Done for the summer

 Too tired to blog. Mood up and down like Mary's pants a picnic following American and Ukrainian news.

See you in the fall.

The Case of the Poison Mushrooms

 

Sketch by Debra She Who Seeks

Bill, the beat cop, knocked on my door one fine spring morning. Since he was off duty, I poured two glasses of Scotch and prepared to listen. “What do you know about mushrooms”, he said.

“Some days, I think I am one. I am usually kept in the dark and fed horse manure”.

“We have a problem. A man died from eating poison mushrooms his wife made him, but we don’t know if it was accidental or not”.

“I had a case where a woman lost two husbands to poison mushrooms, and a third one by drowning. I asked how come he drowned, and she replied he wouldn’t eat his mushrooms. Can you imagine the first people to eat mushrooms? This one tastes like beef; this one killed Gary, and this one made me see angels for a week”.

“His wife is from Moscow. They go crazy in mushroom season and every year a dozen people get lost in the forest picking mushrooms. They pick and dry mushrooms by the kilogram”.

“Maybe an accident, maybe not. Did he have life insurance?”

“He took out a large policy a couple years ago naming his wife as beneficiary”.

“Not too bright. Mine is in my oldest’ name. She used to work with street gangs. Maybe I should worry too?”

“We seized her supply of dried mushrooms. Different kinds in different bags. She said her husband picked the bag that killed him. It was likely on top of the pile. Deliberately or coincidentally, we don’t know. She is pleading ignorance that they were poisonous.”

“Not bloody likely. Muscovites know their ‘shrooms. I only know meadow mushrooms in the wild and they are the same as the ones in the shops.”

“Me, too. As a kid on my grandmother’s farm, after a spring rain, I would only pick the meadow mushrooms. White tops, flesh coloured underneath”.

"You could never get this to stand up in court since she said he picked the bag of mushrooms and you have her word she did not know they were poisonous. You either have an unfortunate accident or the perfect murder."

Sex Crimes Against Children

 This is not the blog post I intended but ran into this link  https://www.whoismakingnews.com/

The Republicans and Evangelicals are constantly accusing LGBTQ of "grooming" children. Yet every day on @Threads, I see articles about cis-males sexually assaulting children or in possession of pictures of others assaulting them. Kristen Browde, a parent, lawyer, activist and out transgender woman, collected data on 10,885 cases between February 10, 2023 and May 23, 2014, discarded 4205 cases that did not provide details of the person involved and charted the remainder. All the information below can be found on her website.

The people in the gray circle "Other" is a list of any occupation you can name

Metric Time - the greatest April Fools Joke of all time

April 1st, 1975 - Radio announcers Wally Stambuck and Denny Carr of Saskatoon's CFQC 'Wal ‘n Den Show' pull off one of the best April Fool's jokes of all time when they make an 'official' news report that Canada will be switching to "Metric Time".

The April Fool's news report coincided with Canada's nation-wide changeover from Imperial to the Metric system on April 1st, 1975. That was the first day weather reports gave temperatures in degrees Celsius rather than Fahrenheit, road signs changed from miles to kilometres, gas went from gallons to litres and weights shifted from pounds to kilos. Many did not take kindly to the change and confusion reigned....

The timing was absolutely perfect and the 'Metric Time' changeover gag announcement (called ‘Larmencaller time’ by Stambuck and Carr) was added on as a 'breaking news, this just in' addendum to the official morning news report. The pair then proceeded to carry on the gag by discussing how to ‘convert’ clocks and making regular time announcements in both ‘standard’ and ‘Larmencaller’ throughout their morning broadcast.

The prank however went far, FAR beyond Stambuck and Carr's wildest imagination and quickly spread like wildfire.

As recounted by StarPhoenix columnist Paul Jackson - "The odd couple were so convincing, folks started turning in their watches and alarm clocks at jewellers around town to have them replaced." It was reported that Saskatoon City Hall got inundated with calls regarding people refusing to pay a tax increase to 'change the clock tower to Metric' as well as people phoning into bewildered Canada Revenue offices asking how 'Metric Time' would affect hourly wages.

The gag quickly spread to Ottawa as confused and irate people all over the broadcast area began calling elected officials and Members of Parliament to complain. As further recounted by Paul Jackson - "A Member of Parliament, hearing the show and receiving angry phone calls, fearing Pierre Elliott Trudeau really had gone too far this time, raised the issue in the House of Commons.”

The 'Wal ‘n Den 'Larmencaller Time' stunt was so completely well played and perfectly timed that it made the news across Canada as well as internationally and is regarded as among the most masterful April Fools jokes of all time.

Photo taken by CFQC photographer Jason Schoonover, Text by Thom Cholowski

  

Cleaning Out My Meme Collection

 They build up and build up. Time to clean house.

Christians love to feel persecuted

Why Progressive ideas are out shouted

TRump is at the peak of the mountain and ten miles higher

That's How the Light Gets In

Somewwhere in Maine

Canonical Christians vs Evangelical Christians

Diferences of Opinion and Difference on Morality are two diferent things

I want to make this sign and put it in a few washrooms

Missing Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Prossper and Live Long

ChatGPT knows how Fascism Works

The Hangman By Maurice Ogden

This applies to Trump's kidnapping and disappearing of Americans 

The Hangman By Maurice Ogden

1. 
Into our town the Hangman came
Smelling of gold and blood and flame—
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air
And built his frame on the courthouse square.

The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.

And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime,
The Hangman judged with the yellow twist
Of knotted hemp in his busy fist.

And innocent though we were, with dread
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead; 
Till one cried: “Hangman, who is he
For whom you raise the gallows-tree?”

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
“He who serves me best,” said he,
“Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree.”

And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another’s grief
At the Hangman’s hand was our relief.

And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow’s sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his hangman’s cloak.

2.
The next day’s sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town
And, stark and black in the morning air,
The gallows-tree on the courthouse square.

And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand; 
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and businesslike.

And we cried: “Hangman, have you not done,
Yesterday, with the alien one?”
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed:
“Oh, not for him was the gallows raised . . .”

He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
“ . . . Did you think I’d gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That’s a thing I do
To stretch the rope when the rope is new.”

Then one cried “Murderer!” One cried “Shame!”
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man’s place. “Do you hold,” said he,
With him that’s meant for the gallows-tree?”

And he laid his hand on that one’s arm,
And we shrank back in quick alarm,
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his hangman’s cloak.

That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman’s scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute
The gallows-tree had taken root.

Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.

3.
The third he took—and we had all heard tell—
Was a usurer and infidel. And:
“What,” said the Hangman, “have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?”

And we cried out: “Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?”
The Hangman smiled: “It’s a clever scheme
To try the strength of the gallows-beam.”

The fourth man’s dark, accusing song
Had scratched out comfort hard and long; 
And “What concern,” he gave us back,
“Have you for the doomed—the doomed and black?”

The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again:
“Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?”
“It’s a trick,” he said, “that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow.”

And so we ceased and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score;
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.

The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side; 
And the monster cross-beam, looking down, 
Cast its shadow across the town.

4.
Then through the town the Hangman came
And called in the empty streets my name,
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall
And thought: “There is no one left at all

For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help him pull down the gallows-tree.”
And I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman’s tree and the Hangman’s rope.

He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town,
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.

And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap
And it sprang down with a ready snap—
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.

“You tricked me, Hangman!” I shouted then,
“That your scaffold was built for other men . . .
And I no henchman of yours,” I cried.
“You lied to me, Hangman, foully lied!”

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye:
“Lied to you? Tricked you?” he said, “Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true:
The scaffold was raised for none but you.”

“For who has served me more faithfully
Than you with your coward’s hope?” said he,
“And where are the others that might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?”

“Dead,” I whispered: and amiably,
“Murdered,” the Hangman corrected me; 
“First the alien, then the Jew . . .
I did no more than you let me do.”

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky,
None had stood so alone as I—
And the Hangman strapped me, and no voice there
Cried “Stay!” for me in the empty square.

 

Hermes and Commodity Marketing in the Cattle World

 

Hermes is at the very top for luxury items. Everything they sell is perfect and priced to match. Silk scarves run $320 CAD on their website today. Years back I had a secretary who knew about Hermes. I said for that I'd buy her a scarf. she said no point as no one would know so no bragging rights. 

Their top of the line ladies handbag (currently not available) sells for $12,200 CAD. At one time I believe they had an iconic bag selling for higher than that. I tried to find an image but could not. The leather is perfect. Not a line or a needle hole or a scratch allowed.

The leather was accessed from the hide piles at veal slaughter plants across Europe. Simmental calves were mainly sold for veal and those were the hides they looked for. Needless to say they were scarce and hard to come by. 

As Director of Livestock Branch in 1990, I knew none of this. So I was very surprised one day when the President of Hermes showed up in my office to talk about sourcing hides. Europe simply could not supply enough veal hides of the quality they needed, could Saskatchewan help?

The President, possibly Jean-Louis Dumas, said that Hermes would be prepared to buy perfect Simmental veal hides. They had to be corral raised, with rails completely padded to ensure no scratches or bruises. They could not be vaccinated nor given any antibiotics to eliminate needle marks. They had to be slaughtered at about 200 kg or 440 lbs. Hermes would buy hides that met their specifications, calf owners would be responsible for finding markets for teh veal carcasses. He felt this would be an exciting new market. 

He was shocked when I told him no one would be interested under those conditions. He said Barbies sell lots of dolls. They created other Barbies like Black or Nurse and sold even more dolls. He knew marketing better than most. Anyone who can get $320 for a silk scarf has my utmost respect.

So I explained how commodity markets work. Because Simmental feeder calves in fall are a commodity. They can be differentiated from other feeder cattle in many ways, but in the end feeder calves are a commodity. Price is based on supply and demand. Supply  each fall is relatively fixed. Demand will adjust to find a price for every calf. 

So every Simmental calf in the fall of 1990 was worth between $350 and $500 to feedlot buyers. So for anyone to participate, Hermes would have to pay full price for value of the calf in the fall, regardless of when it was slaughtered. Plus pay for extra effort in rearing it to Hermes spcifications. Plus pay a bonus for perfect hides. Plus dispose of the veal. 

I felt bad as he went away quite discouraged. Many changes have occured in the European cattle market in the past 35 years and I suspect perfect quality hides are even more scarce. Which is too bad, really because there is too little perfection in this world at any price. Even if all you can do is admire it...from a great distance.

This Kelly bag from 1990 is the closest I could find and in fact may be the real thing. There is a 1945 Kelly bag listed on e-Bay for $50,000 CAD.