Yeah…corona, protests, racism, political hatred…or you fill-in-the-blank-here.

For example…my two web friends…well I will just call them N and G and I won’t give you their web sites to protect the. Guilty and since this is just my observation based on reading their pages since the corona started…although I’ve been following both of their pages since before we hit the road in 2012.

Now N and G…well they used to be best friends for 20 years at least based on what they used to say in their blogs. Both were full time RVers for a long time although one of them has hung up the keys as they say in the biz. One of them is the computer guy and the other is not the computer guy…so the former ran for many years the web site and domain for the latter. They both frequently talked about the other in their posts…but suddenly back in April or so they quit doing that and one of them has mentioned several times that the corona has cost him his best friend.

So…I asked myself…how did this happen. After about 10 microseconds of thought…it is completely due to the corona.

Now this isn’t a commentary either way on masks, various corona medical treatments, the pro/cons of social distancing or anything that far out…it is a commentary on the absolute refusal of people on different sides of an issue to admit that the other side has some valid points or to allow the other side to have an opinion that differs from theirs.

One of these two gents…well he’s right up front that masks and social distancing are the only thing saving lives. He says that after losing 3 (or maybe 4 or 5) close friends and/or relatives to the virus that his mind is made up and if you don’t like you can go to H E double toothpicks. He continually rants about the lack of either masks or social distancing on the few times when he and his bride go out…but they rarely go out. I didn’t count them up but you could probably count the number of times since February that they’ve been out on one hand.

The other one…well, he’s the other side. He’s the only one that gives any indication of his politics on the blog…and it is pretty clear that he is conservative. However…his arguments on a variety of topics…social distancing, the HCL drug combination, and the severity of the virus mostly these days…are supported by references to other web sites…some of which are what I would deem reliable but some of them are conservative sites and they…just like the progressive ones…slant their coverage, selectively use facts, and phrase their coverage to suit their agenda.

The real drawback is that these two former friends have fallen out…just because neither will accept any validity in the other one’s positions…although from recent posts both pretty much blame the ruckus on da udder guy.

I’ve thought several times about whether I should comment and tell them both to grow up…but decided it just wasn’t worth it. Nope…not atall.

It is a pity though.

Let’s see what else is is in the news.

In Copenhagen Denmark there is a statue of a mermaid named “The Little Mermaid” which is 107 years old and gets a million visitors a year. It celebrates the fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Anderson. It has been vandalized before and beheaded twice by anti-whaling demonstrators and pro democracy activists…although to be honest I’m not sure how it either promotes or denigrates either whaling or democracy but whatever. Apparently it is now also
racist. Some idiots…er, peaceful protesters…defaced it as a “racist fish” this past week. Now I’m not sure that a mermaid qualifies as a fish…but then again I’m not sure it doesn’t either…and again…whatever. Apparently from a bit of research on the interwebs…the reason it is racist according to unnamed activists is that when Disney did a live action remake (whatever that is) of the 1989 animated film of the same name they cast Halle Bailey, a young black girl. Now mebbe it’s jus’ me…but how is casting a black girl in the titular role racist?

In Baltimore…a statue of Christopher Columbus was torn down and tossed into the harbor…while the police just stood around and watched. When the chief of police was discussing this at a post riot press conference…he stated that the police were there to protect lives and not to protect statues…but when asked who made the decision not to protect the statue he refused to answer. So…either he made it and is too gutless to admit it…or the mayor made it and he decided not to toss the mayor under the bus. Supposedly…Columbus statues need to be torn down because he oppressed Native Americans even though he never set foot in North America. However…if he is racist and Robert E. Lee is racist…then we need to get rid of a whole bunch of statues and memorials…Washington, Jefferson, Martin Luther King although he was probably more accurately described as a serial adulterer than a racist…but if we can only have statues or memorials for perfect people…then we’re going to have to tear down a whole passle of them and rename a whole lotta streets. A nice article on whether only perfect people can be  honored is
here.

According to this article…using the word sequence “white attack on black” is enough to get your video podcast removed from YouTube due to their algorithm. Croatian chess player Antonio Radic has posted over 1,800 videos over the past three years…and his video analysis of a match with Japanese born American player Hikaru Nakamura was banned for that. He thinks that his entire catalog of videos with over 275 million views will be taken down because in his words “every one of them is a black versus white to the death match”

In another SCOTUS decision…they voted 9-0…how often do the liberals and conservatives agree…that a state may at it’s sole discretion require their presidential electors to vote for the popular vote winner in their state and that rogue or faithless electors cannot just vote for whoever they please. This ruling came down in a suit by 2016 electors from Colorado and Washington who cast their votes for somebody other than the state winner and were then punished by the state for that. Naturally…according to Time Magazine this decision completely invalidates the Electoral College and conclusively proves that the 270 coalition that is attempting to end run around the constitution by telling those electors to vote for the national popular vote winner instead of their state winner is absolutely constitutional. The trouble is…as we’ve discussed herein before…the EC prevents the large coastal states and cities from choosing the President with little say from the flyover states. As of this writing…15 states and Washington DC (although Colorado has withdrawn from the pact) totaling 196 EC votes…have approved the pact but it is unlikely they will get the remaining EC votes they need as it is almost all large coastal states…which were the very reason the EC was put into constitution in the first place. Now whether the whole idea of the 270 coalition is actually constitutional in the first place is questionable…as well as whether it requires congressional consent in addition to the various states consent. However…since the SCOTUS won’t take up the case until the inevitable suit if it ever comes to pass how they would rule is unknown…not to mention the contention of the various states who have not withdrawn from the agreement that Colorado’s initial joining was inviolable and cannot be withdrawn. What it really comes down to is that one political party decided it was too hard to amend the constitution and is trying to do an end run around it…very similar to the debates over guns, abortion, school choice, and pretty much every other issue our political parties disagree on.

Down in Mississippi…the peaceful demonstrators are now demonstrating because…they got their way. About
15 months ago…the student body at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) voted to remove a statue of a confederate soldier that black people didn’t like. That’s perfectly fine…and the university decided to adopt the recommendation and move the statue. However, rather than destroy it the university is…using private funds…moving it to a nearby cemetery for Confederate soldiers and is also paying…again with private funds…to provide headstones for currently unmarked graves, installation of lighting, and installation of a security system at the cemetery. Naturally…the protesters are now out demanding that this plan be dismissed and the statue destroyed…no word on whether they think the graves should be disinterred and the coffins tossed into the Gulf. They’re also unhappy that the statue on campus of James Meredith…the first black enrollee at the campus in 1962…doesn’t include wording on the associated plaque that slavery was the sole and central issue in the Civil War but just honors him as the first black student at the university. And oh yeah…Mississippi state law prohibits the destruction or removal of war memorials. And another oh yeah…the plan to move it to and renovate the cemetery was agreed to by both faculty, administration, and student leadership.

But wait…it isn’t just peaceful demonstrators that make the news…it’s stupid people too.

At
Mather Point near the Grand Canyon South Rim…Maria A. Salgado Lopez, 59, of Scottsdale, AZ…well she was hiking…off trail and outside the railings this past week…here’s what it looks like.

And…she fell off and killed herself. We’re still under last year’s total though…which was 2 people falling off the rim of the canyon to their death.

In
Yellowstone National Park last week…a 72 year old woman was gored by a bison in their campground. There’s video in the article taken by the folks in the neighboring campsite which clearly shows that the woman approached the bison almost close enough to pet it so her husband could take a photo. She ignored the huffing and foot stamping that a bison does as a warning and approached the animal multiple times. Eventually the bison lost patience and charged her, tossing her 10 or 15 feet and goring her. She was airlifted to a hospital and subsequently treated and released. I get she learned her lesson…and won’t do that again.

This
woman…well, she decided that she needed to have her photo taken with a grizzly bear…so she just walked on up. Take a look at the video…luckily for her it was just a mock charge to get her to move away since the bear can clearly run faster than she can.

And the final bit o’ news for the day…and I’m sure that you’ll be heartbroken over this announcement…the NYC Staten Island Deer Vasectomy Project has been placed on hold until at least June 2021 due to budget cuts and the fact that they found more deer to perform surgery on than they planned on. Yes…you heard that right. NYC…despite their budget deficits…has spent $6.6 million over the past 5 years to sterilize white tailed deer. However “During these unprecedented times, we have been tasked with making difficult decisions especially as it pertains to our budget” according to Parks Department spokeswoman Charisse Hill. Apparently a lot of buck deer get killed on the roads during the mating season…so snipping the family jewels takes care of this. Ima not sure quite how that works…after all Neil had the same surgery years ago and he still participates in the mating season. They do specify vasectomy and not castration…the latter would clearly reduce the mating urge…but just because you are shooting blanks doesn’t mean you don’t want to fire off a few rounds…KnowhutImean Vern.

OK…let’s have a few photos. We have a new sighting in the pond out back of our lanai…a Green Heron. Haven’t been able to get a photo of it yet…but here are a couple of older photos of Green Herons (well, actually the same individual) so this is what it would have looked like if I had a photo of this one. Greens are about 17 inches tall…or about 1/2-2/3 the size of the Snowy Egret and about 40% of the size of a Great Egret…and they’re relatively short necked like Night Herons and Bitterns rather than long necked like Snowy, Great, and Great Blue Herons.

They’re relatively uncommon compared to Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons and probably even uncommon compared to Night Herons…at least in our experience. They tend to hide in brush a lot more rather than stand out in the open water.

No other new shots…Connie’s in the midst of a bout of diverticulitis which she gets occasionally and is on some heavy duty antibiotics. Unfortunately…this means that she needs to stay no more than 5 seconds away from a bathroom and even this ain’t enough…we been doing a lot of laundry these past 10 days. She’s only got another day on the meds and then probably 2 or 3 days for her GI system to get back to normal…and she’s got a follow up appointment on Monday to review the results from this week’s CT scan and lab work.

So…here’s a few blasts from the past.

The Wailua River in Kauai in Hawaii…from our first trip there I believe which was in 2002…taken…I think but it was from before my time on the road with them and I’m relying on Neil and Connie’s memory…but they’ve both got CRS (can’t remember s***) so who knows for sure if it was the first time or the second time…from near the Opaeka’a Falls overlook. We later kayaked up this river to the spot where Indiana Jones swung on the rope swing out over the river before getting into his seaplane and escaping from the hostile natives…Neil swung out on that same swing and we were amazed how much narrower the river was than it appeared in the movie.

Another from our first trip…the Nepali Coast up on the north side of the island. As you proceed counterclockwise from the main city of Lihue on the southeast corner of the island, you pass the Hanalei Valley and NWR before you get to the rugged, mostly unoccupied Nepali Coast. The Hanalei Valley is the name sake and basis for the Land of Honalee in the famous song ‘bout the dragon.

The main hall in the Trinity College Library in Dublin Ireland from our trip in 2014…pretty darned neat place if you ask us. It was one of the things on Connie’s bucket list for that trip.

These are actually 3 different Ospreys from 3 different locations…

Interesting stuff found on the net.

Have you ever seen a silencer for an artillery cannon? Figured you had not so here’s what they look like.

Takeout lunch for sharks.

In Wales in the UK…there is a village in the Isle of Anglesey. They decided they wanted the longest place name in the UK so they came up with a 58 character village name which translated into English means “St Mary’s church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the fierce whirlpool of St Tysilio of the red cave”. Unfortunately…their chosen name of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is far from being the longest place name in the world…that honor…if you can give it that word…falls to the 163 character long town of Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphopnopparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharnamornphimarnavatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasit located in Thailand. Here’s the sign at their railroad station.

There is a chemical known as sodium citrate…which is used to make cheese sauce creamy and velvety…you know, kinda like the cheese you get on your chips and under the jalapeños and cheese in Mexican eateries and most bars. What you might not know is the chemical formula for sodium citrate…it is clearly destined for this usage.

And finally…American comedian and country musician Gary Mule Deer and frequent Late Show with David Letterman guest was giving an after dinner talk at the Myrtle Beach SC Golf Club back in 2012. The link to the full video is
here…but if you just want the transcript here it is.

Imagine this…you’re playing for the club championship and it’s all square after the 17th hole but you have the honors on the 18th tee. You tee it up on the par 4 hole and hit a magnificent drive 320 yards dead center down the fairway. Your opponent hits his tee shot and it’s a horrible slice going about 200 yards down and way off in the woods to the right.

Being a fair sort of guy you help him hunt for his ball in the woods for about 10 minutes before suggesting that perhaps the ball should be declared lost…which means he would go back and hit another tee shot but with the penalty stroke would be laying 3 after the 2nd tee shot and thus very likely to lose the hold, the match, and the championship.

He says he’ll look a couple more minutes and then head back but you should go ahead and play your next shot. So…you go out into the fairway and hit a nice wedge to about 10 feet from the pin. Just as you pick up your bag…you hear the cry “Found it” from the woods and a ball comes flying out rolling to a stop about 6 inches from the hole.

So now you have the Golfer’s Dilemma…do you let him tap in for birdie and likely lose the hole, match, and championship unless you can make your 10 footer for birdie. Or…do you take the cheating bastard’s ball out of your pocket and show it to him.

Cyas.