Dogs are not frogs.

My wife drew my attention to something she came across while shopping for stuff for the dogs. 

Jiminy's is a brand of dog products that makes its food out of crickets. "Cricket Crave" is not a joke. It is made from crickets, as well as oats and sweet potatoes and the inevitable quinoa. But the main protein is good ol' bugs.

I have a few thoughts on this, which I would like to share with you today.

1) Yuck.

2) This crap is expensive as hell: $21.95 for a three-pound bag. Double that price and you can get a 33-pound bag of dog food from most decent brands. You know, ones made out of meat.

3) Why do these kind of people always want us to eat bugs? This is the thin end of the wedge; if they can get us thinking the dogs like it, maybe we'll want to eat some bugs, too. 

4) And they really do want us to eat bugs, you know. CRIC, the Costa Rica Insect Company, gives us five reasons why insects are the food of the future, which I dispute thusly:

    Insects can be used for different purposes -- To which I note they already are, like food coloring, and I don't need to eat them to help them be used other ways.

    Insects have great nutritional qualities -- So does Soylent Green.

    Insects taste great -- Ask any toad.
    Insects are sustainable -- Even Vox had doubts about that; maybe if you just go around and eat whatever is in your yard, it would be sustainable. But factory-raising bugs may not be.  

    The consumption of insects is growing -- So is the number of Cardi B fans; don't try to bandwagon me, child.

5) The left-wing Guardian newspaper tells us, "If we want to save the planet, the future of food is insects." Are there any things so disgusting that we would be allowed to not do if the planet itself is at stake? "If we want to save the planet, we need to kill the feeble and everyone over 70." "If we want to save the planet, we must destroy Western civilization." "If we want to save the planet, we must all kill ourselves." Well, if it means saving the planet, then...

6) I am not feeding my dogs bugs. Dogs are not frogs. When little Nipper was a very young puppy he ate an ant out of curiosity and did not like it. I'm not doing this to them. I wouldn't if they were giving Jiminy's food away.

7) I was not the kind of kid that would eat a bug for a dollar in school, and I'm not going to pay to eat them now. Let Andrew Zimmern go eat all the bugs he wants; he gets paid a lot more than a dollar to do it. Even the kid from How to Eat Fried Worms was doing it to win a $50 bet, which was a good amount of dough when the book was published in 1973. Equivalent to $327 today.

8) Back to the dogs: You may remember a show called The Goode Family by Mike Judge of King of the Hill. On the animated show, the Goodes were such a painfully perfect liberal family that they only fed their dog Che a vegan diet, which results in other pets and woodland creatures disappearing from the neighborhood. Dogs are carnivores and they want meat.

9) When we had one of our dogs in training class, there was a couple that was trying to train their dog using... Cheerios. Now, dogs like Cheerios, and Cheerios are not bad for them, but training a dog means getting it to go against its own intentions and even instincts, and you have to come through with something better than dry cereal, especially if every other dog in the class is getting meat. That poor pup couldn't concentrate for beans. It's possible that the dog had some kind of chicken allergy or something else that made typical training treats no good for him, but I've always thought that his owners might be vegans and were intending to raise a vegan dog. Maybe it could be done--but not around other dogs eating meat. They had to leave the class. 

10) Anyway, vegans can't eat bugs, either--they won't even eat honey. Like the bees get the sads when we steal their loot. Bees are morons. Eat the honey.

11) Naming the company Jiminy's is kind of cannibalistic, isn't it? Jiminy, the well-known Disney pest, is a cricket himself, so by using his name the company is acting sort of ad litem for the bug, making him a quisling character at best. I'm surprised Disney hasn't sued. 

So there are my thoughts. If you don't like them, well, go eat a bug, I guess. I ain't doing it.

A flake's tale.

Once upon a time there was a tiny drop of water that wanted to become a snowflake. 

"Oh, what a joy to be a snowflake!" it said. "I will drift gently from the sky and join with my brethren to become a snowstorm. And we will become one with the happiness of winter. Perhaps I will become part of a jolly snowman, or a sturdy snow fort, or even a dashing snowball! I can't wait!"

The winter came; the air grew cold, and the bit of water went up into a cloud and froze into a snowflake, as it had hoped. 

"Looking good!" it said, admiring its sharp, hexagonal pattern and gleaming white appearance. "Now to make for land!"

"Hold on," said the cloud, "don't be in such a rush. There are people down there who are trying to get to work, old folks with no one to shovel for them, kids on the way to school, ambulances and delivery men and all kinds of people who will be in grave trouble from a sudden storm. You should all disperse gently, in teams, over a period of time."

"Nuts to that!" said the snowflake. "C'mon, guys! Let's PAR-TAY!"

So the little snowflake led an enormous charge of snowflakes that swamped the town, causing a picturesque layer of slippery stuff that caused people to fall, breaking various coccyxes, and crash their cars and trucks, and have heart attacks shoveling, and see their gazebos collapse. 

Did the snowflake get to earth? Yes, but it got stuck on a roof, where it could not be made part of anything cool. It just had to hang around on the shingles until it melted. 

"Aw, this blows," the snowflake said bitterly. "Any chance of leaking into the house?"

"Bob said they're doing it on the north side, but not over here," said another flake. 

"Crap. Well, here comes the sun. I'm gonna skedaddle."

"What will you do?"

"I'm going to melt off that gutter and become an icicle. Maybe I can fall off and hit something."

So the flake did that, and froze into a mean, hard icicle. But the icicle did not fall off all at once. Instead, the sun melted it bit by bit, and the snowflake (now water again) plunged into a drift of snow and froze into ice once more. It got piled on by many of its brethren, and this was the best they could do. It was no fun at all, and the drop of water regretted being such a jackass when it was still up in the cloud. 

Moral: Keep being a selfish jerk and you'll turn into a complete ice hole. 

Dog positioning.

Since he was a wee puppy, large dog Tralfaz has had one favorite spot that's very annoying -- lying right outside the hall bathroom downstairs, the most commonly used commode in the house. I had considered reasons why this might be so -- the high likelihood of passersby, the interesting odors, the chance to get in and use the big water bowl -- but then I realized that he may have seen something on television that affected him.

Just a thought. 

 

The galosh situation.

When I was a kid, galoshes were a thing. Now they are not a thing. What happened? 

Actually, they do make a lot of galoshes still. One can be as galoshed up as one wants. But does one?

So, back in the paleolithic era of my childhood, when I attended P.S. Ogg, it was hardly unusual for kids to wear actual shoes instead of sneakers to school. But all kids were expected to have some kind of galoshes or rainboots for hard weather. They would typically be stowed someplace near the entrance so that we wouldn't get the halls slippery with snow, ice, or just lots of water. 

Every office worker had some kind of galoshes, because they didn't want to schlep around the joint in wet shoes. Even my blue-collar dad eschewed boots, preferring to wear big rubber galoshes over his usual work shoes. Those things were almost waders. 

For such big ol' galoshes (mine were halfway up my shin, just like the ones shown above) you wanted some genuine Baggies, the plastic bags made in those days by the plastics division of Mobil. Unlike Ziploc bags they had no seam, so they were perfect for putting over your shoes so they would slide right into those gum boots. And they offered an extra layer of waterproofing.

By the time I was in high school, of course, you'd rather die than not walk to school in your sneakers, at least if you were a guy. 

For a few years in the early part of my fabled career, when men still wore suits to work, I would use galoshes to protect my dress shoes. Later on I just kept a pair of decent black shoes in the desk and wore boots. Still later I got boots that were nice enough to wear with the casual dress required, but could still change to those desk shoes if it was a particularly messy trip in. 

Since then, galoshes have played no part in my life. People wear jeans to the office, and I work from home now anyway. I don't think I'm alone in saying my galosh days are likely over. 

But you never know. Weird things pop up all the time to help us deal with winter weather, and galoshes may make a comeback. Look at this thing from Cotosen:

As a ski hat it is kind of brilliant, combining head warmth and ski goggles into a single package. On the other hand, I think it would make you look like Dumb Donald. 

Styles change, but I don't know that they'll ever change that much. 

🥾👢🥾👢🥾👢

P.S.: You will never believe it, but the strange and wonderful word galosh may actually share a root with the word artery. Here's Merriam-Webster on the etymology: 

Middle English galoche "kind of sandal or clog with a wooden sole held to the foot with leather thongs," borrowed from Anglo-French & Middle French, borrowed from Old Occitan galocha, perhaps going back to Gallo-Romance *caloctium, borrowed from Greek of Massalia (Marseille) *kalóchtion, altered from *kalórtion, from Greek kâlon "wood, timber" (of uncertain origin) + -ortion, compound form (as in Middle Greek cheirórtion "glove," podórtion "gaiter") of Greek artḗr "kind of shoe," probably derivative of aeírein "to bind" with -tēr, instrument suffix — more at ARTERY

There's one for the philologists! 

Let's get Izzy!

So, the winter decided to dump on us at a really inconvenient time. Inconvenient for me, anyway, but not for school administrators who have to decide whether to close the schools and lose a day, and folks like that. But it was bad for me, and here's why. 

I believe I mentioned a while back that little baby dog Izzy needed joint surgery. He was born with a form of elbow dysplasia, and over time it would cause him more pain. Arthroscopic surgery was the answer, but that's not something our local vet can do. So, we had to take him in to the nearest good hospital for the job, 33 miles away. I dropped him off Friday morning. He was to have the surgery that day, stay overnight for observation, and go home Saturday.

The snow moved in on Friday night. 

And it snowed.

And it snowed.

Damn you, white crap!

The forecast had been all over the map, but I had been optimistic; the Weather Channel initially said it would stop by seven on Saturday morning, leaving plenty of time for the town to clean up the streets. By one in the afternoon it had not abated. And at this point, no plows had come by, including the guy who plows my rather steep driveway, and there was a real question as to whether we could leave if we even wanted to. I'd gotten stuck on that driveway once in a four-wheel-drive SUV, slipping off the snow and into the mud, and never made it to work that day. I didn't fancy trying my luck again. 

The snow finally did stop, around 2:30, and the dig-out began. By four p.m. everything was plowed, including my driveway. Let's get Izzy! 

The snow that had fallen was very powdery stuff, great for skiing I guess but impossible to clean off the streets entirely. I don't want to make it sound like I was white-knuckling the whole way there, but it was not ideal, shall we say. The temperature was plummeting and the wind was roaring and there was a scrim of snow on the best highways, and I could feel the wheels below me being very coy about their relationship with the road. Passing a semi was a test of nerve. But we made it. And it was all worth while when they brought out our little conehead, all smiles and wagging tail. 

It was a long day that ended with soup and sandwiches and large dog Tralfaz being a jealous weenie because of all the attention paid to the kid. But as I write this, I have toast crumbs on my sweatshirt and Izzy is under the table on my feet, and life is kinda okay today. Hope yours is too.

Women drivers!

It is a great advance of respect for women that the idea of the woman driver being a menace on wheels has disappeared into the comedy past. Whereas "women drivers" was a popular punchline up to and through the seventies -- one that seemed so permanent that it was the focus of a Jetsons episode -- the idea that women are naturally lousy drivers has been banished at last. 

Of course some women are lousy drivers. As are some men are. Some women are really good drivers.  

Purty, too!

I suspect it was the insurance companies that cured us of this comic misconception. Statistics are what they are, and when money is on the line, they are usually trustworthy. When it became well known that young men had to pay more for car insurance than young women because the boys were a higher risk, that seemed to stop the jokes. As the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's Highway Loss Data Institute puts it, "Many more men than women die each year in motor vehicle crashes. Men typically drive more miles than women and are more likely to engage in risky driving practices, including not using safety belts, driving while impaired by alcohol, and speeding. Crashes involving male drivers often are more severe than those involving female drivers."

But even this is only part of the story. As it turns out, for example, it's only young men who suck more at driving, just the kind of "hold my beer" guys we'd expect to exhibit the least safe behavior. More from the IIHS: "The number of driver fatal crash involvements per 100 million miles driven in 2016-17 was 63 percent higher for males (2.1 per 100 million miles traveled) than for females (1.3 per 100 million miles traveled). Rates were substantially higher for males than for females ages 16-29, but were only slightly higher for ages 30 and older. The sex difference was largest among drivers ages 20-29." Furthermore, "For nearly every year from 1975 to 2019, the number of male crash deaths was more than twice the number of female crash deaths, but the gap has narrowed. From 1975 to 2019, male crash deaths declined by 22 percent and female crash deaths declined by 12 percent."

Possibly the female empowerment folk would say that women are naturally better drivers, and that's because they value life more than those brutal and thuggish men. Conversely, male supporters (har har) could counter that women have a timidity that makes them safer but makes discoveries and advances less likely. Then the women blame the men for that and everyone starts screaming again. 

The main reason I mention this is that my anecdotal evidence says the bad women drivers are getting to be as bad as the bad men and for the same reason -- a feeling of invincibility coupled with ignorance. A couple of doors down from me is a stop sign on a T intersection. Drivers come up the stem of the T and have to stop; they can only go right or left, but cars could be coming from either of those directions. Most commonly they turn right, and because of the rise of the road, the visibility is worse toward their left side. Therefore, a full stop and some caution is required. 

Now: Who blows through the stop sign like it isn't there most, men or women?

My experience is, it's about equal. Same with those speeding down the street. 

One problem with anecdotal evidence is that comparing populations on the street is not the same as looking at a population at large -- who are these people, what are the sex ratios between people going this way or that, etc. But -- anecdotally -- my observations should favor the women, as most of the men I see driving during the day are local contractors, while most of the women are moms shuttling kids. Why are these moms driving as poorly as the plumbers and lawn guys?

Maybe it's because I live in New York, where drivers are fairly lousy on the whole. It is worth noting, though, that in 2011 a study reported that women are more dangerous drivers than men: 

Women drivers are more likely to be involved in an accident, according to scientists.

Researchers looked at 6.5 million car crashes and found a higher than expected number of accidents between two female drivers.

     They also discovered that women have a tough time negotiating crossroads, T-junctions and slip roads.

     The results are even more surprising given that men spend more time behind the wheel than women. On average, men drive 60 per cent of the time, and women 40 per cent.

     Michael Sivak, of the University of Michigan, said: "The results indicate that in certain crash scenarios, male-to-male crashes tend to be under-represented and female-to-female crashes tend to be over-represented."

Was that well reported in 2011? Not that I recall. 

I just throw it all out there as a question that we all ought to think about. Just obey the stop signs and try to stay somewhere in the orbit of the speed limit, is what I'm saying. At least on my block. I won't say it's because "We Love Our Kids!" the way some neighborhood signs will tell you. Nah, a lot of people here might be indifferent to the kids. We just hate mopping up blood. 

Cud be worse.