All Entries in the "Hard News" Category
Potholes Gobble Up Seasonal Victim
Gaping potholes on local highways have consumed 15 victims since the snow melt, according to Harvey Birdseed, Director of Pavement for the Western Slope. Among the persons lost are Alvin Gatt, 59, of Gunnison; Thelrod Hinkleman, 67, of Delta and Cyril Fern, 40, of Telluride.
Princess Irm Peawit of Montrose and Myrna Myrth of Ridgway Mountain Village are feared missing as they have not shown up at bingo or their designated feeding stations since early Tuesday.
The other victims are out-of-staters and of no concern to this website. Each year hundreds of deaths are caused by potholes, small, aggressive parasites that live deep down in the pavement. Each spring they awake from hibernation, dazed and angry and in search of a good meal.
The Highway Department has been innovative in attempts to control the melee, including blowing away pieces of its own highway (as on Route 50 between Montrose and Gunnison) to rid the state of these injustices. Success has been limited. The “patch jobs” only last through fall or until the relentless potholes resurface in the spring.
“Cracks in bridges are something altogether,” said Birdseed. “That’d be under “failing infrastructure”.
-Small Mouth Bess
Wal-Mart Completes Money Chute
(Montrose) A great-winged, high capacity money chute connecting this local Wal-Mart store to its parent corporation in Arkansas is now completed. The chute, or cash spout as it is called in Bentonville, assures the smooth, uninterrupted flow of currency out of this retail facility and into the pockets of Wal-Mart executives.
“Why deal with local banks when we can ship the cash out every night?” asked one local manager.
The chute, constructed of corrugated steel, features a money wash, a currency sorter and a system of intricate credit card checking devices aimed at fighting fraud. It rests under the hundred or more handicapped parking spaces in front of the store which are seldom used. Digital access is limited and withdrawals are virtually impossible.
“One cannot imagine the dirty money we receive from the peasants in little burghs like this one,” said the source. “We need the further card verification since a great many of our regular shoppers are brainwashed consumption addicts and cannot be trusted to stay within credit limits.”
Now when a consumer spends money here he can be assured that it is on it’s way to Bentonville, often before he/she gets through the check-out line.
“There’s a lot of security in that,” said the manager. “The other surviving retailers can’t claim that!”
A ribbon-cutting is scheduled for Memorial Day Weekend (You bet we’re open) which will be attended by representatives of the World Wrestling Federation. The WWF and Wal-Mart have recently signed a non-aggression pact, vowing to support the War on Terrorism and preserve our American way of life. Some 12 million flags will be for sale.
“When we suck all the money out of this town we’ll move on with out new chute carefully in tow.
– Kashmir Horseshoe
Survivalists Like Elkton
(Crested Butte) A survivalist group has named the community of Elkton to its list of the Top Ten Most Liveable Towns in America according to Assault Life, a cult publication out of Northern Idaho. Elkton was named due to its pleasant climate, its ethnic makeup, accessibility in the winter, and proximity to a major third world ski area.
Towns do not qualify for this honor because they support any one group over another or because they have expressed a fondness for any one political or social orientation. They are so listed because of their envisioned potential for riding out a military crisis. The storage of food and weapons as well as the privacy to conduct the business of defense were also major considerations in the voting.
The group calling itself The Lighter Shade of Pale Brotherhood ranked Elkton, located some seven miles north of here up Washington Gulch as number three on its annual register. Beating out Elkton were Deadhorse, Alaska (first) and Ouelette, Maine (second). Other communities receiving recognition in the top five were Grand Isle, Louisiana; Rexford, Montana and Orkney, Saskatchewan as the Pale Brotherhood leaves something to be desired in the fields of math and geography.
Letters to the Pea Green Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man,
How did the barber pole originate?
Mario Suarez
Seville
Dear Mario,
The barber pole with spiral stripes is a relic of the days when barbers were also surgeons. When the London barbers were incorporated in 1461 they were the only persons practicing surgery in the city. During the reign of Henry VIII Parliament passed a law providing that barbers should confine themselves to minor operations such as blood-letting and drawing teeth, while surgeons were prohibited from “barbering or shaving.” It was not until 1745, only thirty years before the outbreak of the American Revolution, that the barbers and surgeons of London were separated into distinct corporations, and the practice of surgery by barbers was not abolished in France, Germany and other European countries until much later. The symbol of the barber-surgeons was a spirally striped pole from which was suspended a brass basin with a semi-circular opening in the rim. The fillet around the pole indicated the bandage or ribbon twisted around the arm in blood-letting, and the basin represented the vessel used to receive the blood. Barbers have retained in a modified form this ancient symbol of their profession. In the United States the brass basin is generally omitted from the barber pole, but it is common in England.
Pea Green Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man,
If a tree should fall in a forest thousands of miles from any living creature, would any sound be produced?
Louisiana-Pacific veteran
Olathe
Dear L-P, vet:
This old question owes its continued popularity to a confusion in two distinct definitions of the word sound. Ordinarily, sound is defined as the sensation stimulated by waves set in motion by a vibrating object. Consequently there is no such sound unless there is some kind of ear to receive the sensation. In this sense, then, if a tree should fall thousands of miles from any living creature, there would be no sound. This is the psychological sense. But in physical science sound is defined as the cause of the sensation; that is, the waves which are set in motion by a vibrating object and which produce the sensation popularly called sound. So the answer to the question is, in the psychological sense of the term, no sound is produced unless there is an ear to hear. But in the physical sense sound is produced irrespective of the presence of a living creature with auditory organs. In the one case sound is a sensation, in the other, the waves which stimulate the sensation.
Pea Green Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man,
How did the Romans add, subtract and multiply with Roman numerals?
Calvin Culass
Montrose
Dear Tom,
It has long been somewhat of a popular mystery how the Romans added, subtracted and multiplied with the clumsy signs or symbols which we call Roman numerals. The fact is the Romans had no convenient symbols to indicate mathematical processes and operations. Originally every process and operation was expressed in words of full length. Their mathematical calculations were never simplified further than to abbreviate centum, 100, to C, mille, 1000, to M, and so on. Figuring was awkward business in the time of Caesar. Practically all calculations were performed on the abacus, an apparatus resembling the Chinese suan pan or the bead-and-frame affairs now used in kindergarten work. The Roman abacus contained seven long and seven short rods or bars. There were four beads on each of the long bars and one on the short ones. The beads on the short bars denoted five. The first long bar was marked I, the second X, the third C, and so on up to millions. Now suppose Caesar wished to write the number 25. He would push up two X-beads and pull down the V-bead on the corresponding bar. If he wished to subtract three from 25 he would push up the V-bead and two I-beads, leaving the two X-beads where they were. There were additional bars for making calculations involving fractions. The Romans were not reputed to be good mathematicians and they contributed little to the science.
Pea Green Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man,
Can a Constitutional Amendment be repealed?
Joe Bucky
Denver
Dear Roy,
An Amendment is just as much a part of the Constitution as the original Articles. The only way any part of the Constitution can be altered or nullified is by passing an Amendment, which, in turn, becomes part of the Constitution. Therefore, the only way to repeal an Amendment is by another Amendment.
Pea Green Answer Man
LETTERS
Doth he not suffer the fool gladly?
– Oltorf, Lesser god of the Finn Jasmine Norse
Dear Horseshoe:
The Atomic Pet Waste Projectile that was advertised in your summer issue is a piece of garbage. Not only does in backfire but it leaks. Your recommendations, as usual, suck. I’ll never believe in you again.
Dag Katz
Crested Butte, CO
Dear Mel:
A few years back a friend of mine from Malibu received a lovely set of porcelain designer cat dishes. As one could easily imagine, she cherished them. Well, over the years normal wear and tear dictated the present condition of the remaining set. One saucer broke in Europe and a formal serving dish exploded in Bali. Another piece disappeared while we were surfing in South Africa in 1982. Anyway, I’ve searched the world over for a replacement set to send her. Do you know if any of the Montrose boutiques would carry something like that?
Muffy Floorburn
Telluride
Dear Muffy:
First let me just say that I enjoyed your Festival piece that appears elsewhere in this issue. You have a lot of talent. Want to go to the drive-in come spring? In undressing your correspondence, I suggest you try the animal shelter, Pets-Are-Us or the Cat’s Meow. If all else fails stop by the Salivation Army. Items like this have a way of surfacing there.
Dear Editor:
I must take exception with an article entitled “Presidential Notes” which appeared in your last issue. For your information, Richard Nixon played the electric guitar and not the cello as you repeatedly asserted. In addition, Gerald Ford mastered the triangle while in gym class at Michigan, not while sitting in Congress. While you were correct in your assumption that Jimmy Carter played the harmonica, you were remiss in your failure to mention his love affair with the washboard. It was at a washboard gig that he met both Teddy Kennedy and Walter Mondale in 1973.
The breakdown of Presidents and their musical instrument of choice follows a simple enough pattern. Some 22 Presidents, including Adams, Monroe, Tyler and Lincoln played the violin while another 30 enjoyed the piano. Teddy Roosevelt could really lay down some ragtime. Two played the tuba (Cleveland and Taft) and seven (including Bill Clinton) have chosen the saxophone as their preferred instrument. The only Chief Executive that did not play a musical instrument was Millard Fillmore who was completely tone deaf and spent his brief two-year stint plowing through Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”, which he inadvertently left behind when driven from the White House. His successor Franklin Pierce could not make heads or tails of the book and subsequently gave it to his sister-in-law for her 50th birthday in 1853.
Thumbellina Etchabarron
Cimarron, CO
Dear Consumer Person:
Let him without guilt cast the first stone, heh? Before you throw your hands up in disgust at the irresponsible fiscal behavior in government you must ask yourself: What is my credit card debt? If Mrs Jones makes $40,000 per year and owes $50,000 to Citibank, she is effectively bankrupt and will never dig her way out of the hole into which she has fallen.
Deficit spending. Tighten your belt.
Credit card abuse is one-way street and a deadbeat is a deadbeat. You have to be a standup person. It is not a good bet that you will win the lottery and Jesus will not pay off your credit cards for you down the road, no matter what they’ve told you.
Stop pointing the finger and wake up before it’s too late!
Arthur C. Mothchild
Pimpco Brokerage and Grill
Geneva
To the editor:
Recently a Hashishistani Prince was neutered to keep the family out of power. Although seen as somewhat rash in some circles it was swift and effective and kept quarrelsome tribes from collective throats. The media coverage however, was deplorable with only the alternative press in attendance.
Now instead of a royal ascendancy they have a peasant’s paradise where everyone gets to be in charge of everything for at least one full day during his/her lifetime. Perhaps we should try it here too.
Everett Throckmorton II
Ditch Warlock
Downtown Delta
CATTLEMEN MOOO HOOO DEVELOPMENT
(Montrose) Local cattle interests say that a massive development planned for the Otter Creek area is potentially destructive to their industry. The 3000-home subdivision is planned for what was once quality agricultural land.
Sources within the Cattlemen’s group content that with the excess building their cows will not be able to lie down anymore.
“With the limited acreage set aside for grazing our livestock will be forced to stand up 24-hours per day,” said Barb Wire, a spokesman for the group. “Do you know what that does to the breeding cycle, not to mention calving and the overall attitude of the herd?”
Dairy farmers echoed the same concern.
“Due to this rampant sprawl our animals can barely stretch out now,” said Harvey Milque, of Spring Creek Mesa. “Any more building will do us in. Some of my neighbors south of Montrose barely have room for a decent garden as it is. We have enough American culture now. What we need is a little Rocky Mountain restraint. Do we really have to look like Grand Junction?”
– Mel Toole
