ODDBALL STUFF!

"Curing" the Meat Problem

In 1910 there was a meat shortage in the U.S., and some forward thinkers (including Teddy Roosevelt) came up with a novel solution.  They would bring young African hippopotamuses (hippopotami?) to Louisiana and let them loose in the swamps.

Without predators, these creatures would quickly propagate and could be farmed; thus providing necessary protein to meat-starved Americans.

Among several problems with this idea, was the one that caused the plan to die.  That was the problem that Americans would be averse to eating hippo meat.

Jon Mooallem has written an interesting book about this situation.  It's called American Hippopotamus.

COVID

The United States lost almost one million people caused by the pandemic up to 2021.

Russia lost almost 800,000 people caused by the pandemic up to 2021.

Russia has a population of 145 million.

The U.S. has a population of 332 million.

You do the math.

Mascots

Our barracks had a couple of mascots when I was stationed on a mountain top in Germany.

This was Herman.

This was Donald.

Where are they now?

Back in 2017, Betina Rodriguez Aguilera, Republican Congressional candidate from Miami, claimed she was abducted by aliens when she was seven years old.

She said the aliens were tall and blond and their spaceship was powered by quartz rocks.

(Aguilera is derived from Latin and means "place of eagles." Is that where they took her?)

In 2010, Iowa Dentist James Knight fired his dental hygienist, Melissa Nelson because she was "too attractive."  Apparently. her clothing was too distracting.

The employee said that this was discrimination and filed suit. The all-male Iowa Supreme Court agreed with a lower court ruling that "an employee may be lawfully terminated simply because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction."

Nelson's lawyer said, "A decision like this is possible only when the decision-makers have been sheltered from the day-to-day reality of what it is like to be a woman working outside her home in America."

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