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Don’t Look For The Label

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Today’s post comes from Dr. Larry Kyle of Genway, the supermarket that specializes in genetically engineered foods.

I’m very disappointed in Connecticut.

It’s a nice, wealthy eastern state that’s full of educated people, so why don’t they show more creativity when it comes to addressing concerns about Genetically Modified foods? The state legislature just passed a bill that, when certain conditions are met, will require GM foods to carry a label identifying them as such.

A label?

Labels are boring. The only reason to insist on labels is because you have Absolutely No Idea what gene manipulation can do! If I were passing laws to control Laboratory Based Manipulation Of Our Diet, I would make useful rules. I would require all food finaglers to Do Something Inventive that would make it Obvious we are Dealing with A Product That Did Not Originate in the Natural World!

They're Delicious Hot or Coiled
Delicious Hot or Coiled

Like the Genway COBRAnana!

Our COBRAnana is a tightly wound nutrient-rich package coiled and waiting to strike you numb with its tasty goodness. Yes, it senses your presence and although it does nothing to outwardly indicate that it knows you are near, when you least expect it you will find yourself with a face full of high-potassium fruitiness!

And yes, it carries a label, but slapping a tiny sticker on the produce is for cowards. You don’t need something like that to let people know they are about to eat A Banana That Springs From The Mind of Man!

I’m surprised that I have to say it here in the Land of Innovation, but this is what the Connecticut law should require. Not labels or the participation of neighboring states.

Creativity!

Dr. Kyle has a point – if you can’t use genetic manipulation to make your produce look instantly recognizable to even the most casual shopper, then what good is it?

What is distinctive about your style?

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Cool Summer Job Shortage

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden, still not quite graduated from Wendell Wilkie High School.

Hi Mr. C.!

Well, I didn’t get that actuary job I’d been hoping for.

There was never actually an actual actuary job available, but I was hoping someone would find out I was interested by reading your blog and then they’d contact me. I guess your dumb blog isn’t as popular as I thought, or it has the wrong type of readers. Jobless ones, like me.

Either that, or people don’t want good employees very much these days.

The funny thing is, there seem to be more jobs around this summer than there were in the past few years. A bunch of the kids I know from school are working at fast food places and movie theaters and as babysitters and stuff like that. And that’s fine but I was really counting on having something cool to do.

Looking to be Wrangled
Looking to be Wrangled

Like being a wrangler on a Llama Ranch.

I think wrangling llamas would give me a chance to run across an open field and get a flying headlock on wayward livestock in a way that would be really fun. They have lots of neck footage, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find a place to grab on. Then it’s just a matter of pointing their faces in the direction you want them to go.

That’s what I imagine, anyway.

It would be awesome, though I hear they spit. But that’s OK. I can spit too! It would be extremely cool to start next year by telling the kids in my homeroom that I spent the summer llama wrangling and spit dueling.

So, are there any overworked Llama Ranchers with some extra money in your audience? And if not, what sort of work do they do? I’m starting to wonder if me networking with you is ever going to pay off.

Your pal,
Bubby

P.S. – I don’t want to have anything to do with actual baboons. I’d rather babysit human children, if it came to that.

Ever spend the summer around livestock?

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A Totally Safe Room

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The recent spate of large tornadoes striking the southern plains has emphasized a frightening and humbling fact – there are few shelters that can truly protect us from the destructive power of 200 mile per hour winds.

Just last Friday, Oklahomans who thought they could drive away from an oncoming storm found that the combination of rush hour traffic and a sudden influx of other panicked citizens clogged the escape routes and left everyone more exposed than they were before they left their homes.

Our Armageddon Getaway
Underground Bunker Under Construction

When I was growing up in Montrose, New York, in the 1960’s, my father decided to build a fallout shelter alongside the house. It was his response to the ongoing cold war with the Soviet Union. The walls of our shelter were made of thick, poured concrete, reinforced with iron. Air shafts went to the surface so we could breathe. A dehumidifier, bunk beds, and a few cases of water and dehydrated rations were in place. We were all convinced a nuclear attack could come at any moment, reducing our house and the entire world, really, to a smoldering, radioactive wasteland unable to sustain life.

I will always admire my father for his determined effort to protect us, but there was no real plan for survival after the first strike. We just wanted to outlive our neighbors, the McInernys. When the air raid sirens went off, I wasn’t sure how we were going to tell them they couldn’t come in and share our dank hole in the ground, but I knew that might be necessary.

Fortunately, it never became an issue, and the fallout shelter wound up being a very secure home for spiders. I assume it’s still there, and will probably be the one piece of construction I was associated with that will last long after I’m gone.

But I pray nobody ever feels a need to use it.

Where is your safe place?

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Happy Babooniversary!

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Yes, this Monday marks the third anniversary of the launching of Trail Baboon.
Our first post appeared on June 3, 2010. This is entry #946.

Thanks to all the Baboons who helped get us here by reading, commenting, and even writing blog posts on days when I was away or uninspired or too tired to type. This has become a community space, and I’m delighted with the denizens. Whether you regularly speak up or simply visit and wonder, your presence makes this virtual clubhouse a home away from home for literally dozens of us.

One thing I’d like to try as we move into year number four is to freshen things up a bit. And one way to do that is to remodel our home. WordPress offers many cost-free options and some “premium” themes – a step we can afford thanks to our willingness as a group to accept the advertisements that clamor around the margins of this page.

Here are some options, which you can see in more detail if you click on the individual image.

As with any major home improvement project or makeover, this one moves me to paralysis. I’m not sure I can commit to that particular blueprint, haircut, construction material, wardrobe, color scheme, or cost. Does everything have to change, or can I keep some favorite things? What if it doesn’t look the same way on me that it looks on that model?

Otherwise, I’m enthusiastic about change!

What’s your most memorable remodeling project?

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Dangerous Loophole

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I just received a breathless note from Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty – a man so easily alarmed he ought to know better than to spend his precious spare time reading newspapers. Every page has something guaranteed to ring his bell. And yet he allowed himself to get drawn in to an article in the New York Times about the federal government and driverless cars.

Automatons!
Automatons!

As a result, he is pleading with me to use my vast connection with potentially dozens of blog readers to generate concern about the coming auto-dronepocalypse on our streets and highways.

“I don’t think people are fully aware of the potential threat posed by these road robots! Don’t get me wrong – I have more faith in machines than I do in people. Every human being is a string of accidents waiting to happen! But these autonomous autos were designed and built by humans, and because they are the result of the work of fools, there is no way they can be foolproof!”

But the thing that really got him was this quote from the article:

It is up to state and local governments to decide whether autonomous or semiautonomous cars are allowed on public roads. States including California, Nevada and Florida have already legalized driverless cars. They are not explicitly illegal in other states, because there is no law that says cars must have drivers.

“‘… there is no law that says cars must have drivers!’ Do you realize what this means? It is a gigantic loophole in our legal code – big enough for your mammoth SUV to drive through with all its sensors and GPS turned off! Apparently anything goes as long as you can prove you weren’t the one driving the vehicle. And once vehicles become blame-able, things are going to get very strange out on the roads. My advice – stay away from all interstates, state highways, county roads, city streets, cul-de-sacs, alleyways, driveways and cart paths for the next twenty years, until all this autonomous locomotion business gets sorted out! That’s what I’m going to do, and I suggest you do it too!”

I usually don’t take B.S.O.R.’s advice, and I’m not sure that it’s even possible to live in America in 2013 without going near roads. And surely there would be safety hazards to going cross-country all the time. Ticks, for one. Poison ivy too. Not to mention the drones overhead – another kind of autonomous vehicle.

Still, it does make me wonder what sort of life one could lead if the goal was to stay clear of all traffic.

Where is your favorite off-road area?

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An Empty Space

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Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th district – all the water surface area in the state.

Beechly Announces He's Not Going Anywhere At All.
Beechly Announces He’s Not Going Anywhere At All.

Greetings, Constituents!

A lot of people say politics is an art, but I happen to think there’s a bunch of science mixed in.

I regularly get together with a group of friends in our “bipartisan politics lab,” and we look at everything that happened in the past few days through an unforgiving microscope. There are all sorts of linkages and influences to measure.

That’s why I wasn’t surprised yesterday when Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann announced she would not run for a fifth term in her conservative Minnesota district. In a cold, hard scientific light, the numbers were not in her favor. Neither were the letters, once intimidating ones like F.B.I., F.E.C. and O.C.E.started showing up.

I have long admired Representative Bachmann for her many abilities, not the least of which is the power to set an anything-can-happen tone, and another is simply the ability to draw attention. In political science, that quality alone is as good as gold.

People think if you’re in Congress you have already hit the heights of fame and influence, but I can tell you from personal experience it can feel very lonely and quite invisible to be a member of the House of Representatives.

Especially if, like me, the institution doesn’t recognize you as a legitimate member.

Getting even a fraction of the attention Representative Bachmann received would have made me feel like a real success – like I had finally arrived. Unfortunately, I would have to serve 100 terms to come near the level of fame she collected in her soon-to-be far-too-short eight years.

In this way, Representative Bachmann gave us a yardstick to measure ourselves and our constituents!

Just like a scientific compound that gets a reaction out of other metals, exposure to even a little bit of pure Bachmann would trigger a profound change in every element that came near. I don’t have to tell you that! And her powerful influence made it possible to “read” individuals quite quickly.

That’s a valuable tool in the fast-paced world of politics.

For example, we discovered a clear and direct one-to-one ratio links any individual voter’s Bachmann Allegiance Tendencies (B.A.T.) and that same person’s Conspiratorial Reasoning Acceptance Profile (C.R.A.P.)

Meaning the more an individual donor liked Congresswoman Bachmann, the more likely they were to believe that the government had covered up the truth about the President’s birthplace, or downplayed data about Islamist infiltration in the State Department. Or believed that there are flying saucers and mummified aliens in the New Mexico desert!

So if you knew someone’s BAT, you instantly had their CRAP, and vice-versa. We had Congresswoman Bachmann to thank for that! And We were able to measure it more easily whenever she made a widely distributed public statement, meaning every time the Congresswoman opened her mouth on TV, we were hip deep in BAT/CRAP back at the lab.

Those were golden days. The days when an ordinary person would walk a mile out of his way to tell you a joke, even if wasn’t very funny or didn’t make sense. Old fashioned? Yes! And I think we live in a very different America today!

Your Servant,
The Hon. Congressman Loomis Beechly, Esq.

I have nothing to add.

How do you measure your influence?

Uncategorized

Smoker’s Rights

61 Comments

I know this is less likely than it used to be, thanks to laws that govern public smoking and second hand smoke exposure. But have you ever been stuck sitting near someone who insists on lighting up?

Apparently it still happens, particularly in Alaska.

Pavlov_volcano

And the worst part for the unfortunate geologic feature caught in this awkward situation – everybody says “just move.” But it’s not that easy when you’re a mountain!

Been involved in any public smoking conflicts?

Songs

Lunar Exploder

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Image from NASA
Image from NASA

Super speedy space chunks regularly slam into the moon – that’s why it has so many lovely craters. An exceptionally big one fell recently and hit at 56 thousand miles per hour, liquefying rock and ejecting tons of dust. Sound awesome?

Here’s the good news: It was recorded on video.

Here’s the bad news: Perspective is everything.

If we had been standing within sight of this on the Lunar surface, we’d have had a “shock and awe” moment easily rivaling the kind of explosive mayhem we’ve become used to in all our action films and thrillers. From our vantage point here on Earth, however, this major collision is just a brighter-than-usual pinprick of light.

There are indications that both the Earth and the Moon were pelted by a series of asteroids on March 17th, the date of the observed lunar explosion. We might have wound up with a much-too-close-for-comfort view of the festivities, had it not been for our protective atmosphere.

Scientists think tracking the frequency and location of explosive lunar impacts will come in handy should we ever attempt to have an extended human presence on the moon’s surface. Being able to predict the size, speed and trajectory of incoming boulders should give us a chance to leap out of the way. In theory.

There are plenty of famous moon songs, but they always depict our satellite as remote, mysterious and peaceful. I don’t know of any of them speak the to the constant threat of sudden violence that hangs over the dusty landscape there. Until now.

Cue Astronaut Tony Bennett!

Fly Me To The Moon
Help me dodge explosive bombs.
Drop me in a quiet spot
the universe becalms.
In other words, Asteroids!
In other words, help them miss me.

Walking on the moon
I’m seeing craters all around.
I’m afraid to look up
I’m afraid to turn around.
In other words, how’s your luck?
In other words, learn to duck!

How are your reflexes?

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My Brother, the Marine

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I’m thinking of my brother today on Memorial Day.

He was a Marine.

The purpose of Memorial Day is to remember those who died while serving in the military – a noble and worthy holiday to honor those who sacrificed themselves for our country. Argue if you wish with the logic behind some of the wars where so much has been lost. Regardless, the people who died made an unselfish commitment to fight on our behalf, regardless of risk. It is right to honor that.

But not every member of armed forces who dies does so facing an enemy in battle. The military is a machine that runs on the energy of young men and women and their willingness to do dangerous things. And as a result, it chews people up in unexpected ways and for dumb reasons, or no reason at all. Planes and helicopters crash, ships collide, rifles misfire, minds snap and bad things happen. There is carnage on the front lines but also on the bases and on the training grounds. In every case it is heartbreaking and the price is steep. Payment is usually immediate, though sometimes it takes years.

My brother Lee is one of those who paid in installments.

Lee did not die while enlisted in the Corps, but his death and his service are intertwined and when I reflect on his passing I think of him as a military casualty even though he was a 57 and living alone in an apartment in Irvine California at the time – not in uniform, not on a military base and far from any battlefield.

His passing was the result of a Hepatitis C infection contracted over 35 years ago – a consequence of a transfusion of tainted blood from a time long before the more stringent donation screening of today. Hepatitis C remains hidden – there are no symptoms in the early and middle stages so he didn’t know he had it until decades after the transfusion.

Lee needed to receive large amounts of blood because he had been attacked by one of his fellow Marines – an angry brother-in-arms who felt he had been passed over for promotion.

Lee’s wounds were severe and he almost died in the hospital. He was stabbed in the stomach while hiding, using a phone to call for help. His assailant saw the phone cord winding under the desktop and lunged with his weapon. Why? It’s like so many violent things today – there is no logic. It certainly was not the kind of heroic face-off you see in the action films. My brother and those with him were only prepared to shoot with cameras. Help came too late for two Marines, who died on the scene. Three others were injured.

Man and Cat, at home
Man and Cat, at home

Oddly, Lee had transferred to the photo lab from a much more pressurized and risky assignment. He had been a Military Policeman, and had he remained one he would have been called on to respond to this attack. You might expect taking pictures to be a safe way to serve out a term in the Marines, but not in this case.

In the years that followed, my brother focused on his photography business and volunteering at the local animal shelter. He remained proud of his connection to The Corps, though he was reluctant to talk about the incident or his attacker.  Yet the disease he had picked up as a result of it was already inside, doing its work.

I believe his strategy in dealing with this calamity was simply not to dwell on it. You could ask about his health but my brother had perfected his shrug and he was not interested in examining his personal problems with you. Next subject?

Although his story is not going to make it into a war movie, I think of Lee on Memorial Day, and every day, as someone whose life was changed and ultimately lost because he made a choice to serve.

Who do you think of on Memorial Day?

The Baboon Congress

Gloss – a – Rama

79 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale.

OK, Babooners, the now almost-annual addition to the Glossary of Accepted Terms is a bit overdue, as the last update was March 3, 2012. Here are some of the new terms we’ve come up with or accessed since then. I’ve left in the dates so you can see what prompted us to use some of these gems… As you can see, Baboons love word play.

Acacia Dentally – a tree of teeth, OR an alternative spelling by a creative Baboon of the adverb “accidentally”, brought about in reference to an ectopic post (see G.O.A.T.)
November 29, 2012 at 1:29 pm

Action-y – full of action, as in “If you want to see a movie at the theater, then just see one, since you want to feel action-y afterwards. If you see two, you will be too tired to be action-y.
November 9, 2012 at 9:31 am

All hat and no cattle – description of a person who is all talk and no substance; as in:
t: “maybe we could have tpaw become a north dakotan and wear boots and a gentlemans cowboy hat. chew a little copenhagen and visit the oil frackers. i think hed fit in no time.”
R: “People here would take one look and say ‘All hat and no cattle’
August 14, 2012 at 9:56 am

All y’all – Y’all is impervious to the normal rules of grammar… Y’all is plural, but “all y’all” comes in handy for emphasis in certain scenarios…                                                   
June 7, 2012 at 12:27 pm

Blogular verbosity – related to the frequency of a blogger’s comments, as in this comment from the Alpha Baboon, “Now that I’ve revealed the recent ranking, let me emphasize that there is no prize here for blogular verbosity .” (Dale) Also considered farther down on the page:
verbose blogularity
vorbose irblogularity
verbosious blogularium
verbo-a-blog d’baboon
April 25, 2012 at 12:40 pm

Cannardly ² – an alternate definition referring to diamonds or other gemstones that are so small you cannardly see them, i.e. “The center stone is so large that the ½ caret side stones look like cannardlies.”
September 13, 2012 at 1:10 pm

chipmonks – a variation on the name of a familiar mammal, living at tim’s place, “that calls to mind the image of a bucktoothed friar.” May 22, 2012 at 8:08 am Chocolate covered raisins – bioflavinoids wrapped in decadence. March 12, 2012 at 8:41 am 

Compassion fatigue – acquired PTSD for therapists from being around too many other people’s traumas
November 9, 2012 at 5:54 pm

Ethical polyhedron – the case that there are many points of view to consider, as in:
“one sees so many sides to an issue that it can be difficult to come down resolutely in one camp or another…there is ALWAYS another side–an ethical polyhedron, so to speak”
June 28, 2012 at 7:54 am 

Glossarization – what happens to a post or reply when it is being prepared the Glossary of Accepted Terms, as in: “Thank you for the glossarization … One of the things I loooove about this group is the mutual joy in wordplay.”
March 3, 2012 at 9:33 am

Gludge – a combination of snow and slush or sludge that accumulates only in late April, when the last thing one wants to do is remove it when we should be seeing buds pop out on our trees and shrubbery. Ex: “16 inches of gludge at the bottom of my driveway from the plows this morning.”
April 19, 2013 at 10:05 am

Golden Banana – an award given here on the Trail to a Babooner for particularly distignuished writing or idea. It was started by the Baboon named Jacque, an award “given … by whim and whimsy for achievements above and beyond the Baboon Call of Duty. If I feel like it.”
June 10, 2012 at 10:49 am


Googleholic – a Baboon addicted to doing very frequent searches on Google.com, as in: “It isn’t 10:30 AM yet, and I have done at least 15. Makes me a Googleholic, maybe.”
March 3, 2012 at 10:25 am

Holy Goat! – an exclamation used to express bewilderment, surprise, or astonishment, but in a more goatly manner than, for instance, “Holy Cow” or “Holy Batman.”
December 10, 2012 at 9:01 am 

Leucistic – an animal with a reduced pigmentation caused by a recessive gene…“Unlike albinism, it is caused by a reduction in all types of skin pigment (Wikipedia)”, as in: “There is a small population of leucistic squirrels in Waterville. They’re not albinos because their eyes are black. “
April 18, 2012 at 10:55 am 

Lexiconolic – a Babooner addicted to doing very frequent use of a dictionary, as in: “10 times a day online; I’m a lexiconolic.”
March 3, 2012 at 6:58 am 

Todoplegia – a form of paralysis triggered by too many items on a Baboon’s “To Do” list.
March 19, 2012 at 10:56 am 

Truffle shuffle kerfuffle – Exemplified in the following Baboon conversation:
“I’m thinking that the next Blevins meeting could be a truffle exchange. Everybody bring a couple chocolate truffles and then we’d shuffle ‘em and eat ‘em…” (Steve)
“Then, if we got into a disagreement of how the truffles were to be allocated, we could have a truffle shuffle kerfuffle. (ba-dum-BUM)”
March 29, 2012 at 10:14 am

New Acronyms:

GLOTTMBD – Great Lists of Things That Must Be Done
May 23, 2012 at 7:20 am

LIFO – In inventory management, Last In First Out, as opposed to
FIFO (guess what that means). As in, “For Robin’s freezer contents to turn in a timely manner, she’d have to use FIFO.”
February 21, 2012 at 10:50 pm

OPT – On Previous Topic
March 28, 2012 at 10:54 am

SWMBA – She Who Must Be Adored
May 23, 2012 at 8:59 am

TRoUBLE – Team Responding on Unusually Big Lighting Events:
“I spent the whole day trying to come up with the words to fit ‘TROUBLE’ because I want to be in charge of that. All I could get was the end: _ _ _ _ Been Lighting Events”… “Team Responding on Unusually Big Lighting Events (TRoUBLE) maybe??”
Feb 3, 2012

S.L.A.P.D.A.S.H. – Slobs Leaving A Permanent Document About Sloppy History: a club for concerned people who don’t want to erase our story with reckless overuse of soap.
April 11, 2013

STW – Schuyler Tyler Wyler, Trail Baboon’s Rhyming Poet Laureate
April 12, 2013 at 10:27

What is your favorite word game?