Temptation

Visitors to the region are encouraged to view the great falls from a cable car—and to ride a ferry into the mist of the falls—and to stand on the cliffs from afar and squint at the falls through a telescope—and to bore a tunnel into the rock and peer through a hole into the falls from behind them—and to watch the falls glow at night under multi-colored lights. But if the visitors climb into barrels and allow themselves to drift down the river and fall into the falls, they will each be fined ten thousand dollars by the state park patrol. Nowhere, however, does it punish those daredevils across the canyon who climb into barrels and roll over the edge of the cliffs facing those falls. Nor does it punish those who accidentally drift down the river in canoes and happen to fall along with the falls—or those who are dropped from a helicopter just above the falls—and employ a parachute which happens to be faulty. Even stranger: the state park patrol does not fine those swimmers who rise out of the water and mist and fly upwards, holding tight to the legs of a helicopter—or those who are shot horizontally out of the side of a rocket into the falls. Of course, nobody fines the poor families of the ones who do not survive their trip over the falls in a barrel—and those who do survive become celebrities and profit from their situation, despite the fine.