Monday, April 13, 2009

Headline of the Day (If Not the Week)

Spokane parks to detonate squirrels (H/T: Don Surber).

14 comments:

Yojimbo said...

Hmmm

Isn't Spokane the site for those giant earthworms as well? Remember the story on Blair a couple of years ago?

Waiting for the media to change the name of the process to "Palinated" in 5..4..3..

Paco said...

Yojimbo, you're still in Arizona, right? You might get a kick out of this. I saw a western not long ago - kinda low budget, don't even remember who was in it - and the action was supposed to be in Texas; yet, everywhere you looked, there was saguaro cactus.

Yojimbo said...

A saguaro in Texas eh! Probably shot at the Tucson Studios.

I'll see your movie of no name and raise you...."My Darling Clememtine"(1946)

This movie had;
Monument Valley within sight of Tombstone!
It had "Doc" Holliday as a doctor, and not as a dentist, and dying, not in Colorado, but in the shootout at the OK Corral!
It had Virgil Earp dying from a gunshot wound received at the Clanton ranch.
It had the whole Earp clan together on a cattle drive from Kansas going into Tombstone

IIRC this was a John Ford movie!

Top that. Go ahead, make my day!:)

Yes, I'm still here. Remind me of that again and your toast.

JeffS said...

Yojimbo, that's more or less right; the Palouse region is where those Blair publicized giant earth worms lives, and Spokane is on the outer edge of the Palouse.

Heh, I love this part:

Spokanimal, which is the local animal shelter and Humane Society chapter, was caught by surprise by Monday's announcement.I imagine that said surprise was deliberate, especially when you factor in the greenies.

Paco said...

Yojimbo: Hey, dude, artistic license, right? My Darling Clementine is still a great western. But yes, anybody familiar with the topography of Arizona and the history of the Earps and Clantons has to suspend quite a bit of disbelief. Probably better to think of it as a bizarro Arizona with parallel-universe Earps and Clantons.

Yojimbo said...

Jeffs: It was the Palouse, thank you for reminding me. Maybe Wazoo could sign some of those puppies up for the football team, couldn't hurt. Don't know what they would major in but that's never been a problem in football anyway.:)

Paco: Yes, Hollywood does "string theory" Perfect movie for Hillary since she is so good at suspending disbelief.

Zardoz said...

Back in the days when I worked at Boeing in Seattle one of the lead airframe mechanics took the propane tank off his camper and ran the line down one of the mole holes in his yard. He emptied the tank and then dropped a match down the hole. He says it looked like a movie of an underground nuke test where the ground shakes, rises up and then settles back down with dust clouds all over the place. It scared the crap out of him but he never had a mole problem again.

RebeccaH said...

That reminds me of John Wayne's "The Searchers", one of the greatest Westerns ever made IMO. The Indians who were supposed to be Comanches all spoke Navajo, and the Indian woman called "Look" was actually dressed in Navajo velveteen (which was still pretty common in the 1950s). There's also a scene where the cavalry is herding some Indian prisoners across a stream, and if you look real close, one of the Indians is wearing sunglasses.

bruce said...

Did you know we have no squirrels in Australia?

First time I saw a squirrel was in India, I got a real kick out of it, having grown up on cartoons.

kc said...

Rebecca, I lived in Farmington, New Mexico in the mid-70's, and velveteen on the old Navajo women was VERY common. I haven't been there since 1978, so don't know if it's changed. I could ask my sister, she still has friends there.

My family got to the point that we wouldn't watch Westerns or war movies with my dad. He was always picking them apart and pointing out the inaccuracies. I went to the Rex theatre in Scobey, Montana to see "Stage Coach" with him in 1966. I was 10. He drove me nuts. Wish he was here to do it again.

Paco said...

Bruce: No squirrels in Australia? Did St. Rudd drive them out?

RebeccaH said...

Small world, kc. When I was ten we lived in Kirtland, outside Farmington for a year. That was 1956, though, when Kirtland was an unincorporated settlement of Mormon farmers along the San Juan, and a nearby AFB. My dad was working the oil fields back then. Bet I wouldn't recognize the place now.

bruce said...

My faked western story:

Michael Pate probably played more 'red indian' parts in movies and TV than anyone, starting with "Apache Chief" in Hondo:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0665327/

Yet he's as dinky-die aussie as me, born in the same small inner Sydney harbourside suburb, Drummoyne.

Paco said...

Bruce: Hey, I've seen that guy in dozens of films! So he's an Australian, eh? Cool!