Friday 31 July 2015

Pondering Over Cecil the Lion

I have followed to some degree....this Cecil the Lion story for the last three or four days.  It's a simplistic story.  American dentist saves up a ton of money ($50,000) and pays for a lion expedition in Zimbabwe.  No one says the cost of the airline ticket, the booze for the period while in Zimbabwe, the food bill, or incidentals.  I'd take a guess that it was a bit more than $50,000.

There seems to be a fair number of people upset by the shooting of Cecil.  Maybe on the friendly lion side of this.....having a name like Cecil.....and being a "blood-thirsty dentist" (as one comment suggested on a page)....maybe I can buy into this whole story.

The problem is....no one says much when a lion attacks a kid and drags him off into the tall grass for an afternoon treat.  I can venture through 300-odd newspapers in the US and I doubt if there's been a single such story over the past decade.

On average, just in Tanzania alone....there's around 70-odd lion attacks on humans each year, which result in death.

If you count all of Africa, on average....it's around 250 humans killed by lions each year.  If you counted in snakes, leopard attacks, elephants charging into villages, etc....there's probably a thousand Africans a year killed by wildlife.

In India, there's roughly eighty people killed yearly by Tigers.

No one ever says much over these events....unless you live in the country affected.  The local news in India will report each tiger-attack and name the poor woman or kid that was dragged off into the woods.  Tanzania newspapers will typically a lion-attack of a human on page one or page two, and likely sensationalize the event.  No, they don't ever assign a name to the lion because there's just no necessity to such a situation.

Had Cecil ever attacked a human?  No one suggests such and you can only guess that Cecil mostly stayed with four-legged animals for his lunch and dinner treats.

Are we pretty naive?  Well.....yeah.

We quickly bought into the story because of the friendly lion name of Cecil.  Had he been a "Cerberus" (demon of the pit), or Seth....we might have been less inclined to think that nicely of Cecil.

Adding onto this....we have a natural dislike of dentists because we think they are dishonest in their prices.  The fact that this guy had $50,000 to throw around on a lion-hunt license seems to bother some folks.

A big deal?  I have my doubts.  The sad truth is....this dentist could have paid the $50,000....gone over and spent seven days hunting some lion, and resting one moment by a stream.....had Cecil suddenly jump over a boulder and confront the dentist in a moment where the gun was six feet away.  Cecil would have chomped down on the dentist arm, then his leg, and then dragged the poor guy off into the high grass to enjoy an afternoon snack.

A Zimbabwe reporter would have arrived at the local hospital to get some pictures of the half-eaten American dentist and wrote a fine 10,000-word Steinbeck-like piece over the last day of dentist's life....what he ate....the fancy Chinese hunting jacket that he wore.....the fake Nike tennis shoes that he bought on the final morning....the last song played the night before by the washed-up British singer at the resort....the cheap local beer that he consumed in significant quantities throughout the day....and noted that some local tribe had assigned a curse with Cecil a decade ago....that he was a 'bad' lion.

It would have been a front-page story in Zimbabwe.  Oddly, the story would have only appeared in the local paper of the dentist on page two....noting his passing and noting his wife or kids were sad over this but noted that he died in the thrills of his hobby.  The gravestone would note somewhere.....'lion-hunter'.....in the remarks.

Yeah, that could have been the alternate story to the day, and no one would have raised a glass to the dentist or uttered some profane comment about the man-eater lion named Cecil.  We are that stupid, if you think about it.

Wednesday 29 July 2015

Book Review: Only Yesterday

Only Yesterday; An Informal History of the 1920s, by Frederick Lewis Allen.

First, I'll admit....from high school and college....the 1920s are the weakest area written and covered by any instructor.  I probably should have picked up this book forty years ago and read it.

Allen does a great job in detailing the lead up to the 1920s and the whole decade.  He explains the effect of World War I and the Wilson era.  He leads you through a simplistic chapter on Harding and his failures as a leader and man.  And there's chapters twelve and thirteen, which detail the bull market of the 1920s and the eventual collapse.  If you were wanting a concise description over a two-hour read of the period and Wall Street's' collapse and our decade-long depression....go to chapters twelve/thirteen.

I strongly emphasize reading chapter ten, which covers the alcohol period and growth of the mafia through bootleg sales.

What you come away with....is this significant change in America that comes from the war, women's voting, Prohibition and it's failure, and the arrival of innovation upon the doorstep of simple America.  We were never the same after 1920....we were an entirely different culture of people.

Chapter eleven will cover the boom and bust of real estate markets and closely parallel the decade prior to 2008's economic collapse in the US.  It's a shocker for most people who never heard of the various issues of the period.

An excellent book and worthy of any personal book collection.

Friday 17 July 2015

The Ice Age Story

There were several news reports this week over a University of Northumbria project, which suggests that in roughly fifteen years.....we will enter a mini Ice Age.

Naturally, this got people hyped up a bit.

The details come mostly from sun activity and cycles.  What they can generally say....is that the sun absolutely has cycles and it's proven over and over by the data that they collect.  Unlike the model data for environmentalists which usually is proven to wrong.....the sun data goes through a cycle and you can note the impact or variations of the cycle.  For a climate change guy.....it's pretty tough work to disprove this stuff.  Naturally, it bothers the climate change folks because this means conflict with carbon efforts and warming efforts.

Naturally, if you got to the point of believing this....then you'd ask a question or two.  If we enter such a harsh winter-like period.....won't we use more carbon to warm ourselves?  Oh my....yes.

What we end up with?  Well....from the 1700s....winters typically started earlier and ended later.  You had a shorter spring and fall.  Heating?  Well....you can figure if you live up in New York or in the upper part of the US.....around twenty-five to fifty percent more heating than you currently use.  This might disturb some folks.

As we get closer to the anticipated period.....my humble guess is that environmentalists and climate change folks will argue that this is related to their mess, and has little to do with the sun.  After a year or two of extremely long and harsh winters.....they will lose the bulk of their believers....IF all of this comes to pass.  I'm not a hundred percent in belief over this, but I tend to believe in history repeating itself, and I know the consequences of the last mini ice age.

My humble suggestion is that you might want to get into some solar heating cells in ten years and wisely invest in more insulation for the house.  It might be worth it.

The Snake Story

I noted this morning in the news.....cops in Austin are saying they have a problem of an unusual nature.  Some kid died, and from the evidence at hand.....they say he had a pet cobra snake.  The snake bit him and he died within minutes.  The snake? Well.....he wandered off.  So far.....no one has found him.  There's an intensive search to be mounted by local authorities on Friday.

From time to time.....you will note news items like this where people build up some collection of dangerous snakes because of a fascination.  Occasionally, they get bit, and some live....some die.  It's a fairly dangerous hobby.

Back around 1984, I was briefly in Colorado and we had this episode to occur with a couple.

Authorities found them dead on some hilltop....mutual suicide deal.  They both had various issues and it didn't take much work to establish facts over the case.  The one odd thing were all these empty canvas bags in the back of the car.  So they went back to the house of the couple and noted these empty glass cages.

Cops asked questions of the neighbors.  The neighbors noted around twenty-odd poisonous snakes in the private collection that the couple held.  All were gone.

What the head cop ended up summarizing for the reporter....was this theory that the couple had released all of these poisonous snakes there on the hilltop....in the midst of the Rockies....into the wild.  This included a couple of cobras.  The snake expert included a comment or two into the story that winters are severe and he didn't have a lot of faith that these particular snakes would survive.  Course, he suggested this......he couldn't be sure.

It's been thirty years since that summer and one has to wonder.....if he was right, or if there's a whole hilltop infested with cobras in Colorado.  One of those things that you'd rather not ask about.


Saturday 11 July 2015

The Exorcism in Mexico

I read a fair number of news sources throughout a normal week (probably over 1,000 news items).  Occasionally, you will pick up one item which demands a bit of pondering.

Roughly a month ago....the archbishop of Guadalajara (a state in Mexico) did up an exorcism of sorts.  Cardinal Iniguez got with some other Catholic priests.....huddled quietly in a room.....and tried to drive out demons from across all of Mexico.

No one is saying much over the success and there's some thought that it was way too big of a problem for just a couple of priests (you'd probably need two-hundred priests for the Mexico problem).

So, this brings around this solution to applying for problems in the US.  Could we work up some massive 10,000 priest operation and do a big-time exorcism in the US?

Naturally, some folks in Alabama would ask questions.  Would this mess around with legit sin (gambling in casino operations, drinking two-percent beer on Saturday night, conducting relations with the Dairy Queen lady or the Piggly Wiggly clerk)?

Then they'd ask if this was mumbo-jumbo and just fake?

Somewhere down the line.....they'd eventually ask if this were permanent or just a short-term solution.

Finally, some guy would ask if Satan was really responsible or were people just blaming their stupidity and lax morals on some fake thing.....thus not taking responsibility over themselves?

For some reason, I'm not buying into the Mexico exorcism episode.  Nor do I think most Mexicans believe the story beyond just a gimmick of the Catholic Church to fake people out.

Friday 10 July 2015

The Old School

They are finally selling off (by auction) my old school (well, the one from the first grade to the ninth grade).  The auction company put up a couple of pictures and it'll be held in roughly three weeks.

The deal will compose a fairly new gym (at least 15 years old), a red-brick school building with five big rooms and a basketball court, a newer school area which has six rooms, a cafeteria, a library, a baseball park, and maybe a total of 40 acres.

My guess is that it'll go up to a separate sell on each, and then some last minute episode to sell the whole thing together.

The only things worth buying?

Well, here the problems and issues.  The old brick building looks nice but it's a renovation queen and would take at least $50,000 in repairs....plus heating the thing would be costly.  The cafeteria might be worth something but it's in the far back of the school.

So you are left with the gym and a couple of acres around it.....which might make it worth $60,000 in my humble opinion.  It'd make a fine store-front.

As for the ballpark?  Well.....what exactly would you do with the six-odd acres?

All combined in the final sale?  I can't see anyone bidding more than $100,000 for the whole property.  Someone might buy the building for an antique shop and multipurpose situation for the rest.  Beyond that.....I just don't see it being a hot property.

The red-brick building goes back to the mid-1930 period and probably has a lot of history tied into it.  But what does that translate to in 2015?  Will someone get real stupid and buy it for sentimental reasons and discover the reality of an old structure two weeks later?

My humble bet is that three-hundred people show up to just watch the event unfold.  A couple of guys will bid onto the gym.  Maybe two or three guys will bid on the ballpark.  And maybe some old retired guy will put a pretty low bid up for the remainder.

The building was used for roughly seventy-five-odd years and did well.....with over 10,000 kids who transited the facility and moved on in life.

Friday 3 July 2015

The Flag Discussion

I've tried to make sense out of the dumping of 'Dukes of Hazard' over the Confederate flag episode.  To be honest, I've probably watched a total of three episodes over my whole life (145 total episodes made).  Script-wise.....there was no script and there didn't seem to be any real problems worth making an hour-long (43 minutes) episode out of.

My solution to this?  Make a big green digital circle, and put it over the afflicted flag when it comes over the screen.

You need to do this....because there will be other shows that you have to do something about....eventually.

For examples:

Baywatch.  There's all this tight bikini action and boobs hanging out.  You can run the show, but there needs to be a big green digital circle over the boobs.....in my humble opinion.

Ironside (2013 version).  I'd put a big green circle over the whole screen and just run ACDC music in the background.....it's that bad.

The Tudors.  Way too much boobs.....put the green digital cover over most women.

Rome.  Sex scenes about every sixteen minutes.

Mr. Ed.  You really can't allow kids watch the horse talking.  It's not real and it begs for some scientific angle.....like fake global cooling or fake horse conversation.

Game of Thrones.  Well....there's a bunch of killing and a bunch of sex.  Green dots ought to be popped up every 90 seconds for some reason.

I realize there's some Confederate flag showing up around sixteen times in an average show.  Will you cross off the flag in school history books or such?  Where exactly do you go with the symbology  business?

Wednesday 1 July 2015

A Twenty-Year Change

I'm presently in the middle of a six-book series covering the period of 1914 to 1929.  Since high school and college history books do a lousy job of the period....I've come to find a number of interesting bits of knowledge which kinda amaze me.

From 1900 to 1921, there's an increase of cigarette consumption and sales.....of sixteen times what it was in 1900 (1921).  We aren't talking double or triple here, but a huge number of smokes that rippled across society in general.

What happened?  Well....there are a number of reasons.

The war came, and I suspect that a number of people who didn't smoke.....participated in the war....got things on their mind....and ended up smoking as a point of relaxation.

Trucks arriving and transporting more cargo?  Yes.  In 1900.....you still had mostly wagons and rail as your method of delivery.  In 1921, you had the ability to send over an order and have it delivered within a reasonable amount of time.

More women smoking?  Yes, that's one of the odd things from the voting period changes.  Women felt they had just as many rights and privileges as a guy.

More advertising?  Yes.....marketing folks got smart and knew how to better present a product.

All of this meant more tax revenue and profit for grocery/store operations.

Another odd factor which I came across is the amount of material required for a dress.  By 1921.....it took only seven yards of fabic to make a dress......compared to almost twenty yards back in 1900.  Again, it represents a fashion change in women's clothing that few people talk about....even today.

It would be curious to see the amount of yards used in each decade, and how it lessened as time went by, and how the cost of fabric changed as well.