FN’s Animal Planet: The Muscovy Duck

I I previously referred to nutria as the kudzu of the animal world, but they have competition in the form of the Muscovy duck. 

I first encountered this grand creature in south Florida.  That’s the thing about living in Florida.  All sorts of things migrate here who have no business living here.  No, I am not talking about human immigrants.  I’m referring to things like poisonous toads, which we will address in a future issue of Fakename’s Animal Planet. 

So imagine my surprise when I moved to North Florida and found a population of them living on “Lake Ella”.  Lake Ella is a bit of a joke itself.  It started out its life as a stormwater pond.  Then they put a fountain in the middle of it, and a path all the way around it, so now it is a “Lake”.  I’m thinking, if I dye my hair and get some Botox treatments, can I call myself Angelina Jolie? 

So it turns out these ducks are a big threat, because they end up displacing the native water birds.  And no surprise there.  They are huge.  The males weigh around 15 pounds, which is larger than some dogs I know.  So they eat everything in sight.  For a duck, they are also relatively aggressive.  Just what we need.  We already have poisonous toads, now we get aggressive ducks?

Having once been attacked by a turkey (I’m not kidding), and a rooster(not kidding about that either), I avoid all large birds unless they are sitting in trees.  If they are walking around on the ground, I am taking a detour through Cleveland.  Unless they are swans.  Swans seem to be sweet.

It so happens that I drive by Lake Ella virtually every morning, safely encased in steel and glass, but where you and your fellow drivers are bound to have an encounter with a Muscovy, resulting in much screeching of brakes and shaking of fists, and  the use of language your mother would advise against.  They are either waddling across the street, or flying across the street, in close proximity to your windshield. 

Since Lake Ella is located in a city park, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department routinely gathers them up and transports them elsewhere.  At least that’s the story they’re sticking to.  It could be that they are ending up on someone’s dinner table, but if so, P&R is right to keep that a secret. 

Tallahassee is a funny place.  We have our share of political differences, but we don’t like for you to kill animals.  Not too long ago, the Fish and Wildlife Commission killed a black bear who was peacefully sitting in a tree downtown, after having raided the trash of a Whataburger.  Everybody was mad. 

In researching the Muscovy, I discovered another secret to their success, besides the fact that they are huge and outeat all their neighbors.  It’s that they can mate on land, whereas all other ducks mate only in the water. Who knew?

So you can do your part to save the planet by interrupting this activity wherever you see it.  Assuming you can do so without losing any body parts. Warning:  The following image may be disturbing.  Duck pornography. 

Health Care “Debate”: Part 2

Last week we had one of those Town Hall meetings with our Democratic Congressman, Allen Boyd.  Boyd is one of the Blue Dogs, which makes him a DINO (Democratic In Name Only.) It was held across the street from where I work, and the local newspaper estimated that 1,000 people showed up.  I personally think it was more.  There were tons of people carrying homemade signs that said “Hands Off My Health Care”.

Reportedly, it was more civilized than the stuff we’ve seen on TV, but you would be hard-pressed to tell by the following picture, taken outside City Hall where the “Town” Meeting was held: 

The guy who is on the victim end of the finger-pointing  expressed an opinion in yesterday’s newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat.  (“Democrat” did not used to be a four-letter word.)  See it here. 

I am constantly admonished to present fact rather than opinions.  But the “fact” is, I can do no better.  Almost every “fact” has an interpretation attached to it.  In our weekly conversation today, Fakesister and I had a discussion about what constitutes “fact”.  I said, you can only call something a fact if it has already happened.  Thus, we had a Civil War.  Fakesister said, I can use facts to predict the future too.  The sun will rise in the East tomorrow. 

Good point.  Except that could change.

I am also exhorted to remember that the whole health care “debate” is not really about “facts”, it’s about “values”.  (Sorry, Anarchist, this means you.)  But what is a fact?  “Facts” cannot be separated from your perceeption of them.

Last night I had a long conversation with a friend who is a doctor.  I’ve known him since his first year of medical school, when he was an  idealist and hated the sight of blood .  My how far we have come.  Both of us are very different people now.  In his heart, he is still an idealist, but reality has intruded. 

I close with a very amusing (to me) Letter To The Editor.  A woman who tried to attend the Health Care Town Hall Meeting, in order to protest the Government Takeover of the World, found that there were no seats available. She decided to leave.   On her way out, she fell down the stairs in City Hall and broke her foot.  She then spent 7 hours in the ER.    Is this ironic or what?

The Health Care “Debate”

As I commented today on Nick’s blog, I haven’t seen any debate.  To be exact, I said I haven’t seen any goddamn debate.  All I’ve seen is a bunch of hysterical people, like the woman weeping her ugly eyes out saying “I want my America back!”  As Helen, of the immensely popular Margaret and Helen blog said, the America she wants back must be the one where a black man does not grow up to be President. All I’ve seen is debate being shouted down.   I’ve seen people openly carrying guns to an event where the President is scheduled to speak.  When did we start allowing that?  What I hear is, it’s legal.  I also saw a comment that said those people probably had snipers trained on their ignorant persons from the nanosecond they showed up.  I have no doubt that’s true.  Remind me to tell you sometime about when I lived in New Orleans and personally had the occasion to witness said snipers in place.  So let’s acknowledge that it’s legal.  But at the very, very least, it’s rude. 

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, let’s talk about the villains in the story.  You get to take your pick, but the rules are that you have to prioritize.  Your choices are:  doctors, insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, and the government.  Hint:  you don’t get to pick the government.  The government is what we rely on to protect us.  And you don’t get to pick who you want the government to protect you from.  You don’t get to say that Osama Bin Laden is fair game, but Bernie Madoff and his ilk isn’t. 

Of our three remaining choices, I’d say that doctors have the least blame.  Which is not to say”no blame”.  The second least blamable is the pharmaceutical industry.  Granted, they are raking in millions, but this isn’t about castigating capitalism.  Profit is not a four-letter word.  The pharmaceutical industry has come up with life-saving drugs, and research is expensive (after all, they have to pay doctors to do it).  That leaves us with the insurance companies, which bingo, you guessed, is my prime suspect.  Doctors agree with me.  But all three of these villains are trapped in a system which none of them can bail out of on their own. 

So here is Fakename’s prescription for “fixing” healthcare.  Make all insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies non-profit.  (Like that would ever happen lol. Especially since it might play havoc with your investments.) Pay for doctors to go to medical school–anyone who wants to go into that field should not be discouraged.  Too many idealistic people are changed for the worse by the reality that they will be 50 years old before they get out from under their student loans.  In fact, if you did just that one thing, pay for medical school education, it would make a huge difference.  Then doctors might retain some of their idealism, instead of bowing to the need to make as much money as possible.  In the U.S., doctors are rich (well, after age 50).  In other countries, not so much.  In other words, they don’t do it for the money. 

It sort of comes down to what you value.  Doctors are not miracle workers, they are craftsmen (and women).  They hold no more value to me to me than Jeff the Mechanic.  In fact, increasingly I find that I have to do most of the work for my own health care, and thankfully the Internet is my Second Opinion.  Now that I think about it, Jeff the Mechanic is worth more, since the Internet will never tell me what I need to know to replace a head gasket. 

My point, in case you were wondering, is that I am terminally angry with these people who are sabotaging reform, in the name of protecting their “individual freedom”.  They don’t even have a clue what they’re talking about.  I can deal with people disagreeing with me in a thoughtful way.  But I am done dealing with stupid, and the apologists for stupid.

How Much Do You Weigh?

Now that we’ve addressed the all-important question of what sex you are, we turn our attention to your weight.  The occasion for this is a column in the New York Times by Clark Hoyt, the public editor.  The public editor is basically an ombudsman for readers.  Yesterday’s column is entitled The Insult Was Extra Large. 

First, however, let us begin with a comment made to me not long ago by friend and fellow blogger Nick Hardy.  And by the way, Nick, I’ve mentioned you so often lately that I expect a raise and a reserved parking space.  What he said was, “White women are obsessed with weight”.  I was like, “We are, I mean I am, I mean we are (splutter, splutter) not!!!  Maybe.”

And now a personal story.  In January of 2005, I weighed 138 pounds.  I know this because that month, my sister and I and a friend undertook a year-long campaign to lose weight in such a way as not to kill ourselves, but to sort of methodically plod (waddle?) toward the goal.  Therefore, by January of 2006 I had lost…five pounds!  Those who have met me today would have a hard time picturing me at 138, or even my hard-earned, svelte 133.  But I can prove it by this photo, taken in August 2004.  Kindly refrain from suggesting that the beverage Fakename is holding in some way contributed to her size.

So then, in 2006, I lost 20 more pounds due to back-to-back illnesses (from which I am fully recovered, thanks).  And I never gained the weight back.  Which is just pefectly fine with me!  I couldn’t be happier!  Apparently my eating habits changed while I was ill, so now I’m able to maintain at 113 without it being a big struggle.  There are no recent photos of me to prove the difference, but there are witnesses who can attest to the truth of my statement. 

And now we return to the public editor.  Recently, a writer for the Times covered the opening of a J.C. Penney store in Midtown Manhattan.  Oh, the horror!  Here’s a quote: 

“Why would this dowdy Middle American entity waddle into Midtown in its big old shorts and flip-flops” without even a makeover of its logo, asked the columnist, Cintra Wilson, a virtual sneer seeming to drip from her keyboard. She said Penney’s “has always trafficked in knockoffs that aren’t quite up to Canal Street’s illegal standards”; “a good 96 percent” of the clothing is polyester; the racks are full of sizes 10, 12 and 16, but not Wilson’s 2; the petites department has plenty of clothing “for women nearly as wide as they are tall”; and the store “has the most obese mannequins I have ever seen. They probably need special insulin-based epoxy injections just to make their limbs stay on.”  Which led some readers to ask the question, Is the New York Times arrogant?  Would this not be a question akin to whether or not the proverbial bear defecates in the proverbial woods?  Of course it is.  That’s why we like it.  But this article was probably taking a good thing too far. 

According to J.C. Penney’s vice president for communications, the average woman wears a size 12 and weighs 150.  And I can tell you that if they’re white, not a damn one of them is happy about it. 

So last week, I had a meeting with a man who kindly inquired after my health, then threw in, gratis, that he thought I needed to gain some weight.  What!!???!!!  I wonder if the two words “sexual” and “harassment”, when used side by side in a sentence, ring any bells for him?  The reason comments such as this make me uncomfortable is that it means you are paying entirely too much attention to my body to suit me, based on the type of relationship we have.  If I want you to comment on my body, you’ll know it.  Or maybe not.  That’s the thing about sexual harassment by men.  Those who do it have often deluded themselves into believing they were given a ”signal” that it was welcomed.  Sexual harassment by women is a whole ‘nother animal.   

You know, in those “sensitivity” training sessions they tell men they are treading on dangerous ground even to comment on a woman’s clothing.  That’s too purist and PC for me.  In the above cited incident, I responded with the time-honored Southern phrase, “Shut your mouth!”  Translated:  “Perish the thought!”  I said I was perfectly happy.  Not knowing he had been gifted with a way out, he persisted.  “Still”, he said, “You could use a few more pounds.”  Well thank God I know that now.  In order to be more attractive to you, let me rush out and have two Big Macs and a super-size chocolate shake for lunch. 

As long as we are talking about thinness, let me say that I’ve always been attracted to thin men.  I want to be able to feel your hip bones.  Which is as far as Fakename will drive along the road to pornography. 

However highly annoyed I was by the “you need to gain weight” comments, I could not escape the nagging questions.  Am I too thin?  Do I look sickly?  Frail?  Would you add a giant serving of French Fries to that Big Mac order?  But we are, I mean, I am, I mean we are, Not.  Obsessed.  Maybe.

What Sex Are You?

You’re a man, you say?  Well step right up and prove it.  No, no, keep your pants on, because visual evidence is not going to do it.  I need to see a report from your geneticist, your endocrinologist, and your psychologist.  Of course, as far as I know, men have never had to prove they’re men (except in the usual ways, one of which is being combative).  No, in real life, it’s women who have to prove they are women. 

Let’s say that you are (allegedly) a man, and you are in a footrace with another “man”, whom you secretly suspect is a woman.  You win.  Do you then say, I demand to know if my opponent was really a man?  Of course not.  You say, “I won!  Case closed!”  But what if “she” wins?  Do you then say, I demand to know if she is really a woman, because if she is, that gave her an unfair advantage?  Of course not–because that scenario would never happen.  Male runners will always outrun female runners, unless the male trips over his shoelace.  And that will never happen either, because that’s why God invented Velcro. 

In real life, it’s women who complain when they are beaten by men who are “pretending” to be women.  Which really would be an unfair advantage (see above, re:  “Male runners will always outrun…”).  But what if she isn’t pretending? 

The occasion for this topic is a blip of a snippet of a story I heard on NPR yesterday, concerning an 18 year-old South African woman named Caster Semenya, who on Thursday of this week won a gold medal in the 800 meters in the world championships in Berlin.  Some of her competitors complain that she is really a man, but it’s unclear whether it was them or someone involved in the specimen collection process for the anti-doping tests who officially raised the question of her gender.  (They watch you pee.  In person.  Naked–at least the peeing parts.)  So the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) is now investigating her gender.  Which it turns out is not as simple as it used to be.  It used to be that if you were found to have a Y chromosome, you were male, end of sentence.  As I said, it turns out not to be that simple. 

I will now refer you to two pieces I read today in the New York Times.  The first is an essay written by one Alice Dreger, “Professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University”, entitled ”Where’s the Rulebook for Sex Verification?”  See it here.  In case you aren’t interested in reading the whole thing, I’ll quote an important paragraph:

“A little biology: On the Y chromosome, a gene called SRY usually makes a fetus grow as a male. It turns out, though, that SRY can show up on an X, turning an XX fetus essentially male. And if the SRY gene does not work on the Y, the fetus develops essentially female.

Even an XY fetus with a functioning SRY can essentially develop female. In the case of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, the ability of cells to “hear” the masculinizing hormones known as androgens is lacking. That means the genitals and the rest of the external body look female-typical, except that these women lack body hair (which depends on androgen-sensitivity).”

Did you get that?  Yeah, me too. 

Now we turn to the second article, which is more factual, but first, let’s take a look at Ms. Semenya.  (So far I haven’t seen any jokes made about this, so let me be the first to say that it’s unfortunate that her last name begins with the word “semen”.)

The second article is ”Gold Is Awarded Amid Dispute Over Runner’s Sex”.  See it  here.  There are a couple of quotes from this article that struck me.  Here is one: 

“Chuene and some South African athletes suggested that there might be an anti-African bias at work. “The question I ask is if this were a European person, would these questions be raised?” said Ruben Ramolefi, a track athlete for South Africa. “It seems there’s hypocrisy behind it.””

Oh no.  Not THAT again.  Fellow blogger and now close friend Nick Hardy and I have extensively discussed the issue of looking for racism.  You are guaranteed to always find it.  The same holds for sexism.  If you start with the premise that it’s there somewhere, everything you see and hear will confirm for you that it explains everything.  That’s why I posted the picture first.  This woman (?) could have purple skin with pink polka dots and she would still look like a man.

But she thinks of herself as a woman, her family thinks of her as a woman, so who is to say?  What fascinates me about this that the professionals–the geneticists, the endocrinologists, the psychologists, and in her case, the gynecologists–may say whatever they will, but this is not a medical or scientific problem.  It’s a philosophical problem. 

I close with another quote from the second article: 

“We can get quite philosophical here — what does it mean to be male or female?” said Dr. Richard Auchus, a specialist in disorders of sexual differentiation at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

“For 99 percent of the population it’s easy to determine,” he added. “But one percent of the population have conditions that make it not so straightforward.”

Be glad that you are in the 99%.  Or are you?  Prove it.  Oh wait.  Isn’t this where we started?

Statistics, Probabilities, and Math in General

Back in ancient times (aka “days of yore”), the university Fakename attended required you to take at least one math class in order to graduate with a B.A.  What I want to know is, what were they thinking? 

Naturally, I did the responsible thing and put it off until my senior year.  That’s the year when your entire course schedule consists of all the things you hate but have to have to graduate, guaranteeing that your final year of college will be filled with misery.  If you thought you wanted school to be over before…

Having scoped out the possibilities, I selected…Statistics.  In the psychology department, not in the business department, which was reputed to be harder.  In the psychology department, you were required to take Statistics in order to graduate with a major in psychology.  Thus, I started the class with about 30 other seniors, all of whom (except for me) were psychology majors and (like me) loathed the very idea. 

Now something really funny happened here.  I forgot to mention that in ancient ancient times (aka “pre-days of yore”), I had been quite good at algebra  in high school.  It’s just that I hated it.  I had to think about it very, very hard, before I grasped the tiniest shred of a concept.  I did not want to think hard in high school, preoccupied as I was by how my hair looked, and whether or not I could win the competition to make the longest chain made of chewing gum wrappers. 

So returning to college Statistics class, the field of 30 or so quickly narrowed to 13 people, and at the end of it all, I made the only A.  How is this possible?  Perhaps you are thinking, “Fakename is being modest, and is a lot smarter than she cares to admit.”  That may be a logical conclusion, but logic, like statistics, is primarily used to prove the  truth of anything, and simultaneously, the opposite of it.  The real fact of the matter is that it’s possible to be a standout in any subject, as long as the others involved have the IQ of a turnip. 

So I find it highly amusing that I have recently become enamored of people who are capable of casually discussing things like Bayes’ Theorem.  In real life, I find that logic and statistics don’t play a significant role.  Just take a look at our political discourse.  Simple math is sometimes useful, such as when you try to calculate that if gas is $2.63 per gallon, how far can you get before you meet the train traveling 85 miles per hour from the opposite direction? 

Remarkably, Fakename managed to graduate from college Magna Cum Laude, which was a huge source of pride for approximately 24 hours.  That’s how long it was immeasurably helpful. 

Let’s go back to that train thing.  If two trains leave from opposite coasts at the same time, traveling at slightly different speeds, where will they meet?  The answer is:  Omaha.  Mathwise, you can never go wrong picking Omaha.

Forever Young Redux

I don’t know if I’ve made this clear or not, but I hate sports and I hate rap music.  But I love clever TV commercials.  Matter of fact, I love clever commercials period…radio, print, whatever.  But TV is the very best.  I should have a different career.  I love advertising. 

I’ve only ever found one other person who shared this sort of weird passion I have for fun TV commercials. It was when I lived in New Orleans, which probably goes a long way toward explaining it all.  New Orleans as a city is probably pretty depressed right now, but it used to be more lively and sarcastic than it is now. 

So while in New Orleans, I saw the very best car commerials ever, under the heading “Need a Car?”  One of the ads showed a guy putting his sports car through one of those automated car washes, but the equipment goes haywire and starts breaking the windows.  Need a car?  Another showed an elderly couple unable to find their car in a vast parking lot.  Let’s just buy a new one.  I can totally relate to that last example.  I refer to it as “autoamnesia”–the inability to remember where you parked your car. 

So Will.I.Am did this great ad for Pepsi.  I’m guessing that true rap fans think he sold out.  I think he did a good deed.  “May your hands always be busy, may your feet always be swift.  May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift.  May your heart always be joyful, may your song always be sung, and may you stay….forever young.”

Introducing…

Rocky Humbert, whose WordPress blog is entitled One Honest Man.  Fakename is unable to verify  the validity of this claim;  therefore, don’t even try to sue me. 

I first encountered Rocky when he commented on a blog by Davis W.  I can’t even remember how I encountered Davis, probably one of those automatically generated “similar blog” things WordPress does.  But both these guys are seriously funny. 

Davis has regular features, such as Fake News, which I consider to be copyright infringement.  I believe I should hold title to all things fake.  But perhaps his most significant posts are under the heading of “You Want My Advice?”  Today he gives advice to the lonely atheist.  His advice in this particular case reaches far, far beyond its targeted audience. 

Meanwhile, Rocky is a gambler speculator, with a keen mind for all things mathematical.  Fakename is having trouble trying to remember which side of her brain, left or right, is less developed.

Say Hi to the Deathers

I first heard this term yesterday morning while reading The Opinionator blog in the New York Times.  Then Rachel Maddow used it on her show last night.  (By the way, Rachel will be appearing on Meet The Press on Sunday, along with Dick Armey, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and Tom Dascchle.  Coburn–did I mention that he’s from Oklahoma?–holds a special place in my heart for targeting Tallahassee as the site of one of his top ten money-wasting projects receiving stimulus dollars, namely the Lake Jackson Ecopassage, which local environmentalists, including Fakename, have been supporting for ten years.  )  But I digress. 

 The Deathers are the people who believe “Obamacare” will “pull the plug on Grandma”.  My reaction to that whole thing initially was to say, this is so absurd that I can’t even be bothered to think about it.  In that, I seem to be sharing the room with the Obama administration, which is only recently putting on the boxing gloves.  Me too.  These people are now officially scaring me.  I think they are inciting to violence. 

If you do nothing else, click on the above link to The Opinionator and watch the embedded video.  This woman tipped me over the edge.  She’s not a screamer, she sounds rather calm and reasonable, and she seems to be using English words.  She speaks with great authority as if every word she says is an undisputed fact.  But she is a lunatic. 

Yes, these are the people who scare me.  Because they Believe, with a capital B.  I’m not concerned about the people who have been whipped up by, most notoriously FreedomWorks (Dick Armey’s posse).  It’s the “ordinary” Americans who haven’t even bothered to actually read FreedomWorks, who believe what they’ve heard in an email from a friend.  I’m so reminded of the pre-election emails even I received telling me that Obama was a secret Muslim, refused to salute the flag, was plotting to turn the U.S. over to terrorists a la the Manchurian candidate, was going to take away your guns, isn’t really a citizen, and so on and so on.  At that time, I feared for his life.  Then when he won, I relaxed.  Most people, including his opponents, seemed to get over it and move on with their lives.  But it looks like there is a whole contingent of people who never did get over it.  Each time Obama makes a move, however imperfect, to effect the change he talked about, it dredges up all those past absurd accusations.  These people are like, “See, we warned you!”

Obama has apparently pulled off a nifty trick–he’s a fascist and a socialist at the same time!  That’s how you know these people only appear to be speaking English–they don’t know the meaning of the words they are using.  He is planning the real-life future depicted in Soylent Green. 

As much as I hate to say this, I believe that every one of the early accusations and these newest allegations are based on one thing alone:  the color of his skin.  If they weren’t making a certain effort to at least appear marginally politically correct, they would just say “Obama wants to take your hard-earned money and give it away to lazy black people and illegal aliens.”  It’s no wonder that my (very close) friend Nick says he has had it with white people.  I hate being painted with that brush, so these people are further offending me by causing me to be lumped in with them by the color of MY skin. 

Those people who legitimately oppose the direction Obama wishes to take should step up to the plate and defuse this hysterical movement.  They are marginalizing themselves.  As for the Believers, when the final health care bill comes out–and isn’t that funny?–we don’t even know what it is yet, except for the Deathers, who claim to know what it is in advance–I hope they not only include a public option, but a Soylent Green option.

Complicated

I know.  Another music video post, which doesn’t seem to inspire any of my readers.  But I can’t help myself.  I have always loved this song, and heard it today on the radio, and it just hit the spot at the moment.  (I think it will come as a surprise to many that I listen to music ever.  Like what, there was nothing on NPR?)

When it comes to music, I like country, and blues, and classical, and stuff from the ’40’s…not so much modern pop.  But I’m open to it.  It just seems to me that today’s pop is like a rehash of Bob Dylan with better voices.  It’s all too poetic and personal.  I am so not into your angst.  Been there, done that. 

This song probably resonated with me because I’m having a terrible week at work, being a manager person and having to deal with employees to whom I want to say, ”Why can’t you be adults?  Why must you make things so…complicated. ”  It’s a long story. 

Of course our lives are complicated, and the older we get the more complicated it is.  More baggage. 

But there is a lot to be said for staying fresh, and being open to new experiences, and not just hiding in your comfort zone.  I think I do a halfway good job of that.  So I really like this song, and Avril Lavigne, and I really like this video.