It’s The End Of The Southern Hemisphere As We Know It
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Brazil, this happens. Forget Carnival, forget the Summer Olympics, and don’t even think about the Parintins Folklore Festival. Dead issues all in the wake of the dreaded Zika Virus, which is rampaging through the country like The Roadrunner on meth. Where did this mess come from? Well, believe it or not, Africa, the spawning place of nasty business. The same Africa which gave us Ebola and Idi Amin. Specifically, the Zika Forest of Uganda, where it was first detected more than 70 years ago by scientists researching yellow fever. The word Zika means “overgrown” in the local language. The virus is extremely dangerous to pregnant women, often causing microcephaly and brain damage in newborns.
Zika is transmitted, of course, by our old pals, the mosquitoes, in particular a street gang called the Aedes Aegypti, which also brought you the long-running Broadway favorites Dengue Fever, Yellow Fever and Chikungunya, whatever the hell that is. It’s always something with these mosquitoes, never anything closely resembling a contribution to society. Ever see one helping out at the Salvation Army Food Kitchen? No. Ever hear of one donating a kidney? I doubt it. All they do is scarf down these terrible diseases and spit them out somewhere else. I say we get rid of the lot of them once and for all. Oh, and don’t try to tell me the birds and bats need them to feed on. The birds and bats do just fine in the Winter when there are no mosquitoes around. So it’s time to take action and the task is not so impossible as some people may think. If, for instance, the Nobel Prize Committee offered a trophy for Removal of Egregious Pests, they’d be eradicated in a heartbeat. Or at least transferred to Iowa, where they actually vote for egregious pests. Scientists will do anything for a Nobel Prize, so let’s get the ball rolling. Otherwise, our friends in the Southern Hemisphere are in big trouble. The government of El Salvador is already advising all women in the country to avoid pregnancy until 2018. What if they expand it to 2020, 2025, 2030? Pretty soon, there’ll be no more people. What then? How are we going to find any guides when we go to Machu Picchu?
Rub-a-dub-dub!
Speaking of Iowa, the Hawkeye Staters finally had their caucuses on Monday and wound up giving us Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Marco (The Penguin) Rubio, in that order. Well, that’s just great. Two watered-down Cubans and a New York Yankees fan. What more could anyone ask for?
Rubio, his chest puffed out in the manner of his namesake, strode up to the microphones like he had just won first place in the tartmaking contest in Mrs. Potter’s Home Ec class. Marco, Marco, wherefore art thou, Marco? Thou art third, as a matter of fact, and last time I was at the racetrack they didn’t let us in the winner’s circle unless we actually won the race. Rubio thanked all the helpful Iowans and told everybody what he would do when he was president, which could be a long time coming. Then, he headed for New Hampshire, where he won’t win either. The people in New Hampshire may dress like penguins but they almost never vote for them.
Youth’s Lessons Ignored
Crazy Bastard Update
Well, you knew it was bound to happen. The weeks-long occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon came a cropper a few days ago when protest leader Ammon Bundy and several of his Merry Men were arrested by law enforcement officials on U.S. Highway 395 as they were headed to a community meeting in the boondocks metropolis of John Day (pop. 1707).
Alas and alack, one of their number, Lavoy (“Feisty”) Finicum refused to surrender and was plugged in significant body parts, leaving him as dead as Carly Fiorina’s presidential hopes. It’s a sad day in Pacific Northwest militia circles, but most of us know from watching Lash La Rue movies that when you join the posse there’s always the possibility you could wind up with ventilated vital organs. Lavoy certainly knew. Earlier this month, the father of eleven (count ‘em—11) told CNN he would never go behind bars because that would put a crimp in his daily cow-herding activities, an unarguable point.
News of Finicum’s death quickly reached the few remaining protestors holed up at the wildlife refuge. “It appears that America was fired upon by our government,” the occupiers stated on the Bundy Ranch Facebook page. “One of Liberty’s finest patriots is fallen. He will not go silent into Eternity.” Unfortunately for Lavoy, he will not go cow-herding either.
He’s B-a-a-a-ck! Maybe.
Just in case you’ve been celebrating the myth that Dick Cheney has disappeared forever—not so fast, my friend! His quirky daughter Liz, 49, is now running for Wyoming’s lone U.S.House seat, informing everyone of the good news in a newspaper interview in the Gillette News Record Monday. Following in her father’s planet-killing footsteps, Liz will embrace the neglected cause of coal. Teary-eyed over its rampant abuse, Liz told everybody “It’s very clear to me this administration, this EPA, is only interested in falsely seeing the damage coal does.” Gillette is a city of 32,000 near open-pit mines that supply almost 40 percent of the nation’s coal. Poor old coal has been hard-hit by impending climate change regulations and especially by low natural gas prices in recent years, causing more and more utilities to turn to natural gas to generate electricity.
“People are angry and frustrated, and I”m angry and frustrated,” said Liz, clearly angry and frustrated. It’s not enough to just elect a representative. We need someone with a strong voice and a leader on the issues.” That would be Liz, in case you were wondering. No word on whether daddy will be helping, but we can always hope.
Rise Of The Drones
Whoever thought it would come to this? All of a sudden, drones are everywhere, dive-bombing the local sheep herd, crashing into airport control towers, even knocking Aunt Emma’s clothesline into an unseemly heap. It’s one thing to irritate your local FAA officials but a lot scarier proposition to fool around with Aunt Emma.
It seems like just yesterday when drones were not available for general consumption. You couldn’t just walk into the Walmart and pick out one in mauve, another in cobalt blue. I mean, these things can be dangerous in irresponsible hands, and if there’s one thing we’ve got in this country it’s a surplus of irresponsible hands (see “Man Shoots Cow” in any one of several local newspapers). I suddenly recognized the impending nightmare while shopping in Orlando last Christmas. They had an entire tableful of the contraptions at Urban Outfitters, for crying out loud. It’s only a matter of time until the things are up there on the 7-11 counter, right next to the Five-hour Energy.
Last Thanksgiving, at the Andover, Mass. Feaster Five road race, sponsors thought it might be nice to have online aerial photos of the activity. They called in media teacher/drone operator Dan Brennan, who was experienced in these affairs. It didn’t take long for Dan’s drone to wreak havoc. Standing on the starting line, one runner actually captured a video on his iPhone showing the drone hovering over the crowd, then clipping a tree and plunging headlong into a group of runners. Yanni Wallingford, an Andover native home for the holiday, was hit by the drone when it crashed.
“Probably about a foot above head level, and then….SMACKO! Fortunately, I put my hand up so it wouldn’t hit me in the face,” Wallingford reported. When the drone hit the ground, angry bystanders stomped on it and removed its battery. Race chairman Tom Licciardello averred “the drone suffered much worse injuries than Yanni. It will never fly again. We had one cut finger and one deceased drone.” Sic semper tyrannus. The town of Andover has since placed significant restrictions on the use of drones within its borders. So far, no protests from the NDA.
Every year or so, Hollywood concocts another terrorism movie where supersophisticated measures are taken to bring about The Fall of The White House. But who needs clever tactics when some bumpkin from Idaho can just run his TNT-laden drone into the place? Last year, on January 26, one guy crashed his drone on the White House lawn and he wasn’t even trying. Local genius Shawn Usman lost control of his Phantom FC40 somewhere in D.C., shrugged his shoulders and went to bed. Oh, well. Shawn thought it might be a good idea to turn himself in to the Secret Service when he later learned his little toy landed in Obamaville. Usman said the flight of the Phantom FC40 had been preceded by two glasses of wine and a pizza but neither was responsible for the drone’s behavior. He told government authorities he flew the drone out the window of his apartment and about fifty feet later it stopped responding to commands and shot into the sky, drifting westward and fading from view. Tsk, these quirky drones! They just seem to have a mind of their own. Which is another part of the problem.
It’s not just we put-upon Americans who have problems with drones. During a soccer match between Serbia and Albania at which the visiting Albanian fans were not even allowed into the Serbian stadium, a resourceful Albanian in possession of a drone flew his aircraft over the field. Attached to the thing was an Albanian flag which contained a map of “Greater Albania” which included Serbia. The Serbian soccer players were not amused. They were able to grab the passing flag and tore it down, which resulted in a brawl with the Albanian team, which soon escalated when fans jumped on the field to join the melee. The match was quickly suspended. We’re not sure what the box score cited as the official reason but “drone interference” is a good possibility.
Drones have been used increasingly for other nefarious purposes. Like, for instance, dropping contraband into prison exercise yards. In Canada, a drone was recently spotted by guards dropping a mysterious package into a group of prisoners but neither the package nor the drone was tracked down. In Dublin, a drone carrying drugs crashed into an overhead wire installed after a 1973 prison break. Similar successful and unsuccesful attempts have been reported by prisons around the world. Next thing you know, they’ll be dropping files baked into pies. What’s a proper corrections official to do?
Well, they may have the answer in The Netherlands, of all places. There, the clever Dutch have started training bald eagles to swoop out of the sky and snare drones in their mighty talons. Hey, if they can pick up a little sheep….
Anyway, according to trainers in Holland, the raptors are well-suited to the job, having thousands of collective years of experience snaring moving objects from the sky. Their scaled talons are extremely tough and do not get injured by drone propellors. The trainers tell us the birds are given ample amounts of play time during which they practice by stealing toupees. And no, we’re not making this stuff up.
The First Signs Of Spring
I know. It seems like just yesterday when American Pharoah was blasting to victory in the Kentucky Derby, then the Preakness, finally annexing the first Triple Crown in 37 years of thoroughbred racing with a dramatic win in the Belmont Stakes. In November, the horse of this century, at least, won the Breeders’ Cup Classic and was voted Horse of The Year in a walkover. And now he is reaping the rewards of his success in the fields and the breeding sheds of Kentucky, forever a champion and soon a legend. But time goes on.
Last Saturday in the Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park, Moheyman roared down the stretch to take the first significant step on the road to the 2016 Derby, outclassing his field by 3 1/2 lengths. It’s just one rung on the ladder and Bob Baffert is still on the West Coast with his barnful of possibilities, but you have to start somewhere. Before long, Kiaran McLaughlin’s charge will be challenged by tougher customers in the Fountain of Youth Stakes and then the Florida Derby. As always, the cream will rise. Right now, Las Vegas lists Moheyman as the Derby favorite. You can still get 10-1 odds in the desert. But maybe not for long.
The Great Grey Hope
That’s all, folks….
