For a brief moment, Austinites might have thought we were under attack. Or the apocalypse had arrived. Dozens of birds were found dead on Congress Avenue, the street in the heart of downtown that leads up to the capitol of Texas. So it was shut down and closed off. Panic ensued! According to an article on statesman.com, "Congress Avenue reopened this afternoon after a massive bird death
scare caused investigators to shut down the road for several hours this
morning." Investigators said 63 birds were found dead there around 3 a.m., but
preliminary tests show there has been no threat to the public. The article mentions something I never knew. "It is legal to poison rock doves (pigeons), grackles and some sparrows, said Jack Ralph, the head
of the kills and spills team at the Parks and Wildlife Department. But if you target those species for control, you'd better darn well target that species and harm nothing else." Or else... dun dun dun... oh, I don't know what else. Just being silly. I didn't know that, though. I'm going to investigate. Anyway, turns out downtown is OK. Accept that there might be a bird murderer lurking around.
Iwao Takamoto, the animator who created Scooby-Doo and
directed the cartoon classic "Charlotte's
Web," died last week. This guy had an amazing career in animation that
spanned decades and he worked on such films as Cinderella, Peter Pan, Lady and
the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, The Jetsons and The Flintstones. But he is most
remembered for Scooby-Doo. According to an article on msnbc.com,
"Takamoto said he created Scooby-Doo after talking with a Great Dane breeder
and named him after Frank Sinatra's final phrase in Strangers in the Night." As a kid, I spent hundreds of hours
watching shows created by this guy. In many ways, that's why I'm a cartoonist
today. R.I.P. Iwao.
Looks like the United
States isn't the only country that has a
problem with fat asses. According to an article
on usatoday.com, "China
is super-sizing its children as fast as its economy, prompting fears of an
American-style obesity crisis here." Ji Chengye, a leading child-health
researcher, proclaims, "China
has entered the era of obesity ... The speed of growth is shocking." But bigger
children are a source of pride and proof of prosperity for many Chinese.
"The old saying, 'A fat child is a healthy child,' is still too
prevalent," Ji says. So which will it be, China?
Fat or famine? And don't start blaming McDonald's like the idiots here in the
U.S. Salesman Liu Guojian sums it up best, "Our daughter will definitely
be taller than us. She has eaten better than my wife and I. When I grew up, in
winter all we had to eat was cabbage." Dammit,
mom! Cabbage soup again?!
What's the worst kind of pizza you've ever heard of? BBQ Chicken pizza? Pineapple pizza? Not even close to this one. I was reading about the latest woes of pizza restaurant chain Pizza Patron. According to an article on cnn.com, "[The] pizza chain has been hit with death threats and hate mail after
offering to accept Mexican pesos, becoming another flashpoint in the
nation's debate over immigrants." Now, receiving death threats because you accept pesos for purchases is a travesty, really. Who cares if they accept pesos? Does that warrant death threats? No. But this does. The article goes on to explain, "The take-home menus are in both English and Spanish, and the dishes
include the La Mexicana pizza, with spicy chorizo sausage [and] La Barbacoa
pizza, topped with spicy pulled pork." Barbacoa pizza??? That has got to be the worst idea I've ever heard of. They better serve that with a 32oz. Pepto-Bismol and a side of chocolate Ex-Lax. Daddy's gonna be hurting in the morning.
And finally, everyone knew the idea of O.J.
Simpson releasing a "hypothetical" account of the night he murdered
Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman was a bad idea. But was it really a
confession? According to an article on msnbc.com,
"The narrative is as revolting as one might expect, but it's also
surprisingly revealing. What emerges from the chapter is something new in the
nearly 13-year Simpson saga: a seeming confession in Simpson's own voice."
Simpson describes the night in vivid detail and rarely deviates from the
prosecution's account of the evening. And after describing his discovery of the
two together, Simpson writes, "something went horribly wrong, and I know
what happened, but I can't tell you exactly how." Fred Goldman, Ron's
father, isn't surprised at all to hear what Simpson has written. "This is
the guy who murdered them-of course he knows what the evidence is and how he
did it," he says in the article. Apparently, the rights to the book will
revert back to Simpson since Regan Books will never publish it. Will he try to
find another publisher? Probably. Would people buy it? Most definitely. It is
the most salacious and disturbing of concepts. And people eat that shit up. Is
it a good idea? Morally, it is the most bankrupt of ideas. It mocks our entire
justice system. And reminds us all how money can buy a creepy slime-ball
justice. And that is just as disgusting as the idea of releasing this book.
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