Good lord, but the escaped-animal story gets worse and worse. The numbers are simply appalling — 18 Bengal tigers? There are only about 3,000 left in the wild. Lions are no big loss in that regard (they breed prodigiously in and out of captivity, and are known to get it on through chain-link fences, if need be), but the bears, they hurt my soul. All a grizzly bear wants is a few thousand acres of wild country to go be ursine in, and the thought of one living in a goddamn cage in Muskingum County, only to be dispatched by a sheriff’s deputy, is almost too much to deal with.
I’m declining to read any more idiot comments about the police actions, as well. Even NPR asked, “Why didn’t you tranquilize them?” The sheriff, who’d probably given about 2,000 interviews yesterday, said, “Because we don’t carry tranquilizer guns.” Good answer. Even the Columbus Zoo people, who do carry them, said the job was nearly impossible, from trying to estimate a correct dosage without knowing much more about their quarry other than its species, to the trickier matter of actually hitting one, in the dark, in the rain, in a stressful situation. Evidently the one instance in which they tried to dart a tiger went awry when the tiger responded by turning on the vet, which meant that one had to go, too.
We forget how, on “Wild Kingdom,” the animal runs for a while with the dart hanging out of its butt. Imagine one running into a dark woods. Imagine being the one going in after it. Then stop talking about how they should have just tranquilized those poor beasts. Here’s a comment from the New York magazine site:
How long would it have taken to helicopter wild animal specialists and tranquilizer guns from cleveland or cincinatti, whichever is closer?
Very cinematic image, that. Get some wild-animal specialists — whose numbers I keep in my Rolodex — and chopper ’em in! I see James Franco and Mark Ruffalo, clad in safari grunge, standing on the helipad in Cleveland or Cincinnati — whichever is closer! — with their duffels, ready for the chopper to carry them into the wilds of Muskingum County where, in the middle of the night, they will use their night-vision scopes to, first, identify the beasts, and then expertly shoot them with tranquilizer. From a helicopter.
PILOT: Dammit, I’m telling you, this is too low! I could lose my license!
CHIP SUDBURY, WILDLIFE EXPERT: Just get me a little closer! Do it!
I also note that the city I was raised in, now grown to Ohio’s largest, is still being forgotten. People who’ve never been to Ohio know two cities: Cleveland and Cincinnati (which they can never spell). And that’s it.
Jack Hanna, the emeritus Columbus Zoo director who was widely quoted yesterday, has done more for that institution than any other single person. At the same time, I remember many puffy stories about how he raised many of the zoo animals in his own home, including a tiger, who slept next to his bed for midnight feedings. The parks and rec director, Mel Dodge, raised many of the zoo’s lions that way, too, keeping them as pets until they got too big. I can’t recall the justification for this; maybe it was to acclimate them early to humans, to make them easier to handle? (I do recall the time I was leaving downtown around quittin’ time, gazing emptily at the car in front of me at a light, when a baby lion’s head popped up from the back seat and the cat climbed onto the back deck. Oh, right, I thought — Mel Dodge.) I’m not saying this was bad or irresponsible, but the animals were so cute, and the coverage so unquestioning, that I wonder how many people read it and thought, “I could do that, too.”
Then, as always, there is the Detroit Way:
Which seems as good a pivot point as any to transition to the local angle. May I just ask, in the name of reason and whatever passes for journalistic standards these days, WTF makes Ted Nugent the go-to party for reaction? Not only does he have nothing to do with the story, his only tangential connection is, what? That he, too, shoots guns at animals? Wonderful. He calls it a “downright tragedy” for people to keep wild animals in captivity, to which I reply, well, that is f’in’ rich:
In 1970, Ted Nugent began accumulating wild Michigan hunting ground. That land is now known as SUNRIZE ACRES! This sportsman’s dream now contains 340 acres of perfect big game habitat, rich with wildlife and the Spirit of the Wild. Managed for optimum health and indigenous bio-diversity, Sunrize Acres is home to world-class trophy whitetail deer, wild boar, American buffalo and various exotics.
P.S. It is fenced.
Also, escapes from facilities like this are the reason one of Michigan’s biggest backcountry problems is feral swine. Which the Nuge claims don’t exist.
OK, then. No real bloggage today, mainly because, with Moammar What’s-his-face dead, I’m going to go outside and fire our guns into the air.
Happy Thursday. Watch out for roaming monkeys.
brian stouder said on October 20, 2011 at 9:53 am
Watch out for roaming monkeys.
Nahh – I read the missing monkey was eaten by one of the tigers. Honestly, his fate is the one that I lament, moreso than the bear.
All the monkey knows is – “Hey, I’m free!” – and then – even more cruelly than the quick dispatch offered by a deputy’s bullet – he becomes a happy meal.
Kirk nailed this very early on, as another Kasich-katastrophe, at least in terms of optics.
More generally, welcome to the world of “We don’t need no stinkin’ guh-mint tellin’ us what to do!”
Locally, I heard callers on the radio going on about how many people have wild animals in Ohio – especially “domesticated” bobcats(!) in apartment complexes(!!!)
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 20, 2011 at 10:14 am
The reality is almost Chip Sudbury-ish, but her name is Dr. Barb Wolfe, and she insisted, against the sheriff’s wishes, on getting within 10 flipping feet of the last Bengal tiger with her tranquilizer gun from The Wilds. It was found hiding in brush outside the main enclosures yesterday morning (after the long bizarre first night). They were pretty sure they had already shot the other 17 and this was it, of the Bengal tigers. She got her shot, the tiger got up, and started trotting at right angles to her and the deputy accompanying her, at which point the deputy shot the tiger.
If you put enough meds in the dart to drop them immediately, you kill them. This isn’t OR-level anesthesia. For all they knew, the dart didn’t go in; if it had stayed put, then dropped, they’d both be heroes, and the tiger would be at the Columbus Zoo right now, but despite that, Barb is a hero in my book for doing what she did. And it pained her deeply to not save that last one.
Hey, it’s not one of LAMary’s encounters, but it’s good to brag on a friend.
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adrianne said on October 20, 2011 at 10:38 am
Apparently feral hogs, escaped from penned hunting grounds in the Catskills, are roaming the Borscht Belt. Here’s Adam Bosch’s story from earlier this month: http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111001/NEWS/110010337&cid=sitesearch
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nancy said on October 20, 2011 at 10:44 am
I looked for, but failed to find, a story I remember from the last year or so, in which a feral hog chased a jogger on a rural road. They’ve also been known to destroy a cornfield in a single night. All so that jerkoffs like the Motor City Madman can have some wild bacon. Ugh.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 10:46 am
Maybe uninformed comments about tranquilizers are unhelpful, but they aren’t idiotic, and certainly asking the question is entirely logical. If I were the sherriff of Muskingum County, I’d have made myself aware of the potential catastrophe sitting in my backyard, and would have had a plan for the inevitable meltdown of the painfully obvious nutcase zookeeper. What else has he got to do, bust mobile meth labs and oxy theft rings? If that’s an elected office, the sherriff should kiss his political career goodbye. Of course it was heavily incumbent on the goobernor’s office to make local authorities extremely aware of the situation. Perhaps they did, but I doubt it. And doesn’t Muskingum sound like something you sure as shit don’t want to get on your hands?
Biologists in the wild use tranquilizers on animals all the time, so it’s a little hard to believe that this is all such an inexact science, but I’ve got no facts to back it up, so unlike Herman Cain, I won’t make any claim to knowing anything about this.
And Jeff’s Dr. Wolfe’s effort was indeed heroic.
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Julie Robinson said on October 20, 2011 at 10:47 am
The justification used for hand-raising the baby lions and tigers is that they tug at our heartstrings and are great for taking around to chat up the zoo/wildlife reserve. Who can resist huge liquid eyes and soft fur?
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Sue said on October 20, 2011 at 10:56 am
Can you imagine the outcry if they did have a well-trained team able to pull this off on a moment’s notice? Because I assume the setup that commenters are envisioning would not likely be funded by ongoing bake sales at the County zoo.
“Who is paying for this? Is my tax money being used? Why are my taxes going for a bunch of animal cops and a helicopter? Wasteful spending, wasteful spending!”
And those commenters would be right. It would be stupid and wasteful to expect taxpayers to maintain an exotic animal rescue team just because it’s everyone’s right as an American to keep dangerous animals in cages without any thought to potential consequences.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 11:01 am
Penned hunting grounds, holy shit. People call themselves Bwana, Great White Hunter, when it’s really Bubber, Meth Freak Redneck. This is the sort of pseudo-hunting Cheney and Scalia share. How this shit is legal in the USA is just beyond me.
Never met a feral hog, but once encountered a javalina in Joshua Tree National Monument. Brutish, nasty and frightening mofo. I know they’re not actually pigs, but they sure look like them, and there’s no time to consider biological classifications when confronted by one of these beasts.
Brian, I’m still hoping it was the monkey that pulled the trigger on Redneck Noah.
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John G. Wallace said on October 20, 2011 at 11:06 am
We’ve got a large and healthy feral hog population in my area. I’ve heard them; never seen them as they live in a large area of woods and brush across a drainage canal.
Every so often though they make their way into the older but no longer wealthy developments on the city’s western edge where old by Florida standard oak trees dot the lawns. They’ll rip up a whole lawn for acorns. I can’t help but thinking the end result could be some amazing bacon and pork roasts.
http://www.tcoasttalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/feral_hogs.jpg
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2011/jul/15/wild-hogs-plowing-up-yards-in-southwest-vero/
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LAMary said on October 20, 2011 at 11:41 am
I’ve always loved tigers and it’s heartbreaking that the world lost 18 of them yesterday. Such monumental stupidity caused that whole mess. Not poor guys who had to shoot them but the sick bastard who owned them and the laws that didn’t protect the animals or the people who live near the wild animals. Wild cats are not pets. Ever. Wolves, same thing, and obviously bears aren’t.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 11:42 am
Sue,
While those commenters might be correct, they’d also be hypocritical, since they are the very anti-regulation bandwagon-jumping jackasses that vote for people like Kasich and don’t turn on him when he says things like:
This is unbelievable that this even existed, and what’s hard for me to understand is why Ohio over time didn’t deal with this, but we’ll deal with it now. Surely that’s a joke, I say that’s a Republican joke, son:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTwnwbG9YLE
John G. Why don’t the wildlife people just release some Burmese pythons among the hogs. That’d fix ’em. (And that is obviously not meant seriously.)
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Jeff Borden said on October 20, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Ted Nugent’s little shoot `em up playpen sounds a lot like the range where Dangerous Dick Cheney shot his pal in the face except the raised in captivity critters were quail. If I recall, the birds are kept low to the ground by some form of netting, then rise to the air in a bid for freedom once they are released, making it easy for faux outdoorsmen like our war criminal ex-veep to slaughter them.
I am not anti-hunting at all, but these so-called fenced-in game reserves hardly seem sporting to either animal or man. I guess that’s the whole idea.
And yes, please God, explain to me why Ted Nugent is notable in any way other than morphing from a draft dodger so intent on avoiding service in Vietman that he literally shit and pissed himself in the same pair of jeans for days before having his Selective Service physical to a flag-waving, gun-toting pseudo-patriot embraced by the very people who would have kicked his skinny fucking ass back in the day.
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alex said on October 20, 2011 at 12:03 pm
The news is reporting that Ghadafi just got taken out. Hey, at least one shooting we can be happy about, no?
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 12:14 pm
LAMary: Unless the bear is called Stat o’ Maine, and rides a bike, that is. This may be a myth, but I’ve read frequently, in a wide variety of places, that there is no valid historic account of a wolf killing a human.
Carl Hiaasen says: “There is no Constitutional right to sleep with endangered reptiles.”
East is East. Very enjoyable novel with the Everglades as a major character. When the Killing’s Done is another TC Boyle novel that deals with introduction of non-native species and the mayhem bound to ensue. I know this guy annoys some people no end (some of my brothers) , but I’ll take a smartass show-off writer over a dumbass boring one, any day. Pynchon and McGuane get the same criticism. Tom Robbins and John Gardner, too. I guess anybody that sends a reader to a dictionary or makes a reader read a sentence twice is too clever by half.
Borden, Like all good GOPers, Nugent now claims he made that story up, as a joke, it wasn’t meant to be a statement of fact. It’s necessary for his manufactured, self-aggrandizing autobio, because it also involved meth use, and the lying sack claims never to have used drugs.
Maybe it’s my closet racism, but Herman Cainster is a loose-lipped buffoon, who I’m sure will claim shamelessly that this was a satire piece, when actually he was just hoping nobody would find out about this crap because nobody but phony conservative zombies reads anything on Red State. But Good Lord, if God really visits plagues of natural disasters on earth because of human behavior, where’s the sinkhole under this nutjob> What Bible translation does Herman favor? The Justice Scalia Partisan? With the Book of Activist Judges?
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Jeff Borden said on October 20, 2011 at 12:22 pm
It has been said by more than a few that Herman Cain’s time in the spotlight is a way for those teabagging racists to claim they aren’t really hatin’ on the black folk because, look, they support Mr. Cain. He’s not raising shit for money and front-runner Romney is still concentrating all his attacks on Gov. Cowboy because he KNOWS that Cain is nothing but a prop. As I said yesterday, there is something genuine about Cain, but sheesh, he is truly an out-an-out loon who might be a kissing cousin of Clarence Thomas in his efforts to kowtow to the white power structure.
Meanwhile, if you have something lodged in your throat and there is no one nearby to perform the Heimlich maneuver, you could do worse than watch the appearance on Greta Van Susteren’s gagfest by Michele Bachmann and her latest endorsee, Wayne Newton. It will induce vomiting in even the hardiest of men and women. It must be seen and heard to be believed, but fair warning, view only on an empty stomach.
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Judybusy said on October 20, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Here is a good article on the feral pig problem.
I’m looking forward to this restaurant, Butcher and Boar, opening in a couple months: (From my local paper):”Riebel, who spent the past six years running the show at the nearby Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant, isn’t talking a lot of specifics on food just yet, but the restaurant’s name offers a lot of clues. “We’ve already sourced a free-range, wild-caught boar [from Texas] and we’ll put a few items up around that,” he said. “We’re looking at finding a single-source pork, and we’re going to do some game meats.” Note the use of the wild boar. Apparently, bourbon will also be involved!
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beb said on October 20, 2011 at 12:37 pm
I stand amazed by Nancy’s assertion that Columbus Ohio is the largest city in the state. Who knew?
On the GOP Prez race. There was a picture of Willard Romney and Rick Perry taken at one of the candidate debates. In it you a very relaxed natural looking Romney and a kind of strange looking Perry
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/americans-to-romney-you-like-me-you-maybe-like-me.php?ref=fpc
He’s got that shoulder’s back, chest out, big, false grin like some dime-store mannikin. Willard is scarily fluid in his opinions but Perry actually looks like a pod-person.
The sadest part about the animal escape is that it became an excuse for the media to talk to Ted Nugent.
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Bob (not Greene) said on October 20, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Beb, Isn’t that something? Columbus has almost 800,000 people in its city limits (acc. to Wiki the 15th largest city in the U.S., if you can believe that). Cincinnati has a bigger metro area, but in the city proper its population about as large as Madison, Wis. And the city of Cleveland’s population (close to 1 million in 1950) has been declining for decades and now isn’t much bigger than Cinicinnati’s.
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nancy said on October 20, 2011 at 12:47 pm
We might get a different opinion when you factor in the key “metro area” figures. I’ll wait for a Clevelander to jump in on that, but yep, the capital city is indeed the largest in population. Not only that, Beb, it’s now BIGGER THAN DETROIT.
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Jeff Borden said on October 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Beb,
I left Columbus in 1985 and it already was larger in both population and square mileage than either Cleveland to the north or Cincinnati to the south, but the Cleveland market, in particular, is much, much, much larger when all the suburbs are added. So, in terms of gross households media entities want to reach, Columbus remains in third-place despite its claim as the largest city in Ohio.
It’s interesting to see how things shift when we aren’t paying much attention. I’ve been married to a fourth-generation Floridian for almost 22 years now and visit the Sunshine State regularly, but I assumed either Miami or Tampa/St. Pete were the largest burgs. It’s really Jacksonville with more than 850,000 people. Miami is a mere 395,000 while Tampa/St. Pete combined are about 589,000.
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beb said on October 20, 2011 at 12:52 pm
This is so true yet on a Yahoo news fluffer today about the 5 emptiest cities in America, Detroit wasn’t even an honorable mention. Of course they were talking about residential vacancies and not empty lots, which is what Detroit has.
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Dexter said on October 20, 2011 at 12:57 pm
So everyone’s happy? How can we believe anybody in Washington? Just months ago Mubarak , the great ally to the USA, recipient of billions of USA dollars in aid, then becomes weak due to unrest and the USA media instantly paints this former friend of democracy as a “long time tyrant…”
Today I recall that just months ago we could read how Quaddaffi had made amends for Lockerbie, had paid reparations, and was again a great friend of the USA, Ronald Reagan be damned.
Just months ago: http://sheikyermami.com/wp-content/uploads/6a00e008c6b4e5883401310f5db532970c-800wi.jpg
Now Americans are jubilant at the death of this “great friend of the USA?” What are we to believe, what the spin doctors and lobbyists tell us? There are still people who think Fidel Castro was somehow a threat to the USA all the past five decades….
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MarkH said on October 20, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Jeff B., I underestimate you. I thought it would be late afternoon before someone here would bring Dick Cheney into the Muskingum Madness discussion.
Columbus has been the largest Ohio city since the mid-’80s, beb. In population, it passed Cincinnati in 1970 and Cleveland in the 1984 or ’85. Not bound by a lake or a river or a state line, Columbus has been expanding via annexing for some time. Also, Cleveland and Cincinnati have been losing population steadily for at least 30 years, according to census figures.
EDIT — See what I get for not being the fastest at research and typing? Nancy and three others beat me to the Columbus info.
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coozledad said on October 20, 2011 at 1:01 pm
I’d like to put together a canned hunt here on the farm. Three thousand dollars gets you a chance to shoot at three of pop music’s biggest assholes. Nugent, Hank Jr. and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter would be released into the woods wearing clothing stamped with various day-glo targets. Extra points for an ironic dispatch, e.g., Nugent in a “God damn stranglehold”.
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jcburns said on October 20, 2011 at 1:02 pm
I would have tranquilized Ghadafi using animal control experts from Cleveland or Cincinnati, whichever is closer. To Libya.
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MarkH said on October 20, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Cooz, I wonder how many people here will understand your reference to “Skunk” Baxter. Maybe more than I think…
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jcburns said on October 20, 2011 at 1:13 pm
I thought we established that there are lots of Steely Dan fans here. By the way, here’s a fine TV news graphic.
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LAMary said on October 20, 2011 at 1:18 pm
I get about 25 phone calls a day from new grad nurses looking for jobs. It’s a particularly grim time right now for new grad nurses. I’m always polite with my answers and I try to be as sympathetic as possible, but after about call number 8 I get more blunt.
I made an exception yesterday for someone who called me from Fort Wayne. I gave her my email address and told her to check in with me in about two months. I gave her the names and numbers of recruiters at other local hospitals, and I gave her lots of interview advice. I did all this because she was from Fort Wayne, and every representative of that city I’ve met in this place has been an excellent person.
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nancy said on October 20, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Someday, a young nurse from Indiana will get a new job in SoCal, and she will owe it all to Brian, Julie and other people she never met. Karma!
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moe99 said on October 20, 2011 at 1:22 pm
I’m in Denver this week and the big story here is that they’ve determined where the listeria on the canteloupes came from. A farm owned by someone named Jensen had subpar cleaning facilities. It seems that the FDA had never paid a visit to them ever. Now the media is tut-tutting about that when I am sure that pre listeria outbreak, it would have been seen as government overreach, particularly if they developed regulations (you know the kind that kill business, not people). I am so very fried with these ‘no government’ types I could scream. Good thing my vocal cords aren’t up to it these days.
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Sue said on October 20, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Is anyone following the story about Bank of America moving toxic funds from one of their unprotected accounts into an account covered by FDIC? Sorry, I’m not really math-tastic so I assume I’ll get lost in the details, especially if anyone goes beyond maybe 10 or so, but from what I am reading they are engaging in a legal maneuver that will screwscrewscrew taxpayers if they are successful.
Can anyone explain? I bring this up because the places where I’ve been reading about this are freaking out about it.
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MarkH said on October 20, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Indeed there are, JC. Maybe a few Doobie fans as well. The reference was to Baxter’s status as a valued national security consultant. Oh, wait; I’m sure YOU knew that.
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Jolene said on October 20, 2011 at 1:35 pm
I’m surprised to hear that new nurses are having a hard time finding jobs, LAMary. I thought there was a nursing shortage. Has that gone away?
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coozledad said on October 20, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Sue: That’s how job creators roll. It’s like the broker was saying in a New York Times? op-ed just the other day: America does financial services better than anyone else.
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Deborah said on October 20, 2011 at 1:43 pm
JC, that “Killed man to death” link reminds me of a comment I heard on a TV news report years and years ago when I lived in Dallas. The chief of police was talking about a body they’d found and he exclaimed that “both her hands were decapitated”.
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Dave said on October 20, 2011 at 1:43 pm
I find it interesting that Jack Hanna was quoted as saying that the conditions at the reserve were horrible, yet it had passed inspections. If this man got out of prison after serving a one year sentence only three weeks ago, who was taking care of those animals for the last year and how was it funded? Were those animals hungry because, that fellow wanted to create mass mayhem, no doubt, to get even with all the neighbors and all who he felt had given him friction.
I knew that Columbus had outdistanced Cincinnati and Cleveland and I don’t know what the population of Northern Kentucky is, across the Ohio River but still a part of the Cincy suburbs, but there’s a lot of people there. A lot of people in the Cincinnati area have ran to the adjoining counties in Ohio and even into southeastern Indiana.
Last night, Linda Jackson on the local news, said that Zanesville was 20 miles east of Columbus, even with annexation, that isn’t true. I guess they never look, just read whatever is in front of them.
Caliban, as a native Ohioan with a fondness for many Ohio names, I couldn’t disagree more with your assessment of Muskingum as what it sounds like. I’ve always found those names pleasing to the ear, actually, along with some other Ohio counties like Scioto and Tuscarwaras.
Wasn’t Skunk Baxter the original lead guitarist for the Doobie Brothers, when they were freshly emerged from being a “biker bar” band?
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Jolene said on October 20, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Dave, are you sure that Hanna said the place was inspected? I haven’t followed this closely, but I had the idea that no one in offocialdom even knew it was there.
Also, the estimates of Bengal tiger populations are even worse than Nancy says. The figure I heard was 1400. Must say, however, that I’m not really sure where these numbers are coming from.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Boston is considered, by just about everybody, a big city. The population of Greater Boston (everything inside the Modern Lovers’ Rte. 128 ring road and a few outliers) is nearly 5mil, pretty big. Boston proper? Around 650thou.
I think Skunk Baxter’s national security connections arise from technological weapons geekery, rather than from terminal assholism like that which affects somebody like Leslie Gelb and Richard Perle. (http://jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/sr-neocons.htm, really strange website name). Anyway, Steely Dan is just fine with Walter Becker playin lead guitar, though I think that lightning Boddhisatva solo is actually Baxter. Pretty sure the gorgeous lead guitar on Reeling in the Years is Becker.
Dave, I was born in Cincinnati. I admit Muskingum is a lilting Indian-origin word, but it also looks like an animal bodily fluid.
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MarkH said on October 20, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Baxter was not an original member. Fagen and Becker gave up touring, so he joined the Doobies after their third album as a third guitarist to Johnston and Simmons. He contributed to sessions on Captain and Me and What Were Once Vices, though.
EDIT – caliban, if I may ask, what high school did you attend?
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LAMary said on October 20, 2011 at 2:12 pm
The job market for new grad nurses is terrible. I still need experienced nurses in some specialized areas, but nurses are not retiring, so there are not that many new spots opening up. It’s a big investment to train a new grad nurse, so it’s not likely a hospital would hire one or two. I used to hire anywhere from 35-50 per year. In 2010 I hired 18 and 2011 I hired 16. I don’t know when we will be taking another group, but if I stupidly omit the phrase “only experienced applicants will be considered” from an online job posting I will have at least 200 new grads apply to the job in the first 24 hours.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 2:12 pm
jc,
I always find it amusing to read “electrocuted to death”. It’s like saying eviscerated to death.
China Grove was an excellent Doobie Bros. song. Once they were taken over by Michael McDonald, peee yewww!
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Dave said on October 20, 2011 at 2:14 pm
No, Jolene, Hanna didn’t say that, I may be wrong but I thought the sheriff said that at one point. As for no one in officialdom not knowing it was there, it sure seems likely that with all the visits that law enforcement claims to have made to that place, someone official knew it was there.
We had a man locally who kept big cats in his home in a subdivision, which didn’t please his neighbors. I knew this individual. He had many issues that caused him troubles both in his personal and work life, most of them self-created, to my thinking. My opinion of those who keep exotic pets is much colored by this person and those who are the like of Ted Nugent, too, which isn’t at all good.
All our perceptions, likes, and dislikes are different, Caliban, I like the lilting Indian-origin word, never thought of it as anything else.
OTOH, I couldn’t agree more with your Michael McDonald comment.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 2:52 pm
MarkH:
HS in Detroit @ University of Detroit HS on Seven Mile Road.
Sredni Vashtar in public housing. I am sure that Kasich would say that a public housing tenant has no right to exotic animal ownership guaranteed to hillbilly methfreaks, and required mandatory drug testing as well.
Classic exotic animal story by HH Munro. Not Rikki-tiiki-tavi, but what is. Still, mighty good.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 20, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Jack Hanna said the most recent Bengal tiger census was even worse than they’d thought, down from 2,500 to 1,400. That’s the 3 pm presser yesterday as I watched on CNN. And 18 of those 1,400 went down in Muskingum County, just south of the Tuscarawas, east of Pataskala, and north of Moxahala. We don’t make it easy on rookie news readers in this market. Let alone how we pronounce Lima and Lancaster. Chillicothe often makes them spit out their bubble gum, let alone Coshocton.
According to my friends who were on the scene, the sheriff knew they had the proverbial “lions and tigers and bears,” maybe a half-dozen or so, but very few neighbors even knew how many, and all were stunned to hear the final tally; and the situation up to the last night of the Strickland administration was that if you didn’t breed and sell, you were accountable/reportable to no one . . . but if someone had learned he’d had (as he did, it turns out) a black bear, ODNR would have been all over them like white on rice. Different section of ORC.
Kasich immediately rescinded, at Jack Hanna’s recommendation, the executive order the next day, leaving the status-quo-nothing in place until a commission, which Jack said had a new set of guidelines to request, reported out at the end of November. Those guidelines will no doubt be reviewed and tightened even further. I like Jack, don’t know him well, but I think, as Nancy’s story infers, Jack has too many Ohio friends who have a Siegfried & Roy leftover or two on their property, and didn’t want to see them all made illegal — partly out of donor issues (he’s still the Columbus Zoo’s biggest fundraising asset, better than a pair of pandas), and partly because, as I gather he kept saying in Zanesville to anyone who would listen, if the Strickland last-minute proposal had truly been implemented, the Columbus Zoo would have been flooded with animals they could not handle or manage, and the PR cost of putting most of them down would have been crippling. Not a good reason, but a reason.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Living withwild animals. Plumber. Candygram.
Land shark.
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Kath said on October 20, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Caliban: Saki’s “Esme” is also appropriate given today’s theme of animals escaping from private zoos.
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Esm.shtml
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LAMary said on October 20, 2011 at 3:45 pm
The floods in Bangladesh ago probably killed quite a few Bengals. The Bengal tiger preserve was one of the places that was almost completely underwater.
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Runner said on October 20, 2011 at 3:51 pm
LAMary, I am so surprised to hear that nurses aren’t being hired. My mom was a nurse. At one point, she told me the median age for nurses in Michigan was 45 or 46.
When the recession hit, I knew some folks who attempted to go to nursing school. Some got in and some didn’t. Now I’m wondering how bright their employment outlook would be. What do you think for new nurses in say 2 to 4 to 6 years? Just curious.
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Judybusy said on October 20, 2011 at 4:51 pm
And sometimes, we just need to make time for good food. As it happens, I have a pomegranate on hand, and yogurt of course. Mint in the garden. Now, just to the farmer’s market for the cauliflower.
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LAMary said on October 20, 2011 at 4:59 pm
I think it’s got to get better soon. Hospitals are going to start offering golden parachutes to some of the oldest nurses. Five years ago I couldn’t find enough nurses but now it’s only critical care and maybe NICU that are tough, and none of the NICU nurses are leaving any time soon.
So many people went to nursing school thinking it was a sure thing for lifelong employment, and now they can’t find anything. It’s sad when it’s 22 year olds, but to me it’s even sadder for second career people who went back to school in their forties and now can’t find a nursing job.
My advice for nurses is to get savvy on nursing informatics and case management. Those jobs are the hardest to fill. Neuro is another. Our stroke center is very busy and I could use a couple of neuro nurse practitioners.
The good news? Salaries have not gone down even with a glut of young nurses panting to take over the older nurses’ jobs. We start nurses at 37.79 per hour and I think our highest paid RNs with at least 30 years of experience, maybe a specialty certification or two, make at least 52. per hour, and some closer to 60. They work three 12 hour shifts a week, so many have a part time job elsewhere as well as full time at this hospital.
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paddyo' said on October 20, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Moe99, welcome to Denver . . . that sad listeria story (25 dead, hundreds sick, worst food-borne illness outbreak in 25 years) hit the heart of Colorado’s Rocky Ford melon country, down in the southeast corner of the state.
The Jensen farm advertised its melons as “Rocky Ford,” a regionally famous product that, in the brief glory days of U.S. rail travel, caused the Santa Fe “Super Chief” passenger trains to pause at Rocky Ford, CO, to load up cases and cases of sweet cantaloupes as they made their southwestern crossings. Actually, the farm’s about 100 miles east of Rocky Ford, the Arkansas River town where very angry (and more responsible and ethical) melon growers are rightly worried if this tragedy will take down their livelihood.
I consume at least several Rocky Fords myself each late-summer/early-fall season, and am relieved none of these contaminated Rocky Ford would-be’s showed up in my farmer’s market or at my local Safeway. No thanks, of course, to the FDA or the USDA or any other missing inspection agency. Sheesh . . .
Speaking of angry, I’m not an “Angry Birds” person since I don’t have an iPhone, but here’s something amusing for those of you who do: Angry Allan Poe!
Finally, my 2-cents’ worth on exotic animal ops:
Back in my Denver Post days, I had occasion to visit a ranch in the literal shadow of Devils Tower National Monument (yeah, the Close Encounters of the Third Kind place) to do a story about an eccentric local rancher, an heir to the Campbell’s Soup fortune, who wanted to start an exotic game farm there, behind 10- to 12-foot fences. He wasn’t into carnivores except for arctic wolves. He had a long list of candidate species — Russian boar, several foreign deer species, ibex, muntjac, several kinds of wild sheep (Barbary and Marco Polo among them). Oh, and for good measure, native moose, elk, pronghorn and bighorn sheep.
He said he wanted to have a drive-through wildlife park on part of his 17,000-acre spread, but guys with places like that usually like to go full-Nugent, too — shoot ’em and eat ’em. Very sporting, I gather . . .
Anyway, the state of Wyoming, aghast at the potential threat of exotic critters getting out and polluting/interbreeding/spreading disease within its tourism goldmine of native wildlife, fought him fang and claw, and won. He got tired or distracted or something and left. Still has the cattle ranch, but cashed out of the family biz.
But then, being now worth something like $2.4 billion (“only” No. 488 on the Forbes billionaires’ list, sniff), John T. Dorrance III (namesake grandson of the condensed soup inventor himself) can pretty much do what he wants elsewhere. Forbes says he lives in Ireland (No. 3 on the billionaires’ list there). He renounced his U.S. citizenship, “presumably” to avoid capital gains taxes when he sold his stake in Campbell’s.
Leprechauns and banshees, be very afraid . . .
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MarkH said on October 20, 2011 at 5:52 pm
paddy, I remember the Dorrance saga well, as it resonated throughout the state of Wyoming. As I recall he and his lawyers were coming up with all kinds of crafty reasoning to justify such a place. The state of Wyoming, to their credit, accepted none of the assurances that the animals would be secure. It cost the state quite a bit for their effort, but only Dorrance’s lawyers won in the end, natch.
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Jolene said on October 20, 2011 at 6:01 pm
I’m curious about whether the situation w/ regard to hiring nurses that you describe, LAMary, is national–not only because your comments surprised me but also because, in the monthly employment reports, health services is usually one of the few bright spots. Of course, I know that health services includes a broad range of workers, so it’s possible that those reports obscure within-sector variations.
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Jolene said on October 20, 2011 at 6:14 pm
From Kaiser Health News, the nursing situation, like most things, is complex. The analysis they report suggests growth in the field, but a hiccup caused by the economy and concentrated in particular places–one of them being California.
One of my nieces is planning a career in nursing, but she’s still a couple of years from graduation. I’d never want to be a nurse (I’m just not that nice.), but have loved the nurses who took care of me on the few occasions when I’ve been sick enough to require time in the hospital. And I’ve always thought that nursing offers an exceptionally wide range of kinds of work–not only variation w/in hospital nursing, but work in other kinds of organizations as well. Plus, skills that can be applied anywhere in the world.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 6:45 pm
LA Mary, my mom was a superbly knowledgeable nurse. When she was older and working at the UGeorgia Health Service, which she loved, she ran into the client vs. patient care shit that was an early indicator that business models and health care existed in two different universes. She did the academic work necessary to become a nurse practitioner. One of her best friends on the job was a PA who said, y’all get better educated than we do. Of course, my mom benefitted from years of shop talk with my dad, who was a doctor polymath. Specialties, he knew them all. And no, I am not glorifying my mom and dad. They were both this good. They followed the path of free care around the country. My dad insisted on treatment for a pregnant maed student of his for her pregnancy when Arkansas law banned it, and he stood his ground. My parents would not put up with anything like separate but equal bogus shit when better care was available. One of my little brothers had just been born and my mom breast-fed that kid when his mom was indisposed. In my understanding of how a follower of Jesus was supposed to react, this all seemed obvious to me. Which part of that was hard to understand? I suppose that these days, it’s just a throwaway. I think, on the other hand that despite being members of a cult, My family represented as serious Christians. So, we have this true belief on the part of self-proclaimed Progressives that are sure Catholics are an enemy. Who do you think were the first martyrs to this cause in Central America you self_righteous assholes? Archbishop Romero? If people aren’t clear on who were the martyrs of the Iran-Contra way of life, who actually used the hammer and gimlet. If this isn’t a prime case of pitting champions of peoples rights against each other, what is? Well Northern Ireland, whatever that shit is supposed to mean.
Fact is, this woman went on to be a decorated Doc that boosted all sorts of LBJ era programs that served the health of the unborn. And the nutritional and educational well-being. Modern Republicans oppose this sort of government spending. How do they excuse this. No bootstraps? What sort of selfish morons are these assholes. How hard is it to explain opposition to this sort of thinking is it that the assholes that oppose societal care for the least of our brethren? These aholes claim to be Christians. All of us know what Jesus professed. Is ther, or has there ever been, a Democratic candidate for anything that claimed Jesus? Can’t think of one. What was Jesus’ message about poor people? Which Repub does that match up with? Whited Sepulchres. These folks are so full of shit it is beyond comprehension.
I’m not making this shit up. These people are full of shit.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Seriously, you know how multiple adresses always make people expect some sort of military involvement? Well for my parents, as wonderful as Memphis was for all of us, when my brother Matt died there of leukemia, we all needed to get the fuck out. And I’m still hoping the monkey got the trigger business and blew that asshole away. Kasich was doing his due diligence about anti-regulation, and I hope he wakes up close and personal with a rock Burmese around his neck. How is what this ahole does any different than starving poor kids on purpose? Explain that one.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 6:59 pm
There is no other way of looking at it in the current condition. This is anti-regulation from somebody that made a fortune out of his Lehman connections and his anti-regulation shit just leaked out. This should be enough to put this asshole in jail.
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Jolene said on October 20, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Here’s another article that tells more or less the same story re how the recession has affected job opportunities for nurses. Both of these pieces are from 2009, and both predict an uptick in demand for nurses when the economy improves, which we can only hope will be soon.
Having been an academic–a field in which, depending on your subject area–you have little choice, especially early in your career, re where you will work, it’s actually kind of amazing to think about a field in in which thousands of people are hired every year and in which, under normal circumstances, you can decide where you’d like to live and go there to get a job.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Regulation stops jobs? Well no you dumbass mofos, let’s let people call themselves doctors and nuses, you dumbass mofos. Seriosly, am I wrong. We’d be more employed if I could say I was some old fart with serious educational credentials, and give me job making little shits pay attentiona and learn something. I’ve actually done this with success. For extended periods of time. ai’d say, if you consider the Obama jobs plan and education. I’d be awesome. i could find you one gigantic bunch of kids that would say I was the greatest sub that ever lived. Fact is, any sub assignment, I probably knew more about the subject than the scheduled teacher. I KNOW SHIT MOST PEOPLE DON’T. I’m supposed to think there is something wrong with that. I am smarter. I care a great deal more about everbody else.y
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LAMary said on October 20, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Jolene, judging from the number of applications and phone calls I get from other parts of the country, I’d say it’s national. I also read the RN group comments in LinkedIn and it seems every other question is about where to find new grad jobs.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 8:23 pm
LAMary, how does this mae sense. My dad was a polymath purely brilliant doctor that knew everthing about everything, That was emily’s everything.
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basset said on October 20, 2011 at 10:03 pm
Caliban, to paraphrase the Proprietress… time for beddy-bye. Go on, now, you can tuck yourself in.
Jack Hanna… good friend of mine was his producer for awhile and says he’s really like that, it’s not an act.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 10:31 pm
No basset, I can get tucked to be be tucked to whatever, Ate you kiddin? Kasivh was horseshit on slaughetering the animals that are better than he is. How does this read. The previous governor had a way inplace. Now republican assholse are trying to claim it’s the prvious bubernators fault. These people are absolutely shameless. What the fuckk is wtonong eith Republivans? These assholes do not know shame.
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caliban said on October 20, 2011 at 10:34 pm
Do you have the slightest understanding of how anybody understands anything ling like dummbnasses? because I never came close to how dumb as you are.
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Dexter said on October 21, 2011 at 12:26 am
A sideways tribute to the dead wild animals…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoek1e8t2K4
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caliban said on October 21, 2011 at 5:24 am
Sredni vashtar, Dex. And http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY7Rxae4pjU, Swriously stupid ideas, seriously fine music.
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caliban said on October 21, 2011 at 5:28 am
He should be sticking to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1KoZH6bvc4, boots of steel. Guy thinks he’s Better than Dylan. This ain’t Gates of Eden. He seems intelligent enough to understand that.
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beb said on October 21, 2011 at 8:14 am
I want to thank LAMary for her in-depth comments on the nursing situation. I had thought it was still a good field to find work, apparently not. A couple male friends of mine, when their previous jobs went away switched careers to nursing. One is an operating room RN specialist. I’m not sure what area the other went in to. Both switched in the early 2000’s and seemed to have no trouble finding work back then. It was kind of a shock to me when they announced their new careers because nursing had always seemed like a woman’s career. But that was prejudice on my part.
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Runner said on October 21, 2011 at 9:37 am
Yes, thanks LAMary and Jolene, for the nursing links. I have to say they were an eye opener! I had always thought of nursing as rock-solid. I was surprised to learn otherwise.
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LAMary said on October 21, 2011 at 12:20 pm
You’re very welcome. The current situation has changed what I do in my job drastically. I find I spend a lot of time trying to convince young nurses to not give up hope, and I’m told I’m good at doing that, but I wonder how moral it is for me to do it. Maybe they should give up hope of working as a nurse. It sucks out there.
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