Alas, It’s True (2018 Edition)
Another anniversary. Not fun, perhaps, but consider the alternative. Advertisements
Bird Banding Barbie Turns 18
WC has been very, very serious lately. Extinct species. Sociopathic congressmen. Monomaniacal gun nuts. WC will lighten up a bit, and at the same time preserve for posterity a classic birthday practical joke. WC presents, in very nearly its original form, Bird Banding Barbie. In that long, dark time between Christmas Bird Count and Spring,…
WC Cleans Out His Inbox
WC has fallen behind in his email again. It’s past time to sort through the contents. Reader A. Nonny Mouse notes that Texas is walking down the same path as Oklahoma, with the same results: if you dispose of oil well fluids by injecting them into the ground you trigger earthquakes. Even in country that…
WC’s Annual Turkey/Tryptophan Exposé
Since he was just a pup, about 30-45 minutes after wolfing down a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, WC would be asleep on the couch. In the late 1970′s, a physiologist who was WC’s Thanksgiving guest explained it as a reaction to all of the tryptophan in turkey meat. Just before he dropped off to sleep. As…
Sexism and Culture: An Object Lesson
A young man is wheeled into surgery on a gurney. He was gravely injured in an auto accident that killed his father. The young man is transferred to the operating table and prepped for emergency surgery. The surgeon leans over the young man and gasps in dismay, “Oh, my son, what have the done to you?”…
The James G. Blaine Society
Memory is a tricky thing. As you get older, you become increasingly suspicious of your recollections. But in the video tape recorder in WC’s mind, the last news item on CBS one night in 1970 or 1971 went something like this: Scene: Reporter and Interviewee huddled under umbrellas in furious rain storm, standing ankle-deep in…
Tales from Wasilla: Justice for Flash
WC wonders how it is that the death of a golden retriever seems to inspire more more notoriety and outrage than the death of three young men. Flash was a 12-year old golden retriever. He was dognapped when the van he was riding in was stolen. Flash died a miserable death; he is believed to…
