Rattlesnake Trough
Symmetry
O for 41
By Stephen L. Wilmeth
Who
controlled the past controls the future
By all
rights, I should have been snake bit Friday. At the end of miles of new
pipeline, the last water trough was almost finished. The last touches including
the new, visually correct agency color scheme and the ramp to rescue the least
adept of the fowl nation were about to be addressed. Under the weight of the
ramp and responding to the help that should have been packing the thing, I had
braced myself against the trough as the expanded metal contraption was
positioned and fitted.
“No, put
it over the lift ring”, was the instruction. “That’s where it is supposed to
fit.”
Something just wasn’t right,
though. That something turned out to be that snake coiled against the cool side
of that freshly filled trough that I had stepped on as I balanced myself under
the load and lowered the ramp into the water.
“Yeow!”
Simultaneously, I jumped and threw
that ramp as far as I could in the neuron flash interpretation of that line of
sight discovery.
“San Antonio (at least that would
be Luke’s interpretation of the actual involuntary snake speak response)!” was
the drawn-out reflex.
“Did it strike you?” was the
first question from the peanut gallery.
“I don’t
think so,” was the first, albeit unsure continuation. “Golllee, I was right on
him!”
“Give me
my dang shovel!”
0 for
41
Who
controls the present controls the past
My
brother sent the combined phraseology to me. It was from George Orwell. It is
profound. Begrudgingly, it is likely true.
Amid all the continuing doomsday forecasting
of what became global warming in earnest in 2008 when that climate professor of
the ages, Al Gore, predicted an ice-free Arctic by 2013, the accuracy rate of
the green left is abysmal. In fact, it is impossible to verify even a single
prediction has come to pass since 1967 when some character predicted famines by
1975.
At that
time, the looming seminal event was to be an ice age rather than sunbathing on
the coastline of the Arctic Ocean. The coming cold was going to be a fuel
burner beyond all expectations. The peanut farmer, the one who managed the
scheduled use of the royal tennis court from the office of Air Force One, even
predicted all oil reserves would be depleted by 1992.
A 1976 consensus amongst the
democratic state of science concluded our troubled
planet earth was cooling like the contents of a Canadian
goose bowel movement emptied out at 30,000 feet. The Gore syndrome, however,
was hitting its stride by 1988 when the mercury trend models were starting to
go the other direction and the dire expectation of scalding temperatures were
going to impact DC’s future. In fact, the mercurial rise was so intense the
Maldives were going to be underwater by 2018, and, oops (missed the sequence
here) rising tides were going to obliterate nations if nothing was done by 2000.
For heaven’s sake, children were
not even going to know what snow was by 2000!
By then,
the anti-protein crowd was also starting to vape warning that if we didn’t
release the fish on our stringers, shoot the cows, and switch to tofu from
dairy products famines were going to kill the remaining settlers by 2012. In
2004, there was a miscue predicting London would join the likes of Siberia for
winter sledding by 2024 only to be updated by the Prince Charles’ 2009
declaration that elite thinkers only had 96 months to save the world from the Atacama
heat.
Then, of
course, the swarms of killer bees were going to be streaming north trying to
find a cool place to live as they killed the children in their path of flight.
It was all enough to give an old drag queen a splitting headache.
We’ve
got to remember all of these predictions were brought to us by individuals
holding respected positions in government and science, both counter bastions of
democracy, and a media not just enthusiastic for a sensational headline, but
reliant on a ready and authoritative archival collection of charlatans for learned
references and exclusive scoops.
For the
record, all 41 (some are now saying 42 with the emergence of the Gore child prodigy
from Sweden) of the top shelf scientific predictions missed the mark completely,
and don’t forget … we are expected to believe this continuing crap is for real.
Symmetry
In a
touch of epic symmetry, the underwriters of all this nonsense, we the taxpayers
who financed the existence of the first of the indefensible prognosticators,
are expected to continue to finance their likeminded scion. The irony is there
will be no plaque or marker applied to our graves in memory of our regulatory
and fiscal sacrifice for the nation and world we served for the cause of
liberty and justice. We will, however, have a fairly good sense of the ruthless
and dangerous enemy that we serve in our bonded servitude.
At this
point, there is certainly no cause célèbre for a more rational outcome. On the
contrary Das dicke Ende kommt noch (the worst is (likely) yet to come).
We are spiraling toward our own Armageddon.
That
leaves every one of us standing on a rattlesnake.
In our
treeless desert habitat, that outcome has consequences. Other areas and natural
habitats may be different, but there is no sanctity of a seamless cleanup
process in what we have allowed to be created. Shedding soiled undergarments is
rather unflattering and humbling experience, but that is exactly what
Washington really needs.
The
orchestrated destruction of segments of any population has consequences and
lingering effects. Our country was created by a wondrous collision of events,
resources, and circumstances.
Let’s just see if it is all
worth defending.
Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New
Mexico. “Reconsider the Orwell statement in the context of any era. The
consequences are too real to imagine.”
There was a draw than ran through town (Corona, NM), under the underpass and onto my Uncle Archie Perkins place. After a good rain or two, my cousin, Rand Perkins, and I would have to saddle our horses, grab a hoe, and work that draw by chopping down all the jimson weed and cockle burs. We would chop, ride our horses until we found more, dismount and chop away.
I believe I was in junior high at the time, and I really disliked this annual or semi-annual chore. On this particular occasion we must have been running a little late, because most of the plants were a foot to 18 inches high. I was thoroughly bored, walking along, leading my horse when I felt it. Something was squirming under my boot. Now I wasn't absolutely, 100 percent sure that was a snake, but that made no difference. I was considered to be an excellent high-jumper in school, but I broke all personal records that day. When I returned to earth and my mind finally settled, I had to retrieve my hoe from where I had pitched it. In my leap to safety, I had apparently spooked my horse, but Rand quickly gathered him up. I also recall the vengeful joy experienced in chopping that snakes' head off.
Is there a connection between serpents and enviro predictions? Yep, the latter are pure snake oil.
--Frank DuBois
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