All Entries in the "Reflections on Disorder" Category
Wily Bruin Suspect in ATV Disappearances
(White Pine Over There News October 26, 2016)
Local authorities here have come to believe that a series of ATV thefts is the work of an illusive ring of black bears who live in the vicinity. Surprising though it may sound, considering the low crime in the region, police here have changed tactics in an attempt to apprehend the criminals saying that catching bears is a “whole ‘nuther hive of honey” than catching human crooks.
With yet another report of the loss of a new Honda four-wheeler last night, state wildlife biologists may be called in to firm up the ongoing investigation.
“At this point we think it’s just one bear acting alone in these crimes,” said Marshal Everett Pewter, “but he might have an accomplice or two for the bigger jobs. We found tracks and fur and scat all around the spot of the alleged theft. What slobs!”
The latest victims, three Kansas hunters, were forced to walk 15 miles to Highway 50 from the spot where they had left their vehicle on Friday.
According to one motorcycle/sports vehicle dealer the thefts are not all that odd.
“Bears have been walking off with everything from mail boxes to lawn furniture since I was a kid,” said Adam Griffith of Sun Sports in Gunnison. “What worries us is that now they’ve stepped it up a notch, grabbing dirt bikes and more sophisticated motorized vehicles. It’s enough to keep a person out of the woods.”
Griffith went on to say that he expected the stolen ATVs to turn up as chopped versions and clones of the real thing even though the bear were not that good with tools and had problems digesting service manuals.
As of press time there have been no reports of RVs or weapons missing.
“That’s good news for the people of White Pine who have always tried to live in harmony with their hairy neighbors,” said Pewter.
– Dinty Moore
“It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you often get it.”
– Somerset Maughm
Local Woman Earns Recognition For Talented Ants
A Delta County woman has gained recent notoriety through her pet jumping ants that dance and perform officially sanctioned gymnastics routines. The troupe is currently preparing to take their patriotic themed jingo show on the road this winter.
As most SHJ readers are already well aware, only three of the 396 ant genera known to exist on planet Earth are known leapers. Yet some of you may not be aware that of the three jumping ants, two are capable only of leaping up and backwards, often landing on their backs, in shame, suffering emotional scars at the least. Both of these backward jumping ants live and work in Southeast Asia.
And now because of the endurance and love of a Delta County woman, researchers have now learned that the third leaping ant can also jump forward, perform a triple lutz, land on its legs upright. The insect be able to perform Michael Jackson’s “Moon Walk” if correctly prompted.
As an aside, this extremely talented third ant group is named the trap-jaw ant. It is believed the name was given due to the ant’s tendency to trap obnoxious, young children in its jaws and run away to sell them into slavery at flesh pot/local garage sales.
Back in Delta County (Did we ever leave?), upon returning from a sojourn to the Indonesian rain forest last year, the local woman unpacked her satchel to discover an eager family of trap-jaw ants who had escaped their oppressive ant culture, and stealthily stowed away to find a refuge of happiness, freedom and equality in America.
In a press release released to the press last night, the local woman said this:
“As soon as I opened my single checked bag to unpack all of my duty-free, out jumped a plump little ant calf onto the bed! Imagine my surprise when the little guy began to dance and sing 80s pop tunes! After he finished a tear-jerking cover of Aquarius, he took a great big breath, leapt off the bed and hooked his six tiny legs into my neck. I have since learned that this is an ant hug, but I knew even then that crabs were not the only special thing I had come home with!
Over the course of the last year, the local woman has molded the native talent of her humble trap-jaw ant family into a performing dynamo that is currently in negotiations with several Branson, Missouri nightclub lounge venues. She is also negotiating with the principles at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, even though she and her entourage are not technically bluegrass but definitely about money.
“The highlight of the whole show is when our mama ant, dressed in USA Olympic uniform festooned with colorful flowing ribbons, catapults herself from one of the audience tables in the third row onto the stage while the back-up band plays God Bless America. Nobody ever notices Mama as she quietly crawls up the table leg. Then she unfurls the rainbow ribbons and proudly leaps!”
During one frightening evening performance Mama got stuck on the side of an audience member’s margarita, during a full-on rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, just before it was time for the show-stopping leap to the stage.
“Luckily she struggled free just in time for a glorious jump. We use red, white and blue lighting and video monitors for Mama’s part of the show. Then the band went in to a lively America the Beautiful despite an overwhelming audience desire to hear Take Me Out To The Ballgame just one more time before that song is banished by the secret police.
All is not happy-pants for the energetic new entertainers however. The ants and the local woman have caught the regulatory eye of the Colorado Fines and Wildlife Imprisonment, that has opened a file on what they term an “unauthorized and maybe even illegal importation of an immigrant, better known as refugee, ants, with a reputation for snagging small children in their jaws and pandering them at flesh pot garage sales.
“I definitely think this is something we should be looking into,” said Capt. Barbless Hook, head Fish Policeman and boss of the investigation. “Them foreign ants may be seeing some troubled waters drowning out their little ant dreams in the near future, if you see what I’m sayin’ here.”
– Lina Bacherre
“Fraternity boys simply should not have access to nuclear weapons.”
– conclusions of United Nations Commission on World Peace in 2016
Baseball belongs in the sunshine
(Wiggly Field – Chicago — Sports Excess — Oct 21, 2016)
OBITUARY: Major League Baseball. Died Oct. 21. Graveside services. Wake of American tradition, at Cooperstown, N.Y. Survivors include pro football, pro basketball, pro hockey and tour bingo. All are getting old.
Ice hockey isn’t played out in the sun. Basketball courts are abandoned in the rain. Nobody plays tennis in the wind. Why do they play the World Series in the dark, out in the cold, when all good little boys and girls should be fast asleep?
Perhaps it was the repetitious beer commercials aimed at 14 year olds that upset my sense of authenticity. Maybe it was the announcers who, sentenced to childhood in right field because they couldn’t catch a fly, wanted their big-shot day in the limelight.
Nope. It’s the dollar-bill mentality that dictates that games would be played at night instead of out in the luxurious October sunshine.
In B-grade Saturday morning Westerns, even the lowest cowpuncher knew that Indians never fought at night. Neither did the gladiators in Rome. Even Eisenhower waited until daylight to launch the Normandy Invasion. And they call baseball traditional.
Baseball should be a game for kids and the World Series, of all sporting events, should be played in the middle of the afternoon. (Theme music: Gillette Blue Blades, I mean).
Why must young baseball fans be faced with staying up past midnight to watch their teams wander into the extra innings? What about some of the rookies? Should they have to ride the bench, yawning, (sans pillow and blanket), while the contests often drag on past a decent hour.
Things would certainly have been different if the World Series was played at night in the 50s. Two of the principals, Mickey Mantle and Billy Martin, might have missed most the games due to their much-maligned social agenda.
In addition, what would radio broadcasters like Wait Hoyt and Rosey Rosewell have done with all their idle day time? What about Pirate great Bill Mazeroski? Would he have stayed up late enough to take his famous series-ending poke back in 1960?
I remember back then, when the Yankees and Dodgers dominated the post-season play. Of course, in those days, if a team won its division it went to the World Series and was not forced to test its mettle against also-rans in continuous five-or-seven-game money-making fiascoes. In those days, kids would skip school to watch the games and their parents, who generally turned their heads, would skip work sometime during the magic week.
In the workplace, especially in the competing cities, there would be lucrative office pools and little or no work going on. New York and Los Angeles, the largest cities in the country, were at a virtual standstill in 1962. That’s the real country talking. Ain’t it grand!
Worker morale was at its highest, as it was considered patriotic to blow off work and gather around the radio or the color television to catch the action. Dammit, baseball belongs out in the sunshine, not lurking around in the evening shadows of someone’s prime time.
In 1934, Joe “Ducky” Medwick was pelted with garbage as he attempted to play left field during the autumn classic. Rude as it may have been, it was probably great fun for the Detroit fans, who, sadly enough, watched their team go down to defeat.
Ask yourself: If the game would have been played at night, would the Detroit faithful actually have bounced their trash off Medwick? How could they be sure it was him in the shadows. Baseball would have been deprived another joyous outing, even though Medick, a documented prick, might have felt quite differently.
In that same series, Dizzy and Paul Dean, pitching in the sunlight, were all but untouchable. Do you think the Tigers would have done better in the dark? It’s doubtful whether any of the American Leaguers would have even detected the cowhide passing over the plate. At least the Deans, pitching in the afternoon gave the hitters a shot at hitting the ball.
In 1961, Cincinnati third baseman Gene Freese lost a foul ball in the sun. It would have been the third out, but instead the powerful Yankees capitalized on his misadventure and scored seven runs, which turned the Series around.
The Yankees went on to win in five games. In 1995, would Braves fans be so quick to engage in their mindless chop chants right out in the light where everyone could see them? We think not.
Back before TV ratings dominated baseball tradition we can imagine the American family gathering around the dinner table talking about that afternoon’s game. Today the broadcast often interrupts dinner entirely. In addition, the World Series gave the unemployed something to do during those difficult hours of reflection, and was found to provide a positive distraction from the morbid soaps, the noisy, carrot-and-stick game shows and the few idiot talk shows that had begun to surface.
What about crime? Even a fool can see that a fan is more likely to get mugged outside Jacob’s Field or Fulton County Stadium at 11 than at 6.
Is this crisis covered by the designated hitter clause? And if this reality isn’t frightening enough, consider that the rosin bag gets soggy at night and the UV rays from the stadium lights are harmful to one’s health.
Let’s blame Ted Turner. He’s the guy who brought the national sport to its knees by providing the massive Brave money dosages on the tube. There is no doubt he wanted the games on at night due to the ad revenues and due to the likelihood that his former wife, Jane, wanted to free up her days to hit the malls in Cleveland or Baltimore, shopping meccas to be sure.
Maybe we need government intervention, but the GOP says there are too many lefties on the mound and the Democrats seem frightened to go out into right field after dark. What about presenting the World Series in the daytime, interspersed with the McNeil-Lerner Report?
In closing, Astroturf, domes and batting gloves suck too.
-Kevin Haley
Forest Service Seeks Public Input on Pine Beetle Epidemic
(Ouray, CO — Bark Worse Than Bite Press — October 12, 2016)
Warm winter weather that has lingered for almost two decades is allowing mountain pine beetles to have their way with lodge pole, ponderosa, Scotch and limber pine trees all over the Rockies. For centuries the cold killed them off and kept the population in check but no more.
Now they are even munching on bristlecone and pinon pines. The Department of the Interior is alarmed and is looking for a solution.
“Our pleasant winter climate has allowed these bastards to flourish at the expense of our forests,” said one frustrated gov’ment biologist. “Traditional predators such as woodpeckers, moles. shrews, mice, skunks (they think the larvae is yummy) birds and frogs have dropped the ball somewhere along the food chain. Now it’s all on us and we don’t have a clue how to proceed.”
Rumors abound as to the answers. One anecdote suggests that a secret plan to release millions of unspecified or anonymous predators is in the works for November. Another says word-burning restrictions would be relaxed so as to clean up all the dead wood and avoid next year’s forest fires. Drones and robots have graced he mix with no visible changes and lots of misdirected tittle-tattle. According to a USFS statement:
Popcorn-shaped masses of resin, called pitch-tubes, which may be brown, pink or white in color, will be found on the trunk where the beetle began tunneling. Boring dust may be found in bark crevices or on the ground immediately adjacent to the tree base. Evidence of woodpeckers feeding on the trunk may indicate MPB infestation. Patches of bark may be missing where the woodpecker was feeding, and bark flakes may be found on the ground below the tree. These symptoms are similar to the other less destructive beetles, so property owners are urged to properly identify the beetles you find associated with their trees before deciding on treatment.
“Getting rid of these parasites is akin to ending ISIS,” said one Silverton man who favors carpet-bombing the national forests, “but you must strike at the core not just control the symptoms.
Other less drastic methods include replanting the regions with plastic trees or moving the whole shooting match to Nebraska.
– Melvin O’Toole
Winter’s on the prowl in Crested Butte
Despite what it feels like on Elk Avenue today be advised that the Iceman cometh…but so does skiing. Life ain’t all too bad. (O’Toole of the Andes Photo Service)
