the obsolescent and useless male

I was going to say that Old Dog didn't experience as many paper jams at Kinko's as we did in our little state office because they had professional people operating them, but then I remember his disdain for the young 'uns operating the machines, and really it wasn't a matter of knowing how to use the machine to perform a simple copy.  How can you push a button improperly? 

The scourge is letting off Joshua Rothman awfully easy about that decimal mistake.  I know I would never get such leniency here at the Institute. There is a letter to the editor section of the New Yorker and since they are taking this week off there is yet time to dash one off, the phrase, as seen in a post on The Beaglesonian Institute would do well to promote our little font of wisdom.

Did I read correctly that Beagles is eschewing his portion of social security?  In the interest of the deficit is he willing to tell the gummint to stop sending him his direct deposits?  He certainly doesn't speak for me, or I expect Old Dog, or basically all old Americans.  A lower birthrate is certainly better for the world, in specific cases like Japan it is not so hot, but that's because they won't let any new people in.

I think it was sometime before we evolved into those majestic slime molds that we discovered sex, and amoebas aside, have done very well with that invention, evolving to meet the needs of the environment until we became the hairless apes we are today.  If the regular guy marbled crayfish hasn't been taking over the world, it's hard to see how a cloned variant could be doing the job. Perhaps the derby-domed folks at BBC, could not help but oh, exaggerate a wee bit.  And indeed extensive internet research (clicking the link within the link) reveals that taking over the world may be a bit of an exaggeration (perhaps they have been listening to Beagles who is always alarmed at non-white and gay people taking over the world), and that it is all marbled crayfish that are having great success in Madagascar of which the cloning variety is just a variant on.

And mutant, really, aren't we all mutants of something else?  Sex has always been more varied in the lower orders as we mammals like to think of them, but one wonders.  This is a pretty major change.  I guess as soon as she achieves maturity, having whole chromosomes in her eggs begins to reproduce her clones with no help from anybody else.

Women, you know, they don't say so, but sometimes you get the impression that they would be happier without us.  And now that I think about it, they say it all the time.  I don't suppose there is any disputing that we are bigger assholes than they are.  We males have never been all that worried about their taking over, because they would need a few of us just to keep the species going, and though most of us would be gone, there was a small chance that we, individually, might be the ones kept busy keeping the species going, and it seemed like it was worth the chance.

There are several species between us and crayfish, but if this ever hits the hairless apes they won't even need us to keep the species going.  Just saying. 


Pigeons huh?  When I came back to Chicago from Texas dead broke and was living in my parents' attic there was a guy on the block who kept pigeons.  His roof was full of them and the neighbors hated him.