I was a newspaper columnist for 17 years, mostly with the weekly newspaper I owned in Colorado.  I’ve since retired, but can’t get the urge to rant out of my lifestyle. So here I begin again.

All editorials on this page were written by Jim Dustin and are protected by the copyright laws of the United States.

Index:

Nov. 22 – Ganging up on a gang

Nov. 29 – This city is just murder

Dec. 6 – New courses for the University of Missouri

Dec. 13 – This is rich

Dec. 20 – Run over by a frigate

Dec. 27 – Ticks of the trade

 

Nov. 22, 2015

ISIS Against the World

 

I don’t understand a lot of things, but one particular thing I don’t understand this week is why the entire world doesn’t unite to eradicate ISIS from the planet. It seems to me that if a group is attacking everyone, everyone ought to attack that group.

Consider:

• In 2014, an estimated 500 members of a small religious sect were killed by ISIS in Iraq. Among the Yazidis killed were 40 children.
• On Feb. 3, 2015, ISIS killed a Jordanian pilot by putting him a cage and burning him to death. On Feb. 10, ISIS killed an American missionary who was in the region to give aid and assistance to refugees. Kayla Jean Mueller was 26 years old. ISIS also killed American journalist Steven Sotloff in 2014.
• On Feb. 18, 2015, ISIS members executed 21 Egyptians for the crime of being Coptic Christians. The victims were all beheaded.

• On July 3, 2015, Boko Haram, a group that has sworn allegiance to ISIS, killed 160 people in Nigeria, which has the largest population of any country in Africa. Many of the victims were killed in bomb blasts set off by young girls wearing suicide vests.
• On Nov. 1, 2015, a Russian airline with 224 people aboard blew up in midair over Egypt. ISIS said they did it, and referred to the passengers and crew as “crusaders.” They actually were mostly vacationing tourists. The Crusades ended approximately ten centuries ago.
• On Nov. 19, 2015, ISIS killed two hostages – a Chinese national and a Norwegian national. The terror group’s reasoning was that the two were infidels, but also infidels who couldn’t raise ransoms.
• On Nov. 13, 2015, a series of coordinated attacks by ISIS in Paris left 130 people dead. Eighty-nine of those people were in a theater.

Add up this partial list of ISIS victims and you will count individuals from nine nations, including the three most militarily powerful nations on Earth.

Why is this group still around? They have brutally murdered citizens of the three superpowers. One might think that the “superpowers” would take offense at that and punish the perpetrators. One might think that the “superpowers” would put aside their differences for however long it takes to accomplish the eradication of ISIS.

And if the “superpowers” can’t do the job, maybe they could get out of the way and let a real fighter like Jordanian King Abdullah II lead an army composed of the citizens other aggrieved nations against ISIS.

This behavior by ISIS is right out of the eighth century. Many of us would have thought that the world’s civilizations had advanced beyond this kind of barbarism by now. Many of us would have thought that World War II would have taught everyone that right-thinking nations on the planet will combat evil wherever it manifests itself.

I’ve thought for some time that the U.S. Congress ought to pass an official and clear declaration of war. Such a declaration might say, “The United States of America hereby declares war on all terrorists and terrorist organizations that have attacked U.S. citizens, and on any nation or territory that harbors said terrorists or terrorist organizations.”

Such a declaration would address the legal questions surrounding Guantanamo and foreign detainees, and give the President clear and certain authority to act proactively and not wait until we are attacked to respond.

That would be a different kind of declaration of war, but this is a different world. Terrorists don’t wear uniforms, have no code of conduct, hide among civilian populations and indiscriminately target non-combatants. It’s going to take a totally new and innovative strategy to deal with this threat.

However, the U.S. isn’t going to lead a worldwide effort. Our president just announced that the Islamic State is not “Islamic.” He also announced after the murder of Kayla Mueller that, “No matter how long it takes, the United States will find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible for Kayla’s captivity and death.” He said that on Feb. 10, 2015.

But some individual leader or nation should step up. ISIS, members of ISIS and ISIS affiliates should be destroyed on the ground and hounded into oblivion. Why would the civilized world not agree to that?

We don’t have armies for the purpose of standing around in dress uniform as American bodies are brought home. We have armies to either deter our enemies, or go out and kill our enemies. I think we can say at this point that ISIS has been deterred by no one.

November 29, 2015

Two Stories of Murder

There was an interesting juxtaposition of stories in The Denver Post of Nov. 29, 2015. On Page 17A was a big story about demonstrators turning out to protest the 2014 shooting of a 17-year-old black man by a white police officer. On Page 18A was a tiny story about the arrest of a man in the shooting death of a 9-year-old boy.

Both events occurred in Chicago.

The demonstrators blocked access to stores on “Black Friday” to draw attention to the killing of Laquan McDonald in 2014. McDonald was shot 16 times by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, according to recently-released evidence.

On the same day the officer was charged, Chicago authorities made public a police car’s dash cam video of the shooting, and the fact that Van Dyke was being charged with murder. The problem is it took local investigators 13 months to bring charges in connection with an incident that was recorded on video. It also took them 13 months to make the tape public, and only did so after being ordered to do so by a judge.

This is typical Chicago. It reminds me of the movie “Code of Silence,” one of he few motion pictures where Chuck Norris did some actual acting. The story is how only one police officer defied the code of silence that was protecting bad officers. The setting of the movie is Chicago.

In the real world, one can’t help but wonder why it took 13 months to charge someone who was videotaped committing the crime.

I could also point out that McDonald was unarmed, but police often don’t know until after the event whether a suspect is armed or not. In any case, it seems that the protestors have a valid reason to complain about the city’s leadership in this case. That hundreds turned out in a cold rain to do so says a lot.

Now here’s the second story, and in this article, the races of the individuals involved are not even revealed. However, one can guess.

Tyshawn Lee, 9, was playing basketball when he was lured off the court into an alley. There he was shot in the head in retaliation for his father’s gang connections, according to police.

The chief suspect is Corey Morgan, 27, a man with an extensive criminal record. The police said he acted along with two other men, all members of the same rival gang. Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy vowed to destroy it. “That gang just signed its own death warrant,” McCarthy said.

Well, I wonder what the residents of the neighborhood will do to help eradicate that gang (legally, one hopes). It seems easy in these times to gather large crowds to protest alleged shootings of blacks by white cops. So why won’t large groups gather to protest the execution of a child by men of whatever race?

Here’s a case where it takes three grown men to execute a 9-year-old because of a gang dispute. Here’s a case where the alleged chief assassin had a lengthy criminal history, and a gun. Wouldn’t protestors want to know how he happened to acquire that gun?

Wouldn’t people in the neighborhoods where this occurred echo President Obama and say, “Enough is enough.” They could take to the streets in a protest to draw attention to gang activity. They could organize a kind of neighborhood watch to tip police off about illegal activities on the streets. They could tell police what they know. They could support churches, schools and NGOs in the area with programs that counter gang recruitment. They could lobby their elected representatives to support such programs.

Public protests can carry a great deal of weight. As my generation learned during the Vietnam era, people can triumph over the powerful and change history.

It’s too bad when people take to the streets for the wrong reasons, as in Ferguson, Mo., because that leads many of us to question the underlying honesty of the demonstrations.

However, in some cases, the people have to gather and speak up. Have to. You should ask yourself: What would your reaction be if a 9-year-old in your neighborhood was dragged off and brutally murdered by three thugs?

 

December 6, 2015

The University of Missouri Takes Action

We have it on dubious authority that the University of Missouri will soon establish a new School of Obstreperism to capitalize on the recent change of direction more or less forced on the venerable institution.

A small number of students and faculty at MU have managed to brand the institution as racist, so the administration now recognizes it will be difficult if not impossible to recruit any blacks or other minorities to its football and basketball programs, which will negatively impact athletic department revenues.

However, administrators also recognize that the Millennial Generation is gradually giving way to the Offended Generation, or the OGs. MU officials have realized this can be a career path for young men, women and others who are not currently being served by higher education anywhere in the U.S.

“We’ve seen at more than 50 universities across the nation that students are trapped in some path of study that doesn’t take them where they want to go. They are marching, demonstrating, carrying signs, screaming, cursing, doing almost anything except withdrawing from the university, and not getting the responses they need,” said University of Missouri President (insert name).

“The OGs need a school that will instruct them in channeling their energies, and more importantly, teach them how their somewhat indistinct demands can lead to career successes similar to that of Al Sharpton. I mean, it’s nice to be labeled an ‘activist,’ but who is going to pay you for that?” said (insert name).

Therefore, the School of Opstreperism (which will inevitably be called SOO U) has been established with Jonathon Butler as its first dean. Butler was an MU student who went on a grueling two-day hunger strike to protest what he could not quite describe in a later interview. While not up to the level of Mahatma Ghandi’s notable fast for peace in India, it did help focus attention on two top university officials who promptly resigned.

“Mr. Butler is a shining example of how a non-productive student career turned into a lucrative employment opportunity. We want to teach others how to do that,” said President (inset name).

The newly-established School of Obstreperism will have three departments:

The Department of Obfuscation

Chaired by Melissa Crick. She holds a Ph.D. in communications from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her recent research focuses on the 50 Shades trilogy of erotic novels and fan culture surrounding pop star Lady Gaga.

Ms. Crick and her faculty will conduct lectures on:

• How the U.S. Constitution may not apply to areas where a sign to the contrary has been erected.
• How to deal with reporters (“I need some muscle here!”).
• Selected responses for deminuating your questionable behavior during the previous 24 hours (a must for future politicians)
• Positive outcomes through manipulation of social media (Ms. Crick alone has compiled 156 “likes” and 10 followers on her twitter account).
• And “Fading from View,” which deals with the process of professional life after your particular endeavors have gone horribly and publically wrong.

The Department of Individual Identity

Chaired by Caitlyn Jenner

Jenner’s greatest achievement (outside of winning the Olympic decathlon when she was a he) was winning the Arthur Ashe Courage Award over such lesser candidates as Lauren Hill, a 19-year-old college basketball player who raised over $1 million to treat brain cancer just before she died of the disease, or Noah Galloway, an Iraqi war veteran who lost two limbs but has continued to enter competitions, including “Dancing With the Stars.”

Courses of study will include:

• “Becoming Something You’re Not” (white Christian students only).

Guest lecturers will include U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who once landed a prestigious teaching job by claiming she was part American Indian; Rachel Delozal, a white woman who gained seats on boards and commissions by claiming to be black; Shaun King, a Black Lives Matter activist who turned out to be white; and an unidentified boy in an Illinois high school who won unfettered access to the girls locker room although he had not yet been dedicktimized. There will be a special series on “How to Fill Out Your Census Form.”

• “Rewriting History”

Many students are unhappy with their American origin because of what America used to do, or allegedly used to do, or is doing. Subjects will include “Whatever happened to the Albigensian Heresy?” Here you will discover that history actually can be erased, so the students at Princeton University were not temporarily insane when they wanted Woodrow Wilson’s name removed from all things associated with the university.

Also, “Conflating America with The Crusades,” where students will discover how to blame the U.S. for something that happened in the 11^th Century.

And “What Christopher Columbus knew about Disease Transmission.” This will be only one class where a full professor will walk out on the stage and say, “Nothing,” and then retire to his palatial office.

The Department of Personal Irresponsibility

Chaired by Kathleen Sebilius, former Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Barack Obama. Her most famous achievement might be expending $300 million on an ObamaCare website that not only should have cost only around $20 million, but didn’t work. She has also attended the Jazz Fest in New Orleans for 30 consecutive years.

Courses of study will include:

• “Connecting the Bucks.”

In connection with the University of Missouri School of Law, students will learn that virtually anything bad that happens to them can be blamed on someone else. A guest speaker will be Stella Liebeck, who proved that you can spill your own coffee in your own lap while in your own car on your own time and still blame it on a restaurant chain … and collect $2.9 million.

Students will find this basic technique applicable to many incidents in their lives guided by actual case law under the “Frivolous Lawsuits” course section.

• “There is No Future”

OGs believe that the state, the law, their parents, the university, will shield them from all off-putting events for the rest of their lives. They are, of course, correct, because the U.S. government will have unlimited funds forever. This class will include a guest lecture by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders who will explain how he can tell constituents that there is $2.6 trillion in “assets” in the Social Security Trust Fund but no money.

And how to collect benefits from the Social Security Disability Insurance fund (assuming it still exists) by claiming “mood disorders,” depression and anxiety possibly caused by lurid but unproven rumors, as in a feces swastika appearing and then apparently disappearing from a dorm wall.

• “No Consequences.”

This will include a special lecture (which will cost the university $250,000) by Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose talk is entitled, “My 15 Biggest Lies.” The purpose of the lecture is to show that even people with severe character deficiencies can aspire to be President of the United States.

Another section will be a power point presentation by Terry Turner, who reportedly has fathered 26 children with an unknown number of women. His presentation includes photos and stories (from The Huffington Post) of rich and famous deadbeat dads, including Terrell Owens, Jon Gosselin, Skeet Ulrich, Val Kilmer and Allen Iverson. Students will learn that more than $100 billion is owed in child support payments in the U.S., so it must be okay.

We also hope to include special lectures by former Obama Administration officials who have suffered no consequences for incredibly incompetent acts. We have already confirmed an appearance by Lois Lerner, who despite pleading the Fifth on two separate appearances before Congressional committees, was allowed to retire on a full government pension and never prosecuted.

The University of Missouri plans the addition of more departments in the near future, including “College as a Career,” in honor of Jonathon Butler, who didn’t discover racial injustice until his eighth year at MU; “A Life on Welfare,” a compilation of the some 38 federal welfare programs almost anyone can get; “Farming Your Tax Dollars,” how corporate subsidies support whole industries, and “Offensive Behavior – Recognizing It Anywhere.”

What will be particularly attractive to the prospective student of the new School of Obstreperism is that class attendance is optional. Any student can opt out of any class if that student was made uncomfortable by any event or incident on campus, or anywhere else in the world. The University of Missouri will also guarantee grade of “A” in all School of Obstreperism courses so as to maintain the self-esteem of all enrollees.

 

Week Of December 13, 2015

Rich Man, Poor Man

How much money is enough? How much does one need to meet all of one’s needs and desires? This is a purely personal, philosophical question, not a political position. The government should not be the arbiter of how much we earn or don’t earn.

Way back when they used to teach history in high school, I wondered at the phrase, “All men are created equal.” I could just look around me and see that Alan Lurie was a far better athlete than I was, and I was way smarter than Ralphie Lambert. There were rocks in the playground smarter than Ralphie Lambert.

In a capitalist society, I think we all go through a point in our lives where we measure one another by how much money we make, how many toys we have, how much property we own. We become, in short, envious.

What led me down this train of thought was a headline that said Zack Greinke rejected a salary offer from the Dodgers for $71 million over three years – rejected a salary of $23.6 million per year, enough to set almost anyone up for life, for whatever kind of life one might want to lead.

Turned out to be a good move. Greinke signed up with the Arizona Diamondbacks for $34.4 million a year for six years. However, to me the difference between $23.6 million per year and $34.4 million a year is meaningless.

I could do everything I want to do for about $5 million. I went through this exercise about four years ago when I was daydreaming about winning a lottery jackpot of something like $480 million.

I thought about everything I wanted, and the total came up to about $5 million. If I were younger, that total might be quite a bit higher. I would have been willing to work for three years for $71 million.

From a philosophical standpoint, I don’t begrudge anyone taking what someone else is willing to pay them – players in any sport, movie stars, CEOs, hedge fund managers, inventors, rock stars, authors, whoever. That’s the way the system works. If you’re really good at what you do, the system will reward you.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders thinks this is fundamentally wrong. He would like to level the salary field at the point of a gun. He’s a socialist. That’s what socialists do. At least he’s honest about it. He’s considerably more honest than his Democrat rival, Hillary Clinton, but then almost the entire population of the U.S. is more honest than Hillary Clinton.

What Sanders plays on is envy and greed, which represent 28.5 percent of the seven deadly sins. In all the 5,000 years or so of the recorded Western Civilization experience, our greatest thinkers have boiled down bad behavior to just these seven character traits.

I could write an article stemming from feelings of greed and envy that would condemn Zack Greinke for being so greedy that he and others lead the way to me not being able to afford to go to a baseball game.

But I wouldn’t write that article because I know how the world works and has worked down through the ages, and that is to say no matter what political system prevails at any given time, there will be rich and poor.

The truth is this: If Bernie Sanders became president and confiscated all the wealth of every citizen in the United States, then redistributed that wealth so every individual had $300,000, the next day there would be rich people and poor people.

I could be a lot wealthier than I am. I’ve made some dumb decisions that have cost me dearly. However, I wouldn’t change anything in my life, good or bad. I wouldn’t take the chance. Things could have turned out way worse than they did.

As I near the final chapters of that life, I am glad I’m not judging myself on how much money I’ve got in the bank, or for that matter, judging others by how much money they have in the bank.

That is the Donald Trump theory of interpersonal relationship. History will not be kind to Donald Trump or others of his ilk. History will remember those people as rich men, not great men.

 

Week of December 20, 2015

A Christmas Story

Christmas is my Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a nice holiday if you and your dog like lying around the house like beached whales. But it’s an American holiday. Christmas or something darn near like it is celebrated around the world.

It’s not just the Christians. Most major religions have something going on at that time of the year. The Jews have Hanukkah; the Muslims have Milad un Nabi (one of Muhammad’s birthdays); Pagans the Winter Solstice, and so on.

I’m not into organized religions. I know too much history about what was done in the name of those religions in the past, and indeed what is still being done today. If there is a god in heaven, I hope he has meted out a much more serious punishment than saddling some poor schmoe with 72 virgins for the rest of eternity.

To me, it’s enough to sit outside and wonder at the infinite vastness and complexity of the universe. Whoever organized all of that was a truly great and good God, for He included this comfortable and lush planet for the human race.

Christmas is as good a time as any to give thanks for such things. I’m giving thanks this year for having reached the age of 67 years old. Yuk, say some of my younger friends. Who wants to be 67? Well, as we old folks say, it beats the alternative.

I had several opportunities in my life wherein my progress towards the age of 67 might have been violently interrupted. I didn’t have any near-death experiences doing anything heroic. Usually, I was doing something dumb.

So this year I’ll share with you kind readers a Christmas story, the tale of the Friggin’ Frigate.

I used to arrange my year around where the best parties were. One was in North Carolina where a college friend of mine landed for a time, name of Tom Gee. A radio station in the region promoted this gigantic float trip down (I think) the Catawba River. You could build your own raft for this event. Those inflatable blue things are so mundane.

Never ones to do anything on a small scale, Tom, me and his friends got together and built the Friggin’ Frigate, which was a frame and deck built around and over eight barrels, four on each side.

We called it a frigate because we were armed. We had devices to launch water balloons a long way. This was my contribution. In my earlier days, I used to wander around Madison, home of the University of Wisconsin.

You could drink legally in Madison when you were 18. The Student Union actually had a vending machine for beer. In Milwaukee County, the drinking age was 21, so many of were drawn like homing pigeons to Madison.

Some of the fraternities had houses on the lake. One of them had two tall posts stuck in the ground near the shore. This was suspicious. It wasn’t like this was an engineering fraternity.

I asked what those were for, and they showed me. They tied two lengths of doubled surgical tubing to the posts. At the other end of the tubing was a sailor’s hat.

They’d put a water balloon in the sailor’s hat, pulled it about 30 feet back, and let fly. Their favorite targets were waterskiers, especially female water skiers. If they could knock a waterskier off her boards at about 15 knots, there was a fair chance she’d come up topless. Two-piece swimming suits weren’t quite as well-engineered as they are today.

The skiers would come up yelling and cursing, shaking their fists and whatnot. The frat boys didn’t care. They couldn’t hear them. If they could hear them, they were laughing too hard to care. I know I was.

I’m sure some of those water skiers today would be personally offended at the activities of this fraternity. I’m sure someone would have sued due to mental injury and loss of conjugal abilities. However, back in the 1960s, many people had a sense of humor. Or they learned not to drive their boats near this particular shore.

I told the North Carolina boys about this, and they thought that was a fine idea. So we put similar equipment on the Friggin’ Frigate. I didn’t get to enjoy much of that. I’ll put this as tastefully as I can. Due to the diet of the day before, which consisted mostly of alcohol and spicy southern food, I was having severe intestinal distress.

Trying to act inconspicuous, I was relieving myself in the river… fairly often. When I did this, the Friggin’ Frigate went floating downstream without me, and I had to beat feet to catch up. It was too much exertion in my current condition, so I took to hanging off the front of the Frigate when the need arose, the offending part of my anatomy completely submerged.

Unbeknownst to me, the Frigate ran over a big flat rock. I got yanked right under the raft. I just had time to draw a breath, and then I was stuck between the steel barrels and the rock, under water. It literally squeezed the s___ out of me.

The Frigate was moving, but not real fast. I lay there counting the barrels as they passed over me, each one of them pushing down on my chest as if they were part of some diabolical machine designed to force the breath out of me.

It probably didn’t take all that long, but to me, it seemed like forever. I lost my breath at the last barrel, but was able to sit up quickly and take the blessed air. No one knew what had happened to me, and if they had known, they wouldn’t have been able to do anything.

So I think back on that particular near miss, and have a simple, thankful thought: I was just glad we hadn’t built a longer raft.

 

December 27, 2015

A Bipartisan Disaster

The headline read: A Bipartisan Budget. It referenced the $1.14 trillion spending bill passed by Congress on Dec. 18. The Associated Press report also called the bill “a rare compromise.”

It wasn’t a rare compromise. It was the work of ticks, the Members of Congress who have embedded themselves in the body politic and can’t be removed except through catastrophic surgery. They are Democrats, and they are Republicans.

These permanent residents not only further ensured their continued “service” in the national legislature by passing a whole host of regurgitated gifts to the gaping beaks of the welfare caucus, they also passed an amended tax code that absolutely did not do what most Americans want done – simplify the damn thing. Tax breaks both temporary and permanent were passed out like cocktail party favors.

Although the Press would like to have you believe that there is a great struggle between Democrats and Republicans over basic governing philosophies, there is not. The leaders of both parties readily agree on issues that will keep them in power. A case in point is their failure to even consider term limits. Ever. They are all ticks feeding off the same dog, and as long as the dog just scratches every once in a while, it’s all good.

After passage of the tax and spending bills, the biggest spender of them all, President Barack Obama, was so pleased with the congressional votes that he invited supposed fiscal conservative Paul Ryan to dinner. After all, they are cut from the same cloth, stitched together by the desire to wield power.

It is becoming increasingly obvious to those of us who follow these issues that Members of Congress, be they Republican or Democrat, are more interested in their own well being than the well being of the nation. In that entire AP story about the taxing and the spending was not one mention of what those bills will do to the national debt, now surpassing $20 trillion.

The story did mention that the spending caps that had been in effect since 2011 are now gone, and that this one spending bill increased the outflow of government largesse by 6 percent, or more than twice the rate of inflation.

So who was on the losing side of these votes? Socialists like Bernie Sanders who didn’t think the spending levels were high enough, and Conservatives like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul who were appalled at the irresponsibility of it all.

It is only the ignorance of the American voters that allows this to continue. When a sophomore in college seeking a teacher’s degree believes that Oregon is a foreign nation, and another man-on-the-street interviewee thinks the Civil War was fought in 1960, and yet another thinks America won its independence in a war with China, there isn’t much hope that such voting-age citizens will realize they are being yanked around by elected officials whose names they do not even know.

We continue to raise whole blocs of kids that can’t tie their own shoes but are mortally offended when someone points out that they ought to be able to tie their own shoes.

So what have these permanent residents of Congress given us in the last two decades? Entitlement programs that are the brink of collapse; constant war in two countries half way around the world; scandals in every cabinet-level department; terrorist organizations emboldened by our inaction to the point that they perform televised beheadings of American citizens with impunity; 92 million Americans out of work; a “crumbling infrastructure” for which Congress and the President have no solution; a space program that hires Russians to send our astronauts into space; a bloated federal bureaucracy that just got a pay raise; racial tensions to a degree that we haven’t seen since the 1960s; and so on.

This isn’t working, and we can’t get them out of there. Strom Thurmond was in the U.S. Senate for 48 years, and was so senile at the end that his aides wouldn’t let anyone talk to him. He didn’t leave the Senate until he was 100 years old. His son has followed him into politics. We have whole families that spit out professional politicians every generation. Think Kennedy. Either a Bush or a Clinton was president for 20 years, and now it looks likely that we will have another Clinton for eight more years – the first woman and the first unindicted felon to hold the office.

Unfortunately, it’s going to take a catastrophe of national proportions to change things. What a shame. We know how to get rid of the ticks; we just won’t do it.