“Python Attacks, Swallows Woman”

From My Journal

December 2003 

The above headline opened the following news item: It seems that a 38 year-old, and obviously very small, woman in Bangladesh, was out picking fruit with a friend, when she was attacked and swallowed up to the waist by a python that was “believed to be more than 10 feet long.”

Now if they knew this much why wouldn’t they know exactly how long the snake was. This must have been one aggressive and probably terribly near-sighted, or actually dysfunctionally-tongued snake. We’ve all seen pythons catching small animals, squeezing the life out of them, and then swallowing the victim. On the Nature Channel I mean. This isn’t like chugging down a shot glass of Diet Mountain Dew. It’s rather a slow and laborious process. One of my questions was, “What was the friend doing during all this?” While doing the squeezing/swallowing thing the snake is rather vulnerable and not that fast. The least you’d think the friend could manage would be to whack the reptile with a stick, poke it in the eye, or, at least, maybe offer it some fruit as a side dish. (Although I understand snakes have never been keen on fruit after that Eve-and-the-apple thing.) Anyway, I don’t mind reporters making up stories, but they could at least keep them believable.

Another news item recently came to my attention was that the Germans, who we all know to be mechanical innovators, have come up with the “big one.” They have invented garbage cans that can talk. At first I thought it was so the homeless would have something to keep them company, but no, there was no compassion involved. These talking cans have as their objective the cleaning up of the streets of Berlin. It seems that Berlin has a problem with garbage-strewn streets and by having garbage cans that say “thank you” whenever anyone drops something into them, these engineers think they can solve the problem. Not only do the cans talk, but will say thank you in several different languages. How the cans know what language to use is a state secret. I wonder what they say when a vehicle backs over them, or when a dog takes a whiz on their side? Now that could be entertaining!

     “Australian Sells Bottled Water for Dogs.”

Another headline: Well that’s something new, and I wish the guy all the success in the world. It goes on to say that “dogs get bored with plain water--they deserve variety just as much as people.” The article didn’t footnote any scientific studies supporting this assertion, but I couldn’t help but think that this dog he’s talking about is one that just licked his backside, underside, and any other disgusting parts he could reach, then went to wash that taste out of his mouth with some toilet water. If a toilet isn’t handy he will drink from a water-filled depression made by a passing garbage truck tire, or a water-filled depression made by a cow slogging through a barnyard. The dogs I’ve known didn’t have what you’d call “discriminating” taste. That probably says something about me and my taste in dogs, but that’s getting deeper into my psyche than I’m willing to do at this time.

I’ve been forced to use different flavors of local water myself and can tell you they’re not all as advertised. In Los Angeles – “Dusty Chlorine,” in New Orleans – “Bayou Moss,” in Atlanta – “Okeefenokee With a Twist,” anywhere in Florida – “Everglades Effervescence.” Now that I think about it, the bottled water industry makes a lot more sense. But for dogs?

Italian Marketing? 

Another news article explains that the German Anti-racism Department has banned an Italian wine. The reason is because the labels sport pictures of Adolph Hitler and other leading Nazis along with such tricky slogans as “One People, One Empire, One Leader.” Now I ask, what’s not to love here. The wine is supposedly a big hit in Italy, but of course there they don’t have the same labels. I’ve tried to get into the mind of the marketing genius who came up with this one. The thinking must have gone something like this  -  -  “Now we have this great wine that we would like to sell to the poor folks in Germany, what could we use to help entice them to pick up a bottle of this stuff, maybe something that would remind them of one of the most horrible times in their country’s history, including the slaughter of a whole generation of their young men and their deep humiliation in front of the whole world; oh yeah, that should turn them on big time. I wonder what that marketing genius is doing now for a living?

Give Me Mayo or I’ll Give You This

We’ve known for a long time that Texas people can be rather militant about things. A good example is a Houston woman who wanted mayo on her Big Mac, but it seems that the amount of mayo the manager gave her for her burger was not sufficient, so the mayo lover ran over said manager when she came out to take down the Houston woman’s license number. It would seem an anger management class would be in order and maybe a driving--well no--her aim is good enough already.

Don, Can You Please Repeat That

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield came up with a profundity the other day worthy of honorable mention. “Reports that say something hasn’t happened are interesting to me, because as we know, there are known unknowns: there (are) things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns: that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

The problem is that I knew what he meant.

Who Said The Airlines Don’t Have Problems

The airlines today announced that they will be hand inspecting fruitcakes that people are trying to carry on planes. It seems that the x-ray machines don’t do very good at penetrating fruitcake. Now this should tell us something. Although, a piece of fruitcake slathered with enough butter is not at all that bad. Of course, the same could be said of a shingle.

At the Miami airport, a man was arrested for trying to get on a plane with a hacksaw blade and a razor blade in his shoe. I guess the police were made suspicious by the limp and the bloody footprints. Nobody was quite sure what he planned to do with the hacksaw blade. Maybe after hijacking the plane he was going to saw off parts and mail them to Boeing until all the political prisoners from his hometown of Westchester, Pennsylvania, had been released.    

A headline in a Madrid paper said, “Loose Screw Halts Nuclear Power Station.” Turned out his name was Emilio Sanchez.