The pure psycho Sarah! created a void when she found that the totally befuddled Republican

"Party" (serious, now: how far away from a party can you get?) adored her, grew too big for a mere governor's job (think: there are only 50 in the nation) that she abdicated that elected duty after only two and a half years. She took with her the title of "Most repugnant and repulsive slaughterer of useful and harmless wild life on the planet".

Into the gap jumps this buttbrain:

"Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer Brags About Buffalo Slaughter".

You can read it all at www.bfc-media@wildrockies.org but see if you can stomach this:

"No governor in Montana history has sent more bison to slaughter than this governor," Schweitzer said.
Okay, I need Murine to get the red out, but I'm not retyping.

I got an e-mail said, in part, Muslin gynecologists can't look at mommy parts, but must examine such with a mirror.

Be a good job for PeeWee Herman. Remember when he (Paul Rubens) got arrested in a Miami jackatorium - XXX theatre- loping his mule? How could anyone have been the least bit surprised? He hosted a kids show with mirrors on his shoes. How in hell does that happen?

By the way, has internet porn put all those sticky floor movie rooms out of business?

When I was at Pearson Mill SRA recently I heard a loud commotion I was sure were turkeys. Mississinewa Lake has hundreds, a very successful reintroduction program. But it was a flock of ducks, quite belatedly heading south for open water. I consulted my duck book (okay, I don't really have a duck book, but I do have about a dozen bird field guides, all with ducks and geese, so I put on a dust mask and actually opened one) and found the only duck listed with a suitable range of calls is the male mallard. The female just quacks.

I have no idea what all the racket was about, unless they were all bitching at whoever's idea it was to stay this far north this late, or cussing some slackers who were skipping their turns on point, hanging back in the draft.

The woods didn't allow much view - I heard them before and after I saw them - but it's worth your while to observe a flight long enough to see the vee roll out and re-form, as the leaders peel back for a bit of rest. Is there a duck school teaches that?

I was carping about all the women shortchanged of recognition for their contributions to the sciences, like Rosiland Franklin. One who received due recognition was Marie Curie (nee Skłodowska - she was Polish, not French). She coined "radioactivity", a field of study which modernized (and terrorized) the world. She also discovered radium and polonium (named after her birthplace).

She was decorated with the French Legion of Honor. She received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, the first woman to be awarded a Nobel. In 1911 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, the first person to merit two Nobel Prizes.

Madame Curie paid the price for working with radioactive materials. One cannot imagine the pain that accompanied her lingering, last years.

Less compensated were the thousands of young women who painted radium numerals on watch faces to "glow in the dark". Four hundred or so "Radium Girls" employed by a contractor for the US Army were told the stuff was harmless. So they painted the watches, painted their fingernails, even their teeth. But the killer was the very small numbers that required a very fine brush. The women were constantly wetting the camel hair with their lips to firm it up for each application.

The "Radium Girls" are famous because they brought a lawsuit, and won. There were thousands of others with the same job - notably, with Timex - who also sickened and died.

Sad story, but repeated lately by W. R. Grace who mined vermiculite, an asbestos product with an insidious, unfilterable crystal structure, notably in Libby, Montana, and continually reassured workers, saying the stuff was harmless. Now about the whole town has incurable lung diseases.

And what happened to W R Grace? Well, Mr. Grace is on sit-down-to supper terms with the Bush family, particularly Herbert Walker (41), so, essentially, nothing. Billions buys better lawyers than yours. And judges, too, with G H W Bush on your team. And Jr. (43) never rocked that boat.

And speaking of billions, the US has spent all of that removing asbestos from schools, hospitals, and other public buildings. But asbestos is still for sale. In every form. Whether your house was built 50 years ago or yesterday, there is asbestos in it. Some, or a lot, but unless you paid to have it removed, you still got it.

Why?
Why, indeed.