Are Mothers the Worst Drivers?

Remember a few years ago when Britney Spears was internationally maligned for driving with her baby son on her lap?

Imagine if she was breast feeding , talking on a cell phone time and touching up her makeup at the same.

Recently a 39 year old women was stopped by police for doing just that, (actually not sure she was doing her makeup) and has been charged with a first-degree misdemeanor of child endangering and minor misdemeanor for unlawfully restraining her child, who was reportedly younger than 2.

The women said that she had decided to feed her daughter while driving because she “does not deprive her child when she is hungry.”

A registered nurse and lactation consultant for Kettering Medical Center, responded to that by saying that it would have been in the best interest of the child if she had pulled over. "She should have put her baby first, and not put the baby in an unsafe situation. She should have been in her car seat."

"If the baby is not strapped in, that could cause terrible head injury," she said. "I don't have anything against breast feeding, but there has to be a better place to do it. (How about at the local shopping mall, where it seems to be some sort of fad).

Of course this story does not prove that women are worse drivers than men, but only proves that this particular women is an idiot. However research has shown that many women with children take unnecessary risks while driving to attend to them, which is the opposite of what they should be doing.

So this activity doesn’t speak to whether mothers are the worst drivers skill wise...but perhaps judgement wise. Your average Dad driver could care less if the kids are crying in the back seat...he has already learned to filter all that out. But mother’s have the instinct thing driving them to put the kids happiness ahead of the need to drive safely.

Lest you think I am picking on women in this piece, I just ran across a new study from England that showed women and gay men are likely to be the worst drivers. The research has revealed that both perform poorly in tasks involving navigation and spatial awareness when compared to heterosexual men.

Psychologists at Queen Mary, University of London, who conducted the study, believe their findings show that driving in a strange environment would be more difficult for gay men and women than for straight male motorists. Both tend to rely on local landmarks to get around, and are also slower to take in spatial information.

"Straight Men are good at using distal, or geometrical cues, to decide if they’re going north or south, for instance. They have a better basic sense of direction, but they can use local land marks as well. "Driving in a novel environment which is poor in cues is where these differences are likely to show up most. "Women and gay men are going to take a lot longer to reach their destination, making more errors, taking wrong turns etc. They need more rich local landmarks." (Like Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales, and Whole Foods).

Wow, I guess the good news about this research is that very few if any of the gay men I know will be tempted to breast feed while driving. Further, one of my favorite writers, David Sedaris, a Raleigh native, and gay, says he never drives because he is no good at it. But I digress...

In search of more proof that mothers are the worst drivers I looked at some actual crash statistics from Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Public Health showing that female drivers are involved in slightly more crashes than men.

Although men are three times more likely than women to be killed in car crashes, researchers have found that, when the total numbers of crashes are considered, female drivers are involved in slightly more crashes than men. Overall, men were involved in 5.1 crashes per million miles

driven compared to 5.7 crashes for women, despite the fact that on average they drove 74 percent more miles per year than did women. BUT, since the men drove 74% more miles than the women, their raw number of accidents are higher than that of the women.

Now this is where it gets interesting. The statistics show that although teenage boys started off badly, with about 20 percent more crashes per mile driven than teenage girls, males and females between ages 20 and 35 were equally at risk of being involved in a crash, and after age 35 female drivers were at greater risk of a crash than their male counterparts, which is precisely the prime age of mothers with kids.

Is this the smoking gun? (or the slightly damp nursing bra?) Not sure, but it is sort of intuitive that breast feeding, talking on the phone and fussing with your make up when driving is just not a good idea and anyone doing that is going to be in more accidents, no matter what their sex or sexual persuasion might be.

BTW the statistics show that men are more likely to drive while intoxicated, not use a seatbelt, and exceed the speed limit. Duh

Elephants Gone Wild

Kitty and I recently were paid a visit by our close mutual friend, David Beattie who is a safari guide based in Zimbabwe, Africa. Of the many stories he told us of his last year in the wilds was one about his good friend being killed by an elephant. The details of the mauling were disturbing enough, but according to him and as confirmed by a simple search of the news, elephants have sort of gone wild all over the world as of late...even in zoo environments.

As to why this has been happening, David put forth the theory that many of these mad elephants are essentially teenagers without adult supervision. He says that legal campaigns to separate elephant children from their parents have taken place world wide such that many elephants are orphans. (a truly frightening thought in the human world.) Even worse, since an elephant remembers just about everything...they are very upset at humans for having taken their parents. Sure enough, elephant researchers worldwide have come to similar conclusions.

Imagine a gang of teenagers, each weighing nearly 7 tons rampaging through the streets after a keg party goes bad. (Elephants actually do get drunk by eating fruit that has fermented on the ground and raiding stores of liquor and beer.) These wild eyed teen elephants are crushing cars, stomping innocent bystanders and and knocking houses down...literally. Since we don’t have wild herds of elephants in this country, the only thing that compares would be scenes in movies when aliens, (War of the Worlds) large apes, (like King Kong) or monstrous marshmallow men (Ghost Busters) reek havoc on Manhattan. Although exaggerated for the movies, this is the kind of fear and destruction these teen pachyderms can spread.

Fortunately it doesn’t take a battalion of National Guard to stop them. According to several elephant researchers, the only thing that works is “their mothers and their aunties” Heard that before boys?

According to one researcher: “Elephants are social creatures with defined roles for everyone in the herd. The herd is matriarchal, dominated by mothers and aunties. When the male babies grow to adolescence, they are kicked out of the herd, leaving their sisters and mother behind. Like most teenagers, they are relatively harmless, ripping up bushes and pushing down trees as a way of showing off to one another. But occasionally one of them will go rogue. Some social gene in their brain fails to kick in and they run amok, creating havoc.” (which has been proven to happen in the human teenager as well.)

“The usual remedy for a rogue elephant is to shoot it. (they do that to human teenagers frequently in the larger metro areas). Left to their own devices, they'll destroy things and corrupt their peers. One creative solution for a bachelor herd that has been corrupted by a rogue is to bus in an elephant mother. Inevitably, the mother reestablishes order in the herd.”

As another researcher stated: “As I reflect on the state of the American teenager hanging out in herds that roam our nation's malls and sneer at their elders, it seems to me that a good solution might be to parachute in a few mothers to reestablish order.”

Hmm...makes me wonder...is this the same effect that has most football players greeting their Mom when put on camera? If hockey referees were matronly women, would there be the nightly display of violence that sport is known for? Do the mothers of rowdy boys hold the key to world peace? But I digress.

One thing is for sure...if you watch videos of teen elephants gone wild, you will understand the severity of the problem. All one has to do is Google “elephants gone wild” and you will be met with links to some of the most gruesome videos of any kind you will ever see. Elephants killing people and destroying property might be even worse than being hit by an alien death ray or being tossed like a rag doll by King Kong. These elephants don’t know when to quit. I have put a few of these links up for you viewing pleasure (not), but be forewarned, this is not for the faint of heart. Elephant kills man. Elephants kill many men and tear up buildings.

Why are elephants responding to all this human interaction and abuse in such a violent way? Perhaps they have no alternative. We treat them like cattle and swine yet with a mass of over 11 pounds elephant brains are larger than those of any other land animal, and although the largest whales have body masses twentyfold those of a typical elephant, whale brains are barely twice the mass of an elephant's. A wide variety of behaviors, including those associated with grief, making music, art, altruism, play, use of tools,compassion and self awareness evidence a highly intelligent species on par with the smartest primates. (the category humans belong).

As humans continue to kill the elephants parents and take away their habitat, perhaps they should remember the immortal words of Peter Finch in the film “Network”, when he proclaimed “we are human beings (in this case, elephants) and we are mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”.

When you think about it, humans send our teenagers to fight our wars....maybe that’s what the elephants are doing.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Coming to your dining room soon, interesting and important people from the past for the perfect dinner party.  You can be the envy of the local social scene by entertaining dead presidents, prophets, philosophers and musicians in the comfort of your own home. Sounds like something from Star Trek, HG Wells or CNN, (remember Wolf Blitzer talking to the ghostly Campbell Brown on Election Night?), but it is coming soon.

A US technology company,  Infosys Technologies has been granted two patents in the areas of holography communications that contain the development plans behind an actual 3-D communication method using computer-generated holography such that we shall all be viewing true 3D videos and playing holographic games in about two years time.

By 2010, the devices will routinely beam 3D films, games, and virtual goods into our laps and our dinning rooms.  Combine these new visual capabilities with the amazing interactive capabilities that exist in contemporary computer games and you are able to put yourself in the game, or in the case of your dining room, project the players into your Victorian cherry wood chairs.  

Combine all this together with a giant interconnected database of historic figures and their works through services like Wikipedia and just like that,  you are having some very interesting people coming to dinner.

It has always been interesting conversation to speculate on the perfect dinner party guest list.  You want to perfect mix of intellectual, philosophical, artistic and religious individuals, such that the conversation can be spirited and entertaining...without someone getting hurt. (The good news about holographic images is that they can shoot each other in anger and its all in fun.)

Being both a cook and a gadget freak, I am already planning some of my initial dinner parties.  I thought it would be interesting to invite not only interesting dead people, but at least one other live person, (other than my wife, Kitty, my kids and me) to join in for a contemporary viewpoint and for historical perspective.  I submit these for your feedback (and to elicit envy).

Guest lists for parties in order they would be held.  

1. Jesus, Adam and Eve, Moses, Buddha,  Muhammad, John Smith, Jim Jones, Pat Robertson

2.  Mark Twain, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Malcolm X, Attila the Hun, Sean Hannity 

3.  Anais Nin, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Henry Miller, Bob Guccione,  Sarah Palin

4.  Simone De Beauvoir, Ernest Hemingway,, Henri David Thoreau, Shakespeare, David Sedarus 

5. Nostradamus, Herbert Hoover, John Maynard Keynes, Jules Verne, Alan Greenspan

6. Keirkegard, Socrates, Jean Paul Sartre, Lao Tzu, Neitzsche, Bill O-Reilly 

7. Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, Pavlov, Abraham Maslow,  Martha Stewart

8.  Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Barrack Obama 

9.  Karl Marx , Frederick Engels, Jesse Helms, Tiny Tim, Rush Limbaugh

10.  Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Darwin, Galileo, The Pope

11.  Mozart, Beethoven, Bob Marley,  Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, Brittany Spears

12.  Johnny Unitas, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson,  YA Tittle, Michael Phelps

13.  Frankenstein, Helen Keller, Barney, Moe (from the Three Stooges), Gary Busey  

14.  King Solomon, Sadam Hussein, Hitler, Stalin, PeeWee Herman

15.  Marylin Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Junior, Kid Rock

  16. Lewis and Clark, Sacagewea, Sir Edmond Hillary, Ferdinand Magellan, Lou Dobbs 

Of course the problem would be what to serve.  Many people on this list have never seen sushi, lettuce wraps, southern style barbeque, or even a Big Mac.  As interesting a problem as this is, the reality of the situation would be that your guests might appear to be eating, but since they are electronic the food would just sit there and get cold.  Wouldn’t want to waste a great crab cake on a holograph...I don’t care how smart or famous they are.

If any of you have some good guest list ideas...email them to Kitty and she’ll start the inviting.  And remember, even though polite conversation in the South does not include religion and politics, in this case it is encouraged.   Bonn Appetit!

Bad Vitamins...Bad Cola

I am sure some of you will think what you are about to read is bad news, since it is all bad news these days.  But this is good news...the hundreds or thousands of dollars you have been spending on vitamins, vitamin infused drinks, and diet soft drinks are a total waste of money and are probably bad for your health.  Now you can save all that money and be healthier at the same time.  How often does that happen?

Yep, the jury is in on man made vitamins.  They don’t do anything that they claim to.

After numerous studies by different research entities on tens of thousands of people, health scientists have concluded that ““Consumers spend money on dietary substances with the thought that they are going to improve their health, but there’s no evidence for this,”  “Buying more fruits and vegetables might be a better choice.”  

And the good news, they are much cheaper than bottles of vitamins.  The tens of billions spent on these products are totally wasted....you might as well be taking sugar pills or placebos. (There is one exception, according to my friend Betsy and my friend Dr.  Pepper, (ironically that is his real name) pure fish oil capsules are full of natural Omega-3, which is really good for you.)

So now, the so called vitamin waters and Diet Sodas spiked with vitamins come under the microscope.  The assumption must be made that they too, are a monstrous waste of money.  Give the people in the marketing departments of the companies that make these beverages credit....they were working with what they had.  But I think they need to find another way to sell water and soda.

This is where I sort of get wound up.  According to Coke's CEO E. Neville Isdell "Diet and light brands are actually health and wellness brands,".  He was referring to a product called Diet Coke Plus, which is Diet Coke plus a few vitamins. (I think this is the guy that also said that all those plastic water bottles piling up in the oceans and landfills are biodegradable....”they will have completely disappeared in 5 thousand years”)

Let’s deconstruct a “heathy” Diet Coke.  This popular drink (which we refer to as “Brown Drool” in our family)  consists of artificially blackened water tinged with synthetic chemicals. Here are its ingredients  from most prevalent to least: carbonated water, caramel color, aspartame, phosphoric acid, potassium benzoate (to protect taste), natural flavors, citric acid; and caffeine.

To protect taste? What are people supposed to be tasting? Oh right, there it is: "natural flavors." Diet Coke contains more of the chemical designed to protect said flavors than the flavors themselves. (BTW, the "natural flavors" are the part that are secret and some swear contain addictive substances.....the only way to explain the constant consumption by many people).

In essense Diet Coke is a nutritional void. Human bodies evolved to make use of a variety of foods, but I doubt isolated versions of phosphoric acid, etc., are among them. And aspartame, aka Nutrasweet, may cause active damage.

Even worse, the “diet” in Diet Coke is a sham. Multiple studies have shown that people who drink diet soft drinks don't lose weight. In fact, they gain weight.

Some of the findings come from eight years of data collected by the University of Texas Health Science Center and were reported at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association.

According to the report, "What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity,"  "What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher."

In fact, when the researchers took a closer look at their data, they found that nearly all the obesity risk from soft drinks came from diet sodas.

"There was a 41% increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day,”

For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

• 26% for up to 1/2 can each day

• 30.4% for 1/2 to one can each day

• 32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day

• 47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.

For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

• 36.5% for up to 1/2 can each day

• 37.5% for 1/2 to one can each day

• 54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day

• 57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.

For each can of diet soft drink consumed each day, a person's risk of obesity went up 41%. 

What is the lesson here?  If you are going to put something in your body, make sure it is real beverage and food, not some sort of elixir or food-like substance cooked up by the marketing department at a beverage or processed food conglomerate.  They cannot come up with anything that is near as good as the real thing.  (The exception may be the newest drink in India made from cow urine.)

Indeed, to look at the chemical composition of any common food plant is to realize just how much complexity lurks within it. 

Here’s a list of just the antioxidants that have been identified in garden-variety thyme: Some of these chemicals are broken down by your digestion, but others are going on to do undetermined things to your body: turning some gene’s expression on or off, perhaps, or heading off a free radical before it disturbs a strand of DNA deep in some cell-Terpineol, alanine, anethole, apigenin, ascorbic acid, beta carotene, caffeic acid, camphene, carvacrol, chlorogenic acid, chrysoeriol, eriodictyol, eugenol, ferulic acid, gallic acid, gamma-terpinene isochlorogenic acid, isoeugenol, isothymonin, kaempferol, labiatic acid, lauric acid, linalyl acetate, luteolin, methionine, myrcene, myristic acid, naringenin, oleanolic acid, p-coumoric acid, p-hydroxy-benzoic acid, palmitic acid, rosmarinic acid, selenium, tannin, thymol, tryptophan, ursolic acid, vanillic acid.

I don’t know what any of that stuff is, but it all works together in mysterious and wonderful ways that are not fully understood by nutritionists and the marketing people at Shaklee or PepsiCo.   So, to stay healthy, and keep some extra money in your wallet, go straight to the fruit, vegetable, and natural juice sections of your local store and avoid the soft drink, snack and frozen food sections if you can.  Your body and bank account will love you for it.  

Tips for Woman Over 40 Looking for a Man

I have been losing a lot of sleep lately worrying about all the 40 plus year old women that I know that are looking for a new man in their lives. Kitty Kinnin, who tells me she just turned 40 after being 39 for an unspecified number of years says that there are a lot of women in this situation. She tells me that women at 40 are still in the prime of their dating/relationship lives and finding the right man is still high on their list of priorities.

It is sort of conventional wisdom, (at least with men) that for some reason women in this age bracket are at the height of the their sexual desire. While no one really knows for sure if this is truly the case or why, there is sort of a Darwinian explanation for the phenomenon that goes like this. When men are young, (teenage through 40) they are essentially sex crazed. One statistic says that guys in this age group think about sex about every ten seconds.

This level of desire in young men is connected to the human's innate need to reproduce and propagate the species. The conventional wisdom goes on to say that with this much sexual energy being focused on the male of the species, the females can be more choosy and laid back about their choices, again for the benefit of the species. (supposedly, a picky female guarantees that only the men with the best traits to pass on to future generations will get the right to reproduce. These important Darwinian decisions are usually made after 10 Bud Lites in a smokey bar.)

So when a women reaches 40 she starts to notice that men aren’t quite as interested as they used to be. Most women get down on themselves about it, thinking they don’t look as good as they used to. This is plain wrong...just look at Jennifer Anniston, and all her 40 year old friends. The reason that men don't seem as interested as they used to be is that they are thinking about sex every 5 minutes, instead of every 10 seconds. This doesn't seem like a big difference, but it is. It means that the male has more time to think about sports, beer, his car, his job and his children....in that order.

So the Darwinian theory says that women have to pick up the sexual slack to make sure the species survives. This explains a lot of 40 year old female behavior and the development of a brand new type of female called "the Cougar". More on that in another rant.

So Kitty sent me over a list of things that a women over 40 needs to pay attention to when looking for a man. I have posted the list here.

The list is long and detailed, so I will not get into it here. Guys...it has some surprising components that mostly have to do with how we dress, our personal hygiene and what we do for a living. There are also some traits that are admired, such as unconditional love, tolerance of animals, (especially in the bed) and taste in baubles. Thankfully, looks are barely on the list.

Girls...study the list, then like Kitty did, redact as much of it as you can. Darwin would say that this list artificially interferes with natural selection and the evolution of the species. However, the counter argument is that any guys that don't meet at least half these criteria should not be allowed to breed anyway.

Fear of Christmas

With the holiday gift giving season upon us, most men start to feel a tightening of the chest and a moistening of the palms as they contemplate what to give their significant others. We are absolutely terrified of this chore (sorry…labor of love). Every man has experienced at least once, if not repeatedly, the wrath of a female who has been inappropriately gifted.

Men just naturally believe that a great gift does something valuable, has a practical purpose, and maybe creates the opportunity to enjoy a hobby or pastime together. Gifts in this category are kitchen and lawn items, bikes, skis, surf boards or scuba equipment. Obviously, these are gifts we would like to receive as well.

Kitty tells me that women want gifts that make them “feel” special. In other words they want stuff that shines, and has no purpose, (other than produce profits for jewelry stores and inhumane African diamond mine operators).

This desire, according to female logic, makes gift giving even easier, since all you have to do is visit a jewelry store with lots of credit left on your card and trust the judgment of the sales person, because you haven’t got a clue what is good or bad, although you somehow know the more expensive the bobble, the better.

The chain store J.C. Penny recently highlighted what happens when you misgift in a video called the “The Doghouse” which is where you are banished to in the certain event that you will screw up.

This video is supposed to be funny, but is mostly a horror film for men. It dramatically reinforces the jewelry/bobble myth, and promotes actually going into the J.C Penny jewelry department to purchase said items. (The only thing redeeming about this is that you can buy yourself an eight dollar digital watch that keeps time in 4 time zones and tells you whether its high tide or not. Now there is a good gift!)

So assuming you will probably make a mistake, and you will probably end up in the proverbial doghouse as a result, how do you recover without having to go Jac Penne’s. ? How do you extract yourself from the doghouse in time to enjoy Christmas turkey and booze, without feeling like you are a prisoner on work release?

I found a website that purports to have the solutions.

The article starts with what seems to be the best and most logical way to deal with the problem. “Sit her down. Explain what happened. Apologize”. The author then explains why logic and good sense never works in these situations and provides ten ways to get out of the dog house with specific instructions on each methodology. The broad categories of strategy include:

1. A major ass kissing session
2. Flowers
3. Gifts (ironically) of the appropriate kind presumably from Penny’s
4. Poetry (you can find some on the Internet)
5. Food
6. Social sacrifice (this one involves not doing something with the guys that you really want to do and doing something with her like going to the Penny’s jewelry department, which you really do not want to do)
7. Sexual favors and/or cuddly affection.
8. Clean the house (this one has its own traps however, since there is no way you can do it right)
9. Public humiliation (they recommend that you tell everyone what a jerk you are in your Facebook profile)
10. Ten lashings. (whatever)

The best way to avoid all of this of course is to make damn sure that you gift her properly.

Remember the sage words of Jack Nicholson when asked how he can identify with women so well. “I think about a man, and I take away reason and accountability.” When buying a gift, make sure there is absolutely no reason for it to exist other than it is a thing that has no reason to exist and because it has no purpose or practical use, it provides no accountability.

According to Jack, it works every time. Happy Holidays!

The Great Squirrel Recession

The economy is pretty bad now for humans around here, with some people calling this deep recession the new Great Depression. Well, now even the squirrels are hitting hard times due to a dramatic shortage of acorns. From Virginia to Pennsylvania to New York to the Midwest, naturalists are reporting a startling loss of acorns, according to the Washington Post.

People are reporting, that even on their own properties, oak trees that were dropping acorns like crazy last year are bare this year. According to experts, the squirrels are at risk of starving this winter due to this shortage.

Without their normal foodstuff, squirrels are on the rampage, according to the story. Calls have come in to animal control offices reporting “crazy squirrels” that are “eating garbage, inhaling bird feed (and) greedily demolishing pumpkins.”

“Let’s hope it’s not something ghastly going on with the natural world,” said one naturalist.

Wow…this appears to be serious stuff…especially since Raleigh is known as “The City of Oaks” and the symbol for the town is a giant acorn that drops from sort of a contrived oak tree to mark the beginning of the New Year.

I have always believed that the squirrel, by way of their dependence on acorns and sheer population in this area should have some official status as either Raleigh’s animal ambassador or worst pest. (This is a real dilemma…The River’s program manager, Brian Taylor tells me that squirrels are just tree rats with a good PR firm…and he knows about these sorts of things.)

Some quick ideas from said PR firm: “Raleigh, Where the Squirrels are Fat”. “Raleigh, Land of Happy Squirrels” or better yet, “Raleigh, Where the Dogs are Always Entertained”. (This last one works for me since I have always believed that the common yard squirrel was placed here solely to give dogs something to occupy their time and thoughts.)

I did some looking around to see if any organizations that are concerned with squirrels had any insights into the squirrel recession. Instead, I found mostly organizations that wish the worst for squirrels. Besides wanting to eradicate them, some of these groups, such as the Anti Squirrel Coalition believe that squirrels “are satanic, non-American, non-apple pie loving, non-smoking, communist tree rats!”

The ASC believes that squirrels “deliberately try to make drivers crash their vehicles by suddenly running across the street. Most people slam on the breaks and/or swerve their car erratically in such scenarios. It's a natural reaction and Squirrels know and exploit this, especially on wet or frozen roads.”

The ASC believes you should ask yourself the following questions when confronting a squirrel on the road: 'Is avoiding a squirrel who is running across the highway worth swerving to avoid and in the process dying in a fireball explosion as my car skids off the pavement and plummets into a 2000 foot deep chasm of doom?' This is the same group that says that the reason that the proverbial chicken crossed the road was to show squirrels (and humans) it could be done successfully, thus proving that squirrels are screwing it up on purpose.

Anyway, back to this claim that squirrels are satanic. My mother-in-law, who is deeply religious, spends most of her free time sewing and doing wonderful arts and crafts. Her other pursuit is killing squirrels in her back yard with a pellet rifle. She absolutely hates them.

According to the biblical expert Tim Rowland, the Bible contains a possible clue. It is written: “And thoust shall knowest it is the end of days when thine acorns driest up from thine mightiest oak and thine squirrels shall freakest out.”

So maybe this whole acorn shortage is some sort of biblical event. Or perhaps it’s just nature’s way of saying that the squirrel population is out of balance. You know people used to eat a lot of squirrel. In fact the original “Brunswick Stew” that you can get at almost any barbecue restaurant was made with squirrel. (Now they use chicken, which taste like squirrel…which begs the question: What came first? “Squirrel tastes like chicken” or “chicken tastes like squirrel”.

We actually served squirrel pizza at a recent party….and everyone loved it. (Of course they didn’t know it was squirrel). Quick recipe: skin the squirrel, remove head and boil whole for at least an hour. Then strip the squirrel meet off the bones and dice into small pieces. Then sauté the squirrel in olive oil, fresh garlic, red pepper flakes and salt to taste. Spread the meat thinly over a store bought frozen three cheese pizza and cooked until bubbly. Bonn appetite!