A Potpourri of Bloodshot-Eyed Observations

Not being able to create a thematically unified entry I am perusing the news for snippets that I can entertain you with.

It's better than talking about our trash pickup which is liberal enough to take various household objects more appropriately dropped off at a recycling center. Not that I mind. The knob and tube palace coughs up construction remnants on a weekly basis and they all go curbside. As a result, curbside, indeed, the entire town's curbside routinely looks like a rummage sale of 80's technology.

This week the old vacuum cleaner is being sent up the river. Industrial strength cat hair has finally made an asthmatic of the dirt devil, my little satanic filth machine. Off into the trash with some errant vines out of the recently cleared up garden and the thing looks like a scarecrow with a clean obsession.

Hey, last week they took an old clothes dryer. I was going to truck it to the junkyard but I've had a habit of dropping things prematurely lately and I couldn't see holding Saturday traffic up with a Kenmore on route 29.

Here's news: Apparently there's a petition on to allow hunters in Pennsyvania to use a prehistoric weapon to slay deer.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) An ancient weapon that struck fear in the hearts of Spanish conquistadors, and that some think was used to slay wooly mammoths in Florida, may soon be added to the arsenal of Pennsylvania's hunters.The state Game Commission is currently drafting proposed regulations to allow hunters to use the atlatl, a small wooden device used to propel a six-foot dart as fast as 80 mph. The commission could vote to legalize its use as early as January.

Now Pennsylvania is like a lot of places where the removal of predators has naturally created an explosion of feral prey. There are so many deer in this state who are so docile and unafraid, we've taken to calling them "The Pennsylvania Wild Cow." You know how it goes; take away wolves, you get an influx of deer. Corral all the Marlboro sucking, box wine swilling trailer home housewives and you've got door to door Amway sales drives going again.

I'm all for re-introducing the atlatl. It brings the element of chance back into the hunt. Call me a purist but the deer blind with its computer enhanced camouflage pattern, high powered, telescopic laser guided sight rifle with gasoline generators pumping enough compressed deer hormones into the air to attract most of the Delaware herd and a couple of boys and girls from the trailer park just down the road ain't all that sporting.

What would be more fun would be to let atlatl hunters into the woods in a purist state. Along with the stone age weapon, you can take along stone age garb and stone age accessories. So its skins and grass shoes for you Bubba and I hope you have a pack of leeches if you or Earl get sick.

The article continues that there is evidence that the atlatl was used in prehistoric Florida to hunt wooly mammoths. Really. Truly. It does.

Now lets get real. Wooly Mammoths in Florida would have keeled over in the heat faster than Earl and Bubba in the Pennslyvania woods on a snowy morning atlatl hunting in grass shoes and what's left of Pooky the cat would freeze to death.

Now none of this is to intone that I am against hunting. Its illogical to chomp down on cowburgers that were trapped by a knocker in a slaughterhouse while eshewing hunters.

I will however make the following observation on those who think hunting has to do with beer, rifles and a party in the woods that involves more tree stump target shooting than actual tracking game for food: Boys and Girls, hunting is highly Darwinesque. The fittest and smartest and most adaptable survive. So if you are into your third PBR tall by ten a.m. and the cans are riddled with holes, you ain't eating anything that don't have a golden arches on it tonight.

Or when the local paper ran the following headline in November 2002:

HUNTING SEASON OPENS. THREE SHOT ACCIDENTALLY

I observed that the system was working.

Happy bunny days.