Bombs Away

When I first saw this story, my immediate reaction was that I could play it up for big laughs. After all, the headline seemed to speak for itself:

U.S. Drops 2,000 Dead Mice by Parachute on Guam

The article went on to say that the $8 million mission was to kill snakes by poisoning the mice with, of all things, acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol.

This had all the makings of another government boondoggle. U.S. Army helicopters dropping dead rodents, pumped full of headache medicine, by cardboard parachutes. Some of the mice were even embedded with data-transmitting radios.

But as I read further, the story began to lose some of its humorous aspects. Sometime during the 1950's, the brown tree snake was accidentally introduced to Guam, through cargo shipments. With no natural predators, the snakes rapidly multiplied and preyed on indigenous species, including exotic birds, that had no defenses against the invaders.

The snakes now cover vast tracks of the native jungle and routinely cause power outages, foul jet engines at Andersen Air Force Base, and cause millions of dollars in damage to electrical equipment. Also, the snakes are poisonous, putting at risk ground crews and pilots, whose cockpits must be painstakingly searched before takeoff.

Apparently, the snakes are extremely sensitive to the painkiller, and when they eat the mice, the drug quickly kills them. If this initial test proves successful, future operations are planned.

At that point, it was my intention to drop the story because it was a solution, however silly it might seem at first notion, to a very serious problem. But then I started reading some of the comments, and most were from veterans who had served at Andersen, and described in detail, just how serious a problem it was to the servicemen and women, and to the ecology of the island.

And that was when I decided that the story had merit. That it was a case in point of the danger of introducing non-native species into a biological system.

Tino Aguon, acting chief of the U.S. Agriculture Department’s wildlife resources office for Guam said, “Every time there is a technique that is tested and shows promise, we jump on that bandwagon.”

I'm Thankful for Facebook

Posted on my Facebook Timeline, Thursday November 28th, 2013:

Okay, just before the football game kicks off and food starts going in the oven, I am thankful for my wife, my family, some of whom (or all of whom) are beloved, my sons, my wonderful daughter-in-law, my two amazing grandchildren and grandniece, my wife, my excellent friends, new and old, some of whom (or all of whom) are also beloved, my cats, all of whom are very beloved, my incredible dream farmhouse that showcases our unparalleled collection of holiday decorations, my wife, every breath I draw, and my wife.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Macro-photography from Snowflakes by Moscow artist Alexey Kljatov.

http://chaoticmind75.blogspot.ru/2013/08/my-technique-for-snowflakes-shooting.html

Resistance Is Futile

The Reason for the Season

We had the privilege of kicking off our holiday season with a Saturday evening bluegrass Christmas concert at the historic Sandwich, Illinois Opera House.

As my wife and I waited for the elevator up to the theater level, I found myself in a conversation with a volunteer greeter, who was disfigured by what looked like fire. We talked for a few minutes, and for the most part I maintained eye contact, but I have to admit that it was hard not to stare.

I felt that the woman had the right to expect me, if anyone, an upper middle-aged man, in a wheelchair, wearing a festive green and red crocheted hat, at a small town venue, there to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus, to not be judgemental or look on in pity, or worse. But much to my regret and shame, I fell short of the mark.

God works in mysterious ways, and never more so than during this season of miracles. I cannot now help but think that this fellow human was put in my path to remind me that we are not here to judge, nor to pity, nor to regret, nor to feel guilt, but that we are here to love.

Poison

We have an energy industry that poisons our air with carcinogens and greenhouse gases.

We have a farming industry that poisons our water with runoff from chemical fertilizers.

We have a waste management industry that poisons our oceans with toxic garbage.

We have a pharmaceutical industry that poisons our DNA with molecular degradation.

We have a food industry that poisons our bodies with additives, preservatives, and genetically altered organisms.

We have an educational industry that poisons our minds with propaganda.

We have a financial industry that poisons our hearts with greed.

We have a news industry that poisons our spirits with misinformation and half-truths.

We have a religion industry that poisons our souls with bigotry, hatred, and violence.

And in the ultimate irony, we have the only country ever attacked with nuclear weapons, poisoning two-thirds of the planet for the next 100,000 years with radiation.

The Color of Mourning

I recently shared a story that came across my Facebook news feed about a Walmart employee who was trampled to death by a Black Friday mob, but it turned out to be a story from 2008. It shouldn't have happened then, but the timing of the article now was misleading. I apologize for perpetuating the misinformation, and atone by sharing the true story below.

42 Million Dead In Bloodiest Black Friday Weekend On Record

http://www.theonion.com/articles/42-million-dead-in-bloodiest-black-friday-weekend,30517/

Although it's easy to sit back and laugh at this 'report' from The Onion, thankfully there were no reported deaths this year. Yet we are still faced with stabbings over Korean TVs, shootings over parking spaces, and bloody brawls over bath towels.

It has always been my belief that the phrase "Black Friday" was coined by retail workers who dreaded the onrush of unruly crowds shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. However, online sources accredit the term to Philadelphia police as early as 1961, who faced mobs of pedestrian and vehicular traffic that brought downtown streets to a standstill. Philadelphia merchants, in an attempt to place a positive spin on the day, stated that the name referred to the time of year when stores went from being in the red for annual sales, to being in the black.

Today, Black Friday signifies the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and conjures images of mankind at its worst. The big draw, of course, for Black Friday are the "door busting" (a very poor choice of words) sales. The sad truth is that all the violence and chaos is for naught.

A Wall Street Journal report states that "retail-industry veterans acknowledge that, in many cases, those bargains will be a carefully engineered illusion. Big retailers work backward with their suppliers to set starting prices that, after all the markdowns, will yield the profit margins they want."

The report goes on to say that "the manufactured nature of most discounts raises questions about the wisdom of standing in line for the promotional frenzy that kicks off the holiday shopping season. It also explains how retailers have been able to ramp up the bargains without giving away the store. The silliness of it all is that the original price from which the discount is computed is often specious to begin with, because items hardly ever sell at that price, which makes the discount less legitimate."

"Another tactic involves raising selling prices ahead of the holidays before the discounts kick in. In an analysis for The Wall Street Journal, price-tracking firm Market Track LLC looked at the price fluctuations of products in November 2012. Prices climbed in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, the items were then discounted on Black Friday. Toys and tools had the biggest pre-Black Friday price increases."

The 2008 incident did result in the death of a seasonal employee when a Black Friday mob literally ripped the doors off their hinges at a Long Island Walmart.

Excerpts from the original story that appeared in the New York Daily News are as follows (m.nydailynews.com/1.334059):

A Walmart worker died early Friday after an "out-of-control" mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store's front doors and trampled him, police said. 

The Black Friday stampede plunged the Valley Stream outlet into chaos, knocking several employees to the ground and sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde. 

When the madness ended, the 34-year-old...was dead and four shoppers, including a woman eight months pregnant, were injured. 

"They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down, too ... I didn't know if I was going to live through it. I literally had to fight people off my back," said [one co-worker]. 

"His body was a stepping bag with so much disregard for human life," said [a cousin of the deceased]. "There has to be some accountability." 

"They were jumping over the barricades and breaking down the door," said [another employee]. "Everyone was screaming." 

A witness said shoppers acted like "savages."

When shoppers were told they had to leave the store, that an employee had been killed, the people yelled back that they had been on line for hours. "They kept shopping," said the witness.

The 28-year-old pregnant woman and three other shoppers were taken to area hospitals with minor injuries, police said.

The Long Island store reopened at 1 p.m. and was packed within minutes.

"I look at these people's faces and I keep thinking one of them could have stepped on him," said one employee. "How could you take a man's life to save $20 on a TV?"

The mother of the deceased was quoted as saying, "We had Thanksgiving dinner early because my son had to go to work at Walmart. I didn't know it was his last meal."

It will take weeks for all the wounds to heal, years for all the legal wrangling to shake out, and, at least for one family, a lifetime of grief in a season of peace on earth and good will toward men.