Hal - Deliberately Basic

I’m not making this up. A 70-ft palm that commits suicide when it blooms has been discovered. The plant, a new species, sprouts a 20-ft flower spire and dies after insects drain its nutrients. The palm was hidden in a tiny remote swamp in Madagascar. This tree is considered to be one of the botanical wonders of the world. These are exciting times.

We live in an age with a false sense of security about mental health. Every time someone goes nuts and kills themselves, or commits genocide, the same question is asked; why did he do it? Well, dog gone it, he went out of his freakin’ gourd, ya know, and by-golly, just went and screwed the pooch this time. He was always so quiet and well liked.

The newsless media always has a list of questions, all with that same “why” theme. The inference is, we could always avoid tragic situations if we only knew why. Here then is an outline of pertinent questions that should have been asked before this disaster occurred, along with a few observations.

1) Why didn’t someone notice the behavior of the tree prior to its demise? Maybe this tragedy could have been avoided if only someone had given it the attention it deserved. Was it ostracized by the other trees because it was different?

2) No mention of a suicide note or letter was reported. I believe an investigation is in order, perhaps an autopsy to find the real cause of death. A pathologist – tree of course – report is in order. I would like to know if there were any signs of BFT (blunt force trauma). I watch CSI, Law & Order, and other highly informative television. Local news has the same information, but far too boring and repetitive.

3) Where was CNN when the palm was committing the act? To their credit they picked up the story. There was not nearly enough continued coverage. We should have seen this every fifteen minutes, for four days minimum.

4) Was the tree grieving? Did it have a poor self-image? Never once did I see a news station call in a consulting psychologist, not even Doctor Phil. In fact it was not even on local television news. Maybe if it had fallen through a bathroom window, and pinned a 55 year old woman to the toilet, we could have commiserated with her, and the tree.

5) Has anyone checked to see if the tree was using drugs? Again, where were the experts, the counselors, the trendy psych chumps promoting their latest book? Note to self: Good title for book, “All I Need to Know I Learned From a Madagascar Swamp Palm.”

6) On what grounds could neighboring trees file a lawsuit? Madagascar would be the apparent place, but would the tree get a fair trial in this neck of the woods? Attorneys will be coming out of the woodwork for this one.

7) Will we see a revival in Druidism Druidry? I can see the headlines “Radical Druids Storm Madagascar Angered By Tree Murder.” Don’t be surprised if swamp maples in Madagascar start dying mysteriously.

8) The tree huggers will be out en mass, hocking Amazon Kindles, and extolling the virtues of a paperless office. The ramifications are endless. I don’t suppose there is much chance of burial in a wooden coffin anymore.

From the Onion Radio News, a topical news story:
President Bush Calls On Business Leaders To Create 500,000 Crappy Jobs

Maybe this, with the $200.00 the working poor may get will pull the economy out of the current slump.

While reading a recent issue of Men’s Health in the comfort room, I discovered this.

It seems that Finnish scientists fertilized cabbage with urine - God knows why - and discovered that human piss, rich in nitrogen, made cabbages that were larger. Think about that the next time you have a Reuben on rye.

Curious as I am, a quick search validated this story. For those interested in pissing on cabbages, Science Daily has fine article.

This may not help to simplify your life, but it is interesting to think about the progress we have made in gardening. Want it bigger. Piss on it.

I first came, or rather was brought to Ohio when I was 10 years old. At the time I swore an oath that as soon as I was old enough I would return home, to Kentucky. How I despised Ohio, and the grating sound of that twangy accent. By the time I was 16, I had discovered new interests, things called girls, and the idea of returning “home” then became not so important.

Pubescent hormone raging aside, I have never lost my dislike for the native Buckeye accent. Ohio is a strange state to begin with, Cleveland in the north to Cincinnati in the south. Clevelander’s accent is so similar to Bronx, I have a problem hearing any difference. In the south, Cincinnatians range from heavy German to Northern Kentucky – Cincinnati is the melting pot of Ohio, and a “who cares” sort of place.

The folks of Columbus, the capitol, have a typical mid-west accent – Spin around blindfolded and you could be in Iowa as far as speech goes. But then we have the rest of the state, a huge chunk of property, with this God-awful accent.

Primarily centered around Dayton (The Miami Valley Area), the general population cannot properly pronounce the vowels ‘e’ and ‘i’. Lima is pronounced Lie ma. Anything with a single ‘e’ is pronounced ‘ee” as in tea. Near Dayton there is a road, Rebert Pike. Any common knowledge of English would dictate that it be pronounced Reb ert, but Buckeyes insist on calling it Reebert Pike.

Buckeyes do not go fishing. They go feeshing. They don’t wish, the weesh. And there are no creeks, there are criks (as in fix).

“I heard there was good feeshin’ in that crik up on Reebert Pike.”
“Shore is a purty day. I weesh we cud go, but I have to go up to Lie muh with the wife.”

You would think that as the world becomes smaller, accents start to homogenize, Americans would speak a more standard form of English. That is not happening. In fact, our dialects remain pretty much the same as they have for the last two hundred years or more.

Later this year the wife and I (in Ohio a wife is always a thing) are planning a trip down to Rio Grande (Rye-O Grand), Ohio. We are looking forward to visiting the Bob Evens sausage farm down there.

Though there are many mangled misnomers in Ohio, one that I love to hear is Russia. Yes Virginia, there is a Russia, Ohio. As of the 2000 census, there were 551 people living there. Ask, and they will tell you, they live in Roo-she. I’d be interested to know if they have ever heard of Russia, that huge country on the other side of the globe.