Today, we should learn from history, work hard, and respect objective laws. Otherwise, we can only "sorrow for future generations without taking heed of it, and make future generations mourn again." People too”.