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Fear sells.Anytime something occurs that might be a little bit dangerous, we have a national tendency to blow it all out of proportion in order to educate (aka: scare the crap out of) the public.
In a time of limited attention spans and a blizzard of choices, death is the penultimate story and the best source of hype (especially when it's easy to stimulate a response with a visual; like the shot of pretty woman followed by a big alligator snapping at some prey).
All the same, for a bunch of self styled cowboys, we're amazingly quick to start over crowding the paranoia aisle. Shortly afterward, the over the top behavior starts popping up.
That's why this story about the current panic sweeping Florida was so nice to see. It takes a rather light hearted view of the more absurd parts of the current situation, while also pointing out the obvious:
It will be a miracle if we get through the next few weeks without some half-wit shooting himself, his truck or his drinking buddy instead of the alligator at which he's aiming.
Alligators used to own at least the bottom two thirds of Florida before a whole bunch of people showed up. They retreated in the face of expansion, but never went away. Even in the early eighties there were local gators that everyone avoided and for the most part, the big lizards avoided people unless it was nesting season. As Florida continues to swell in population, the intersection of human and gator becomes ever more inevitable.
It's hard to pin this part of the problem on growth (without delving into a deeper discussion of human attitudes about animals, not a place I'd like to go just now):
One reason that alligators don't mind people so much these days is that people feed them. This is an act of profound stupidity, and also against the law.
Hand-fed gators lose all fear, and will in the absence of table scraps eagerly go after a pet poodle or even a child. Anybody caught feeding an alligator should be bound with duct tape and hauled off in the back of a pickup truck.
What lessons can we apply to bears?
I'm still a bit amazed that we've somehow got one (or more) fertile female bears living in the local hills (probably the Santa Monica Mountains to the south) and enough males to service them. In the last couple of years, we've had a number of young bears roaming through local neighborhoods, possibly driven north by bigger bears with territorial claims. Despite the fires a decade ago (and maybe in spite of them), bears have taken up residence and thrived .
Stick a frightened bear (or any wild animal really, no matter how small) and a small (or injured) mammal together in the wrong place and things will go wrong, very fast. Even our recent ancestors knew this and a thousand other deadly truths. They dealt with it by breeding profusely and re-marrying often (spouses often died and frequently disappeared). We don't do nearly as well with the reality of sudden or violent death. It's just not supposed to happen, certainly not to a bunch of people who thought we could make everyone "better, stronger, faster".
Eventually an incident will occur and then the fur will fly.
Our winter (fall?) bowling season finished up on Wednesday evening, and it all worked out. It was a wonderful, almost magical season. The finish just made it more special.
I started out the season on a tear that began last summer and coasted to my best 'book' average ever, a 209 (the sanctioning bodies for amateur bowling in the US have an odd sense of humor, we save our official, or book averages on April 15). I managed to finish up the season in the same place, which was even better.
I'd shot 207 for a summer when we played in an interesting mixed trio handicap league with a number of very good keglers a few years back. It was challenging and I hit a good streak, but 207 over thirteen weeks doesn't quite compare.
We normally play in a mixed handicap league (5 players) with two halves, win one half of the season (first or second) and you play for the title. Every week is worth 4 points (3 games and total pins).
While I was on my tear, our lead off bowler was also on her way to a big first half. Judy had a wonderful year (and played a huge part on Wednesday). We all started off playing consistently above ourselves and feeding off one another, it was contagious. For a while there, we just clobbered everyone we played (it helped that we played most of the best teams early on). Our lead grew and grew. Eventually, reality caught up and dragged us back toward the pack.
Up by 12 points with five weeks left, we stumbled down the stretch. We had three disappointing weeks in a row. Losing our lead, bit by bit. With two weeks left, we were up by 7 when we rolled our next game early (on Dec 26th) because people were going out of town. We were awful and lost all 4 points (in absentia) against the second place team (I was going a bit crazy that day, I knew who we were playing). We played them in person after the holidays and split the points to win the 1st half.
As a team, we were up and down during the 2nd half of the season, finishing in the middle of the pack and on Wednesday evening we played to determine the league champion. Anything was possible. The team we were up against had been on quite a tear themselves (finishing up a lot like we'd begun) and were going to be tough to beat. I wasn't at all certain what we might do and just wanted to be consistent so I could finish out at 209. If that helped us win, great. Bowling is lot like track and swimming, you compete against someone directly and try to feed off the team positives.
I promptly went out and laid an egg (changing my line and then my ball because I was quite lost and confused and I needed to be stringing strikes now!) while the other team was beating our brains in and winning by 145 pins. We were down to two games and needed to win them both. In the second game, three of us were quite a few pins above average and we managed a comfortable, 62 pin win despite having a 299 thrown against us. The third game was well balanced (neither team was able to grab an advantage) and just to keep things interesting, it all came down to the last shots of the 10th frame. We had a slim lead and all I needed was a mark and decent count on the fill ball. My opposite (Jim) is a terrific lefty, but he'd spared the 9th, I was on a strike and they were behind. He had to go off the sheet (all strikes until the end) to win. On his first ball, he left a nasty split (which he picked up). Thankfully, I threw a strike on the first ball and the pressure was off. My next shot was a disaster (I left the 4-7-9-10 and believe I missed everything on the next shot, my mind was elsewhere). I finished with an erratic 165-259-238 (662) against Jim's 255-183-231 (669), winning two of three (I'll take any day that against a guy with a 222 average). We won game three (by 21 pins) and the season was over.
More important, this was the first taste of victory we'd enjoyed together. I've won twice before in scratch leagues (I used to play in at least two leagues year around; now I'm back down to just the one league for the winter season). In our 12 years of bowling, this was the first time Sarah had experienced it. She's happy, just not nearly as happy as I (I like to win). It certainly helps make up for all the times we came close twice and wound up somewhere between 3rd to 5th overall. Even in our worst year we couldn't quite win the crying towel.
Just in case you got this far, our team name really was "What's our name?" I hate naming things and when someone asked the usual question back in the fall, my response was "Yes!" We had the typical Who's on First? (audio) giggle about it but then we got everyone else to buy into it. It was the easiest naming process in years.
Our hometown newspaper had some sort of major hiccup this morning.
I like to go to a local breakfast spot on occasion, sit at the counter and read the paper while having an omelet amidst the chaos near the kitchen. It's a lively and bustling environment in a place that's usually packed all morning, but almost always has a space open at the counter. Most of the patrons and waitresses in the counter area seem to know one another, leaving me the interloper who doesn't quite fit into the casual chatter and needs to be asked what I want. I don't mind.
This morning when I went out to start the car, there was no paper out front. Hmm. Sarah might have brought it in and put it somewhere odd, so I came back in and scouted around, finding nothing. I called but my wife was already riding something at Magic Mountain, and not answering.
I noticed that none of my neighbors had a paper in the driveway, which is a bit odd for 8:00 on a Sunday. I set off to find a paper and eat. And struck out everywhere I went (I almost purchased the Saturday paper at my first stop, the clerk kept me from that). I eventually bought the LA Times, spent the obligatory ten minutes fishing out the business and opinion sections from the blizzard of ads and other crap and went to eat.
When I got back, I checked the Star page to see what was up and found this notice:
TO OUR READERS:
The Star experienced a major technical problem Saturday night that prevented us from printing and delivering Sunday's newspaper. We are working on the problem and hope to have a solution soon. We will deliver the paper as soon as possible, hopefully before 5 p.m. today. Some customers may be receiving only partial newspapers this morning. We apologize for the inconvenience to our readers and advertising customers.
Joe R. Howry
Editor
Ventura County Star
Later in the day the announcement changed a bit:
TO OUR READERS:
The Star experienced a major technical problem Saturday night that prevented us from printing and delivering Sunday's newspaper. We are working on the problem and hope to have a solution soon. Unfortunately, we will not be able to deliver the newspaper in its entirety today. We will deliver by approximately 5 p.m. today the Arts & Living, Business, Escapes and Classified sections along with all advertising inserts.
The main, local and sports sections of Sunday's paper will be delivered with Monday's paper. The Sunday Star will not be available at news stands.
We would like to remind readers they can find all of the Sunday Star online at venturacountystar.com, and we will continuously update the website with the latest news throughout the day.
In addition to our printing problems, The Star's phone system has been unable to handle the volume of calls. We apologize for the inconvenience to our readers and advertising customers.
Joe R. Howry
Editor
Ventura County Star
I bet it's been a really fun day at the Star. I'm a bit disappointed though.
They've still got a functioning web site to publish a real ongoing story about their problems and they didn't use it. I was guessing that it might have something to do water main break in Ventura (water is pretty important to the printing process from what I recall) but no word was forthcoming.
Mr. Howry is an advocate of open records for public agencies and has criticized Elton Gallegly in the past for not talking to the Star, positions I certainly support. I'm not convinced he sees his paper in quite the same light, which is odd given its position as a trusted messenger.
Earlier this month the Star was caught in controversy when the Editor & Publisher was first to report a story about ethics violations by Managing Editor Richard Luna. I had hoped they might have learned something from that process.
They really need to sort this problem out and figure out how they're going to communicate information about the paper (and the area they cover) that can't find room in the paper. Heck, there's a dormant weblog by assistant managing editor John Moore that would have been perfect for this kind of story.
