Snarge
Snarge
While researching material related to today's crash landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, I ran across the term for, um, "fowl remains" after birds collide with an aircraft: "snarge".
Like so many of you, I love words and I immediately "Googled" this one for other sightings in the wild, as it were. One of the links was to a 2005 article in Wired, "Bird Plus Plane Equals Snarge". Among those interviewed for the piece was the head of the Smithsonian Institution's Feather Identification Laboratory, Carla Dove. Her job is to identify the goo splattered on various aircraft after mid-flight mishaps. After the DNA is analyzed, it's entered into a database, with the goal of reducing said unscheduled connections (and the attendant fatalities, human and otherwise). Toward the end of the article she notes that some birds drop their prey into the paths of planes, with interesting results: "We've had frogs, turtles, snakes. We had a cat once that was struck at high altitude...The other day we had a bird strike. We sent the sample to the DNA lab and it came back as rabbit. How do you explain to the FAA that we had a rabbit strike at 1,800 feet?"
'Nuff said.
The Long Dark Hangover of the Soul
The Long Dark Hangover of the Soul
Back in what seems like another lifetime, I used to go out after a long night's work to do what comes naturally to those drawn to the hospitality and entertainment industries: We partied, and we partied hard. After kowtowing (or not) to the mandarins at our tables, on our barstools, or in the audience it was our turn! It was exciting, it was fun, and in the morning it was unforgettable - usually in the form of bed spins and throbbing temples.
The political right has woken up to such a scene. Years of unfettered (or, at times, scarcely fettered) consumption has resulted in a power intoxication. As the sedation wears off and reality sets in, it's time to reassess what is and isn't truly important. It's easy to get caught up in the fun, but someone's got to pay the tab on the way out. The leftward-leaning of my friends and family are now euphoric that now it's their turn to belly up to the bar. In my personal opinion, they've bought style over substance, rhetoric over reason, feelings over facts. That’s neither here nor there. I’m thankful that it’s over and pray for a better pool from which to choose in the next go-around. In the meantime, it's their turn to drive and the cycle begins anew. As will forever be the case with the imperfect beings who comprise the human family, the excesses of their standard-bearers will prove their own undoing and another hangover will commence.
We sow the seeds of our own destruction, and at our own peril, bacause we fail to take the morning after into account. In the end, many of us would wake up in unfamiliar surroundings and, as the promise of a new day dawned, trudge back to our own abodes in a ritual universally recognized as "the walk of shame". In the excitement of the moment, we made decisions we quickly regretted and, in extreme cases, forever haunt us.
unclemoejoe
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