Musings: Magical and Not

In timing that couldn't be better for the Bernie-Donald campaigns, we learn that unicorns actually did once exist. Magical thinkers of America unite!

Ye unicorn of olde actually looked more like a wooly mammoth-sized rhinoceros than the oft-depicted white horse, and it's unlikely to have possessed special powers. But hey, don't let reality impinge on a good fantasy.

Until it slaps you upside the head.

Now that they've found unicorns, scientists are turning their attention to Mahaulepu, where they're busily hunting for shit. Literally. Actually, they're searching for a smoking gun, some proof that Hawaii Diary Farms forever fouled the aina with Enterococcus when it widened a ditch back in 2014. Not sure how, exactly, that would happen, unless they dug up an ancient kukae deposit. But ya never know.

So how much do you suppose it cost to fly in these “independent scientists from around the nation,” and who is footing the bill. There sure is a lot of dough floating around for activist causes. Maybe the council could slap a tax on agitation. At any rate, I hope the Hyatt was kind enough to comp rooms, since it's suing to stop the dairy.

Of course, they don't actually know nuttin' fer shure yet, but that's no reason why Councilman Gary Hooser shouldn't try, convict and execute the dairy in the press. After all, that strategy worked so well with the seed farms:

Hooser said water contamination is just the tip of the iceberg. He said the proposed dairy puts water aquifers at risk, jeopardizes coastal resources, and risks “serious negative impacts to the crown jewel of our visitor industry.”

Hell, yeah! Who needs local food production? Let them eat tourists. Or chickens. Or cats.

Actually, I find it rather amusing that the dairy — funded by Pierre Omidyar — is getting so much heat from the anti-ag activists he has helped to fund. Yes, Pierre, they will bite the hand that feeds them, so long as it's organic. And you are, right?

Speaking of Pierre, his publication, Civil Beat, has a column today lecturing KHON about its lapse of journalistic ethics in re-hiring Nestor Garcia. I couldn't resist leaving a comment asking whether the columnist planned to also examine Civil Beat's lapses, such as allowing Pierre to provide editorial direction when he's also bankrolling CB and numerous “nonprofit” advocacy groups, including some that are favorably covered in CB.

See, I'm prone to my own magical thinking.

Getting back to that elusive kukae, it really is serious stuff, especially when it comes from cats. As an article in Scientific American points out:

Uncontrollable, explosive bouts of anger such as road rage might be the result of an earlier brain infection from the toxoplasmosis parasite, an organism found in cat feces, a new study finds.

The study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that toxoplasmosis — usually a mild or nonsymptomatic infection from a protozoan parasite called Toxoplasma gondii — may somehow alter people's brain chemistry to cause long-term behavior problems. Previous studies have linked toxoplasmosis to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, impulsivity and suicidal behavior.

OK. So Kauai has tens of thousands of defecating wild cats. Is it a stretch to think that their doo-doo is making people here all wild and pissed off and nuts? Suicide is the number one cause of death among the island's young people. Surely there has to be just one thing we can blame.

I mean, if we're going to accept that agricultural pesticides are poisoning the water, why not kitty poo?

In the meantime, you know something's going on when the mainland lawyers start circlin' and a-lickin' their chops:

I love how TGI labels it "paid advertisement." Because it is kind of hard to tell it apart from its usual sensationalistic news coverage.