Dumbidity

Don't Get Sick in Missississississississippi!

Anyone traveling to the LSU-MSU football game in Greater Downtown Starkville, MS this weekend better take heed to the results of a survey on the quality of hospitals released recently.

The results were wheeled from their room by a nurse aid and a bevy of candystripers and pink lady volunteers in accordance with legal policies covering releases after a spirited but brief argument in which the results insisted that they were fine to walk out on their own.

According to WebMD Medical News, the sixth annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality in America Study found that Mississississississippi ranked 51st among all 50 of the several states, plus the District of Columbia. Good thing they left out Guam, the Virgin Islands, Samoa and Puerto Rico - they might've placed 56th!

These Healthgrades folks grade nursing homes too. I didn't want to know, so I'm sorry I looked. Anyway...

I found it interesting that Louisiana, ranked just behind Calipornia, Messachusetts and Montana at 28th, was the highest ranked state in the region. Arkanstone and Alabumba were 49th and 50th respectively and Texas was 30th! (I think Arachnidsaw beat Alabammy - with banjos on their knees - because they counted vet clinics.)

Florida ranked 2nd, which would figure given the gobs of Mediscam dollars flooding down there to cover the blueheads, Que-tips and other wrinkled up gator-baits getting old and sick and operated on and sick and older and sicker and on and on. It's possible Steve Spurrious may have set this up before he left for the Redskins, but D.C. is only 22nd, so maybe his recruiting classes haven't gotten in the act yet.

Wets Virginia was ranked #41. Maybe the Honorable Robert C. Byrd, D, WV needs more hospitals named after him.

The Number 1 State for Hospitals in this great land of ours?

NORTH DAKOTA!

If you were there, would anyone know you were alive?
If you weren't there - what would make you go?

The Official Start of Some Season or Other

Autumn arrived this morning at seventeen minutes past O'Dark-Thirty, or 5:47 a.m. for those of you who wake up to sunshine. That means that either yesterday was or today is the Autumnal Equinox.

Either way I was prepared: I had already strewn leaves from a variety of deciduous trees all over my lawn. The actual process for yard decoration is quite passive - the neighbors' trees do most of the work, but I have a trio of lovely river birch off the driveway which contribute more or less continuously throughout the summer.

I pulled out the designated Equinox Egg to balance it on its point. Legend has it that since the Earth is "perfectly" balanced on each Equinox, chicken eggs are allowed to stand upright. It's still a rather tricky business - especially at a quarter to six in the morning. I'd like to see if ostrich, emu and hummingbird eggs are allowed to stand up straight too - just to cover both ends of the spectrum. As long as I'm at it, I better allow for reptile egg testing too - that ought to keep me busy during retirement.

Now that we're officially into the fall season with all it represents spiritually, socially and commercially, I'd like to recount an experience from late last summer (which was really just a couple of weeks ago since this is about as early as early fall gets) in which "schmed Encounters Crass Prematurity"

It was Monday, September 8, 2003. On that date there were 114 days left in 2003, which meant 108 calendar days until virtually every commercial enterprise in the U.S. of A. (even Wal-sMart and McDonald’s) shuts down. You’ll have to trust me on the math. And if I’m off a day or so, you’ll soon see how little it matters.

That day, at approximately 6:45 p.m. Central Daylight Time, I waltzed into the local Wal-sMart to pick up a couple of quarts of SAE 10w-40 HD motor oil to replenish the continually diminishing reserves of the schmedmobile. Rather than play the “Find the BEST Parking Spot in the Lot” reality game show, I parked over by the garden center and went in thataway.

Just before I walked in the door, I caught three very large inflatable objex out of the corner of my eye but paid scant attention to them. I should have.

I got about halfway to the passageway into the main-Mart for to get my oil when I heard this odd song and stopped dead in my trax. It was a rather mechanical tune accompanying a rather mechaniacal voice singing a cheesy song.

I vaguely recognized the song.

I turned to look at the source of this noise.

IT WAS A FIVE-FOOT ROBO-SANTA SINGING A CHRISTMAS CAROL!!

Did I forget to mention that it was September the 8th?

No schmed, you mentioned it right away. You, like, pretty much beat that concept to death.

Thought so.

I turned again to address the young lady working the register and asked her to verify that the date was indeed September 8th. She did.

Before I could utter another word, she said “Be glad you ain't had to listen to it all day.”

I was.

Oh, almost forgot. The three large inflatable objex I ignored earlier?
Santa Grinch,
Santa Bart,
Homer Claus.

They don't sing, but they do light up.

Maybe Capt. Nemo Won?

Things from the deep blue sea interest me, so when I saw "Giant Squid Deaths..." linking to a story on MSN, I had to check it out.

The very first facts to emerge were 1) Two giant squids washed up DOA on beaches near Madrid; 2) Scientists were investigating and had not yet reached any conclusions. Luis Laria, presidente of CEPESMA (which stands for Coordinadora Para el Estudio y Protección de las Especies Marinas - I had to look it up) who, one would assume, might have some expertise on such things, declined to speculate on the cause.

That didn't stop the erstwhile and anonymous reporter from finding some expert (unnamed and undocumented) "marine biologists" to do some speculating. The suspected cause?
GLOBAL WARMING™! SURPRISE!

And he's quite the expert in marine biology too. Dig this quote from his story: "The giant squid, the mythical monster..." Mythical monster? Ain't no myth no more BUBBA - they're rampant off the coast of Spain! Why next year they're going to follow up the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona with "Swimming with the Giant Squids" off Madrid!

Hmmm. That kinda sings. Could be some big bucks selling wetsuits emblazoned with it.
Sorry - just having an entrepreneurial moment. Where was I? Oh yeah, the reporter's an expert.

Our doughty reporter savant continues with his exhibition of expertise with: "...the world’s largest invertebrate and lives at depths of up to 6,562 feet."

Six thousand, five hundred sixty-two feet deep. Is it possible the cause of death was that those silly squids started horsing around at 6,565 feet? I can hear Mama Squid now "if you don't quit chasing each other around here, pretty soon you'll go down too far and your insides will pooch out!"

Giant Squids also like to pick on whales, so maybe activists with Save the Whales hooked up with activists from GreedPeace to work a little vigilante justice on those evil invertebrate whale-terrorists.

Nope, Global Warming™ is the only possible cause worth mentioning.

Sounds typical of something published by Reuters, a "news" agency.