Of Wingnuts and Wise Men

One living thing in the world that can see completely around itself 360 degrees is "the dragonfly." Reading that in the Parade Magazine last Sunday got me to thinking again, thinking about how Iris turned loose that beautiful dragonfly I caught last month. If she hadn't done that, I might have been able to send a picture of its eyes to this newspaper. The balancing good that came of Iris' "act of mercy" was it did furnish some pretty good stuff for the column of Sept. 18.

Was also reminded of this "insect incident" when a banker lady told me last Friday one of her customers had cut out the column and brought it in for her to read. I mention this info to let you know the Hungry Horse News stuff doesn't just go out with the trash each week. In fact, there is considerable verified information the average weekly stays around the house much longer than a daily and is often passed on to others. This makes for a much higher total circulation number than subscriptions and stand sales indicate.

Shifting gears here — Wingnuts, looney tunes, and dingbats are found in abundance on the Internet sites; however, there are also some well informed and wise contributors to this modern communications phenomenon. Trouble is, it's often difficult to tell one from the other? Try these two recent examples:

"Have you been putting your money in the wrong account? If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Airlines stock one year ago you would have $49 left. With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original thousand. With WorldCom, you'd have less than $5 left.

"But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have $214 cash. Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. It's called the 401-Keg."

Here is another Internet example: "A recent study found that the average American walks 900 miles a year. Another study found Americans drink, on the average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means, on average, Americans get 41 miles to the gallon. Makes you Proud to Be An American."

See? This is why I don't mess around with the Internet. The first example appears to be based on possibly true economic figures, but the advice to "drink heavily" doesn't take into consideration the monetary results from seriously boozing it up, things like DUIs, hangovers and medical bills from falling off chairs and down the stairs.

The second "bloop" or "blog" or whatever that stuff is called, contains an average alcohol consumption figure that seems a little unreal to me. But! Who really knows? Wingnuts or wisemen? Could be a mixture of each.

How do I get these things? Several of my retired friends keep me well supplied. I don't discourage them because… there are some very funny and interesting items out there. Got one last week, colored photos of an eastern black bear mother that had five cubs. First shot is of them last year when the cubs where tiny, then another early this summer showing all five had survived the winter and were still with her. That is a very rare happening I'd never heard of before. One of my Scandahoovian friends told me his cousin from North Dakota had won a gold medal in the Olympics. He was so proud of it he went to a jewelry store in Minot and had it bronzed.

Maybe it's time for me to get ready for tomorrow's trip to the Bison Range.

G. George Ostrom is a Kalispell resident and national-award winning Hungry Horse News columnist.