Princess Glenda

Okay, first, here’s an update to my last post. The other day I was reading the scrolling headlines on CNN, I find them temporarily mesmerizing and generally amusing, when I read the following: “Republicans Relax: PBS won’t bring HIV muppet to Sesame Street.” Republicans Relax!? This is what the Republicans as a whole are concerned about!? Our economy is collapsing, and oh yeah, We’re At War! But, thank god we won’t have to worry about kids asking questions like, “Why is Elmo’s cousin so thin?” Unbelievable! Wait a second.. I’m a republican! I’m something but I’m not relaxed. Which leads me to an additional observation. At some point when I was living in , I had occasion to say, “Where the hell are we living?! The water is toxic, and mosquitoes can kill you, if the guy in the next lane with the road rage doesn’t! And we just go on with our day-to-day like this is all normal.” -For a little background; hurricane Hugo had caused the water treatment facility to flood and wastewater contaminated the drinking water. You couldn’t drink or even filter the tap water for a week, in some places the water was completely cut off for that time, no showers, no laundry, no nothing, you couldn’t even get coffee in restaurants only bottled beverages. And they had just discovered that mosquitoes were carrying the west nile virus and were responsible for at least a couple of deaths.- The truth of the matter is that we do just go on, day in and day out – we have to for our own sanity, although I think it could more accurately be called “functional insanity.” Certain recent events, locally and globally, have again made this fact abundantly clear to me. I am only going to touch on them briefly in order to keep my head from exploding. Here’s a headline you may have skimmed recently, “Melting Alaskan Glaciers Raise Sea Level.” Do I really need to get into this? Can you say Glo-Bal-War-Ming? Jerry Fallwell (I have no idea if that’s how you spell his name and I refuse to look it up) swears there’s no such thing. No greenhouse effect either. And his buddy Pat Robertson agrees. Yeah, that’s responsible. I wonder if they’ll admit they were wrong when we’re all fitted for scuba gear instead of sneakers. The next one I actually find fascinating, tho I didn’t hear about it until it turned up on The Daily Show, “Predatory Snakehead Fish Found in Maryland Pond.” It’s a fish with a small head but big teeth that can WALK and live out of water for SEVERAL DAYS! Holy Crap! This is a problem, for obvious reasons. It is devouring everything and turning that little eco-system upside down. The MD Dept of Natural Resources Fisheries Service has put a bounty on this bad boy’s head, posting signs “Have you seen this fish”. I swear to god I am not making that up, they have a picture and description of the perp instructing people to “Please KILL by cutting/bleeding the fish.” I think the implications of potential environmental problems are clear here. Experts have said these are fresh-water fish so they can’t migrate to anywhere where they might do serious harm. I say they are obviously working on some whole other evolutionary level and they seem pretty damn adaptable to me. Also, here at a mile high, we are having flash floods in the middle of a drought. You see, fire-baked ground is highly susceptible to floods because the ground cannot absorb the water. Makes sense. Oh and speaking of the on-going drought, Denver Water Co. is seriously considering spending $700K on a “Cloud Seeding” program to try and manufacture precipitation. I don’t know exactly how this is supposed to work but on the news they showed big torches aimed at the sky. Seriously! Umm.. excuse me sir, but there is a fire ban in effect and with good reason But the best part – there is absolutely no scientific proof that the process even works! But hey, what’s $700 thousand dollars really? The price of a catered lunch for the board of directors at MCI? Chump change.
Last but not least, headlines in the Rocky Mountain News last week reported that the statewide, blazing, wildfires, worst in state history, have led to ideal conditions for a growing problem: plague-like infestation of grasshoppers. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure this one is straight out of the old testament. Okay, I’m done. I need to go lay down now.

Posted: Monday, July 22nd, 2002 @ 2:12 am
Categories: Rants.
Tags: brush fire, Colorado, New Jersey, Snakehead Fish.
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