Monster Bunnies

We couldn’t help noticing these headlines:

MSNBC drops Imus simulcast
No More Monster Bunnies for North Korea

North Korea’s possession of German-bred monster bunnies is the more interesting story, if for no reason other than that it explains North Korea's dependence on China: "China currently holds the biggest...carrot" (Yale Online). Unfortunately, there is speculation, but no proof, that North Korean officials may have eaten them. The giant monster bunnies, that is, not the carrot. (We are not making this up: “A German rabbit breeder sold 12 rabbits to North Korea to breed giant bunnies said he won't be exporting any more to the reclusive communist country because he suspects they have been eaten.” (http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,475218,00.html)

But while we love finding news involving German monster bunnies, we also love pointing out bad writing and people who have plainly gone walnuts.

Perusing one of Ann Coulter's blogs is like visiting Francisco Scaramanga’s island in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, a trap where perceptions are distorted by mirrors and trickery, it is not always clear what is real and what is not, and a midget cackles at you.

We know from personal experience that certain drug interactions will convince you that large black birds are flying straight into the windows and that the pattern on the wallpaper is moving and occasionally forming words. Ann Coulter's bookshelf must not contain a copy of the Physician's Desk Reference because there is no other way to explain how someone with the cognitive capacity to put shoes on the correct feet could equate Don Imus insulting a women's basketball team with Winston Churchill defending England from the Germans. (No, not the German monster bunnies.) This is from a post titled Ho Ho Ho, Merry Imus, in which Ann Coulter argues against courteousness.

“Say, does anyone remember if Winston Churchill was "nice" in his public pronouncements about Hitler?”

Was Reagan "nice" to the Soviets? They certainly didn't think so. The Soviets constantly denounced Reagan as "rude," and our dear friends at the BBC upbraided Reagan for his "rude attacks" on Fidel Castro, Nicaragua and the Soviet Union…'"

“Oh dear! Reagan wasn't "nice." No wonder he never accomplished anything.

(http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/welcome.cgi)

Discourtesy saves the world! Again! We are so ready for the monster bunnies.

But even a monster bunny would fail to root out the metaphorical carrot in this garden. Insulting a women’s basketball team is somehow analogous to the British fighting the Germans in the Second World War? Impoliteness defeated the Nazis? Civility extended the Cold War?

(Pardon us for a moment; if our heads explode, perfectly good hats will be ruined, and it is hard to find good hats these days.)

We have no idea what carrot Ann Coulter is gnawing on. If we were feeling really bitchy, we would point out that she has just compared the Rutgers women’s basketball team to the Third Reich.

You could explore Ann Coulter’s ocean of murky thinking in a bathysphere without sinking to depths low enough to find anything meaningful. Don’t try it.

At that depth, there’s no light.

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Listening to the Owls

The people of Crawford, Texas, may know The Decider better than the rest of us, Ti-jean. "Sometimes, you just have to be by yourself," said Bill Johnson, owner of the Yellow Rose souvenir shop at the one-light crossroads in Crawford. "You've got to get out of the rat race, get some peace and quiet. He can just go and sit by the lake and hear the owls."

That explains a lot. The Western screech owl is a vicious, merciless killer without an ounce of pity in its heartless body. A Western screech owl carries it's prey up to its perch and rips it apart. They protect their nests, and they occasionally attack people for no apparent reason. If this sounds like another resident of Crawford, Texas, Ti-jean, it is not a coincidence.

Ti-jean, there are places in this world where strange and inexplicable things happen. To give you an example, migratory birds can fly hundreds of miles without consulting a map or asking other birds for directions. However, there is a village in India called Jatinga where, on dark foggy nights near the end of the monsoon season, migratory birds—tiger bittern, black bittern, little egret, pond heron, Indian pitta and kingfishers—fly straight into the ground and the villagers tear them apart for their meat. For reasons that no ornithologist has been able to explain, this phenomenon occurs only within a very limited area and only affects birds that should be familiar with the topography.

Something similarly strange and inexplicable is occurring in the Dali-esque landscape of the Justice Department, where gyroscopes do not work, the magnetic field is so distorted that compasses are useless, and the thick fog makes it impossible to navigate by the stars.

After the 2006 monsoon season, Harriet “The Hawk” Miers flew over the Justice Department scavenging for the weak and sickly but did not swoop, leaving the prey alive, momentarily, for the owls who hunt for small terrified creatures in complete darkness. The first eight field mice were ensnared and consumed by Owlberto Gonzales and his department of predatory birds who tend to be most active on Friday nights, when no one is looking.

Then, at the end of the monsoon season, knowing that larger owls prey on other owls, or maybe just succumbing to gravity, the smaller owls started to hit the ground.

Kyle Sampson, Owlberto’s Chief of Staff, plummeted on March 12; Michael A. Battle, Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, fell to earth on March 16; Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, indicated that she would not hoot and jumped from her perch on April 6.

Most recently, three owls in Minnesota flew into the ground rather than spend sleepless nights listening to the new owl’s screeches.

Owls have natural predators, but newts are generally not among them, so it was a bit of a surprise to hear Newt call for the Owl to meet his taxidermist: "I cannot imagine how he is going to be effective for the rest of this administration…”

Salamanders are among the defenseless creatures that the Western screech owl preys upon. How fitting that a Newt takes on the Owl.

Ti-jean, it is a dark and foggy night. Sitting here by the lake, you can hear the owls screech, and you can hear the impact when they collide with the ground.

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