Before today, the customer review page for River Bluff Dental (located at 10851 Rhode Island Ave So., Bloomington, MN, 55438) had received 16 comments, most of them complimentary. (At least one review seems to have been written while still under the effects of general anesthetic, but it is a five-star write-up nonetheless.)

Today, the family dentistry practice received about one hundred more reviews (I stopped counting a couple hours ago). Its Yelp page has received more than 1000 reviews today alone, most from writers who will never see the inside of the place nor ever breathe the air of Bloomington, Minnesota. All of the reviews are negative, and many threaten one of its dentists physical harm. Its website, riverbluffdental.com, displays one line: “HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.” The website has crashed.

Here’s the thing about threatening harm, on the Internet and in real life: violence and threats of violence are evil, and people really need to stop threatening people with harm and stop doing harm. The problem is, the following story which stars one of the dentists at River Bluff Dental, puts even my idealism to a test.

The Telegraph in England revealed today that one of River Bluff’s dentists, a Dr. Walter James Palmer, is the big game hunter who was responsible for slaying Cecil the lion, a 13-year-old big cat, on July 1.
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