A Page from a Journal, Peru 2008
Parasite Attack! Flesh-eating Worms in the United States!
A Meta-Bug News Roundup
Screwworms in Florida
The New World screwworm, Cochliomyia homnivorax, isn’t probably something you think about. Fortunately, you don’t have to. The screwworm, a larval form of a fly, has been eradicated in the United States since 1982.
Unlike maggots, which eat only dead flesh, the screwworm eats live tissue. When I was in Haiti recently, I saw what they are capable of. Any wound, any abrasion, any cut is an invitation for the flies to show up. Then the larvae come out, and work their way not just into the necrotic parts, but the actual live tissue.
Screwworms obviously present a serious danger to livestock. I can even find you a gross story where they went into a woman’s ear. But since the ’50s, researchers began experimenting with the release of sterile male flies, first on the relatively controlled setting of an island, and then on the mainland. By 1982, there were no more screwworms in the US.
Naturally, flies don’t recognize international borders, so in partnership with Mexico and the nations of Central America, the screwworm has been restricted to south of the isthmus of Panama, a bottleneck that is relatively easy to defend. The breeding of sterile males is ongoing in Panama.
Recently, 40 endangered Key Deer had to be euthanized in Florida when it was discovered that they were infested with screwworms. Sterile males were introduced, the Florida Department of Agriculture set up inspection stations in Key Largo for animals leaving the keys, and the outbreak was contained.
Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, has died.
“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.”
Here’s a passage from Zen that I always found interesting.
Things are getting worse.
Twittler has proposed huge tax cuts, and naturally they benefit him and those in high income brackets the most. They propose eliminating the inheritance tax, which is probably the best tax we have: WE’RE TAXING DEAD RICH PEOPLE! They’re decomposing, they can’t complain, and if their whiny little offspring think it’s just horrible that they have to be just a tiny bit like the rest of us (which they won’t, they’ll still be stinking rich), well, they can commiserate in their gated communities and in their country clubs, just like they always have. The Great Unwashed will be able to perhaps feed and educate their children a little better. It’s understandable how those at the top don’t really want a level playing field, but keeping the “Paris Hilton” tax–or maybe we should call it the Trump Kids Tax–is a good thing. Just ask Teddy Roosevelt. Whatever you name it, don’t let anyone get away with calling it a “death tax.” It’s not. It’s a tax on plutocracy and oligarchy.
I can’t write anymore today. A buffoon is fucking up or determined to fuck up so many things at once–relations with Canada and Mexico, military policy, health care, foreign trade– that it’s overwhelming. As I’ve written before, there’s a good chance that the American Experiment has failed, and the wise will at least be keeping an eye open on an exit strategy. While I’m here, I will work to make this a better and safer place, but I do not believe that this is the best place for my children to plan their future in.
My Street Band Made the New York Times, Marching for Science
Woohoo.
Here we are, the Jamaica Plain Honk Band (subsumed for the day by the Boston Area Brigade of Activist Musicians, otherwise known as BABAM). That figure on the right , sort of behind and to the side of the tuba player? The guy whose head is out of the picture, but you can see the blue raincoat? Yeah, that’s me. Promise. And that’s E, our young brass player, leading the charge. 
Shavuah Tov. Impeach Drumpf.
Marched for science today. We all got together and spent over four hours outside on a ridiculously cold and drizzly late April day agreeing that we like science, that we are sorry that the current administration doesn’t, and that we wish that would change. The only hope that anyone saw was that Tangerine Jesus might get a chronic disease for which there is no cure, in which case he might fund research for it. It wouldn’t cover much, but it’s a start.
I was there with a street band, and I have to admit that if you’re gonna protest, it’s more fun playing music than it is listening to speeches. Google “march for science signs” if you’re in need of a laugh.
(Social) Media Shabbat
I’m concentrating on what I’m trying not to think about for the next 25 hours.
- Don’t think about Neil Gorsuch, and how a 5-4 vote sent a man in Arkansas to lethal injection, part of the state’s planned Execution Fest.
- Don’t think about how Berkeley is playing into the hands of right-wing whack jobs by saying that Ann Coulter couldn’t speak there safely. Kudos to the Young
Assholes Sycophants Smarmy ArmyRepublicans for picking provocateurs instead of someone who would actually put together a cohesive argument for conservative policies. We now know that you don’t need to be middle-aged and embittered in to subscribe to the Fuck You School of Political Thought. - Don’t think about Marine Le Pen, and how the terrorist attack on the Champs Elysee might help her get elected.
- Don’t think about the Great Barrier Reef.
Alas, I’m marching for science tomorrow with BABAM (Boston Area Brigade of Activist Musicians), so I’ll have to think about the Handbasket Express at least a little bit. I’ll be there with bells on, literally (Ich spiele glocken).
Stupid GropenFuehrer Supporter Quote of the Day
From Facebook:
What a disgrace. Wrong call boys. O’Reilly is one of your best news outlet. You let two women’s that have no bussiness or experience to dictate you boys how to run your company. I hope O’Reilly, Greta and maybe Hannity create their own bussiness and pull your Network down. Shame on you boys. Your lost
Another Old News Clipping: How We Are Just Not Getting Afghanistan
While we hate to serve as mere aggregators, one of our editors came across this article from 2012, courtesy of The Daily Beast.
I Reenlisted to Return to Afghanistan, Only to Find Myself in Kuwait.
I wanted to do the right thing, to go back to the winding-down war to bring the rest of the guys back home.
by Jonathan Raab
The soldier who wrote the article–five years ago–reenlisted so he could help with the “winding-down” of the war. He was sent to Kuwait instead, and we don’t need to point out that the war shows no sign of winding down.
In the Aftermath of 9/11
While going through all the detritus that I’ve dragged from house to house (I didn’t have time to sort, but that’s a divorce story), I found a few pages from this Boston Globe from December 28, 2001.
Rudy Giuliani makes an ass of himself (again).
The Mayor Who Spent His Life Preparing His Rictus Grin uses his farewell address to slam Boston, reminding us that although he may have been able to fake leadership for a few short months, he’s still a delusional deviant at heart. 
The ‘Shoe Bomber’ had recently put himself in the news.
Yup, Richard Reid, the man who failed to blow up a plane yet has still managed to inconvenience billions of travelers–and continues to do so–first appeared around this time. Has 16 years of removing shoes at airport security flown by so fast?
There was this incisive cartoon regarding the Taliban and St. Reagan.
The truth actually a bit more complicated. There is a photo of Reagan with mujahideen in the White House, and it often accompanied by the claim that those men are Taliban. Snopes says this is false, that the Taliban did not exist at the time. While they weren’t Taliban at the time, Afghans who would later fight the US were indeed armed by Reagan. Reagan had no problems giving arms to groups with sketchy histories and could hardly be considered reliable allies. For more on how we often embrace reprobates, you can read
this editorial from the the late, great Molly Ivins with the haunting title How We Could Still Lose in Afghanistan.
And a page full of ads for knickers. . .from Filene’s! (now located in the Mall of Heaven, right next to Marshall Field’s). 
Food Gets Thrown Out
Here are some yucky things I had to toss in the trash.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia speaks at a Reuters Newsmaker event in New York September 17, 2012. Scalia on Monday escalated a war of words with a prominent appeals court judge, saying the judge lied in a recent criticism of Scalia’s judicial philosophy. Scalia, 76, the longest-serving justice and a leading conservative on the court, said Judge Richard Posner, of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, lied in a review in August of a book co-authored by Scalia. Picture taken September 17, 2012. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid (UNITED STATES – Tags: POLITICS CRIME LAW)
B & W, early 70s
When I was in junior high, once a year we had a week where we were permitted to bring our cameras to school and take black-and-white pictures for the yearbook. Two of these pictures are from that. I no longer remember the people in them. There is a streetscape from near my house, and the grayness of the season, the dirty snow, the dried salt on the road, the bare trees in relief against the sunless sky return to me that feeling of endless winter that occurs in the North. And there is my younger sister, just a girl in elementary school at the time. I’ll throw out the pictures from school. I’ll keep that of my sister and the street near my house.
The Meta-Bug 