It’s a brilliant idea from the folks at The Art Institute of Chicago to keep people from climbing on the bronze lion statues. The lions now roar. Or, at least, the public address system outside the building entrance makes a roaring sound, followed by a (human) voice, which says "please stay off the lions. If not, the police will be called."

The Chicago Tribune reports the roaring began during the NATO Summit in anticipation of larger than usual crowds. Perhaps officials also feared Chancellor Angela Merkel might try to scale a lion after quaffing a few steins of Hefeweizen at The Berghoff.

Some enterprising app developer may want to create an Android or iPhone app to emit a loud roar from a smartphone. I’d pay 99 cents. (I have a harmonica app on my iPhone that cost the same and I don’t think I’ve ever used it.)

Just think of the roaring opportunities we face every day. Like tourists—God love them for the money they spend, but when a gaggle of them stop in the middle of the sidewalk on State Street to look at a map, it would be nice to roar them out of the way.

Or the cell phone talkers on the CTA bus, like the mom next to me loudly scolding her wayward children to “get out of bed and get to school!” or the guy in the seat behind me who called a Thai restaurant and wanted to know “do you have gluten-free pork buns?” I’d roar them ‘til they shushed.

If you could roar at anyone, who would you choose and why?

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By Bonnie McGrath from South Loop
Posted: 07/15/2012 0:05 AM

I\'d roar at them! (The lions.) When this first started a few weeks ago, a girlfriend and I were walking by and the roar and the threat to call the police wouldn\'t stop. It went on for several minutes--we waited until we couldn\'t stand it anymore and it was still going when we finally walked away. We were really appalled--and no one was even near the lions. (Oh, and by the way, no police!)

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By Bonnie McGrath from South Loop
Posted: 07/15/2012 0:04 AM

I'd roar at them! (The lions.) When this first started a few weeks ago, a girlfriend and I were walking by and the roar and the threat to call the police wouldn't stop. It went on for several minutes--we waited until we couldn't stand it anymore and it was still going when we finally walked away. We were really appalled--and no one was even near the lions. (Oh, and by the way, no police!)