Tag Archives: nattering nabobs of negativity

A Duck Flew Over Jersey

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Every so often we here at *The Institute like to present some new tidbit of information that our readers don’t know anything about, but that we’ve known about for moments. Today it isn’t really about ducks as the image above may imply, but it’s about Jersey, the country, not the state with all the exits.

Let us back up a moment and explain. First did you even know that there was a country named Jersey. Bet you didn’t. We did because today at our early morning staff meeting we were going over and analyzing the stats for BigShotsNow the blog and there on the report that shows which countries had visited the blog today, was Jersey. Jersey, the country. Many of our younger staff members thought it was a mistake and that the program had dropped the “New” part off of its name. It was those members that had flunked Geography continually right up until they had graduated from college that were most amazed that there could actually be a country named Jersey, and if there were, why had it been named after our American state of the same name. The “E Street Band” is well-known and certainly well worth it, but could it cause a whole country to be named after it? We don’t know, it’s possible I guess. That just goes to show you the value of the “No Child Left Behind” program where entire classes could be promoted to the next grade not knowing if they had walked to school, or wound their watch, as my dad used to say.

Now to use a phrase from one of our more forgettable vice-presidents those “nattering nabobs of negativity” will say “There is no country named Jersey. This is one of those con-jobs you Institutions pull to make yourself look smarter than us.” Well, that’s simply not true. It isn’t, really!  As proof we offer the flag  2016-09-24jerseyflagmap of Jersey, and a real map not drawn by us 2016-09-24jerseymap of the country of Jersey itself. This is a real map not some made up fake one that you see at other Institutes. As you can see by the inclusion of the five cities that are the primary habitation of the 100,000 people that live there. Our favorite is Bouley Bay, pronounced Boo-Lay not Bool because it sounds cooler. It’s our favorite just because it is fun to say. “Bouley, Bouley Bay, OK, OK.” See? We’ve been saying that all morning just as soon as we saw it on the map.

Yes, but what about the duck and the title “A Duck Flew Over Jersey”? If you’ve been a reader of the blog for more than five postings you know that we use a picture as a lead-in to our posts. Normally there would be a more obvious direct tie-in of the picture to the story, but we had this picture of a duck and then those guys from Jersey dropped in and well, we had to do something. So we asked around and sure enough a duck like this, or at least one similar, had flown over New Jersey and by using simple logic, which we might add we excel at, if a duck flew over New Jersey then by rights it could have flown over the country of Jersey too, so, then, well there you have it.  Note: the duck flying over Jersey, the country, may look significantly different than the one pictured above due to the fact that the duck pictured may not even live around Jersey, the country. We didn’t have time, or frankly the inclination, to check that out. Tenuous connection maybe, but so what.

So we say to you folks from Jersey the Country, thanks for stopping by. It was great to have you here and thanks also for lending us the word “bailiwick”. When we were kids we remember old people, those in their 40’s and the really old near-death ones in their 50’s, say things like ” They’re not from around these bailiwicks.” when confronted with strangers, as if where we, the normal good people, lived was a collection of places grouped together that were separate and of course better from the rest of the countryside surrounding us. That meant that if you were from that other weird bailiwick, you could very easily be people of little worth. Of course now with all the political correctness going on we don’t do that anymore, as all people are equally good and worthy. It’s a great time to be American isn’t it.

To all you Jersians, come on back, bring your friends, bring your flag, we’d like to see it close up. Spread the word that although you are a bailiwick-ian you’re always welcome here.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.

Harbinger of Spring

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Harbinger. “a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of another”.

“Yellow-headed Blackbirds are the harbingers of spring”.
    If that ‘s so then we’re getting harbingered all over the place. Yellow-headed Blackbirds, their cousins the Red-winged Blackbirds, even Brewer’s Blackbirds are coming in dragging Spring behind them. There have been other signs of Spring too. Bluebirds have been seen everywhere, flitting shamelessly about, grabbing your attention with their deep shining American bluebird blueness. Even everyone’s favorite Buzzard the buteo buteo has arrived to eat the dead things you’ve been tripping over all winter that have been lying around all over the place. Spring is pretty darn great.

    We could wax poetically all day about the Yellow-headed Blackbird but when you get right down to it, they’re basically just a black bird with a yellow head, plus a little white on it’s wings. Lot of people who aren’t birders or just don’t give a flying fig about Nature would say “Yeah, So, What’s the big deal?”  But they miss the point. That’s the cool part of Nature. They’re the only bird that looks like that. And they do that harbinger thing too. So all you Nattering Nabobs of Negativity can just go pound sand. We’re glad that there are Yellow-headed Blackbirds harbingering Spring and you should be too. Remember just a few minutes ago we were up to our keesters in snow and cold, and short, ugly grey days and you were whining about Spring, how you wish it would get here and everything. Well it’s here and Yellow-headed Blackbirds are partly responsible so show a little respect.

   We have posted this image of a Yellow-headed Blackbird doing its thing. If you look very closely you can even see a few vestiges of Spring swirling and trailing behind it as it flies toward the Blackbird Country Club located over in the reeds next to the lake. It’s singles night tonight and there will be plenty of female Yellow-heads there just waiting to get hit on. Spring, it’s all good.

The Buffalo Whistle

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Many of you long time readers remember that *The Institute has its own fully domesticated herd of North American Buffalo. You can see them in the picture above coming in from The Institutes high country where they summer. These are Buffalo not bison which so many of those so-called naturalists keep insisting is their correct name. Those nattering nabobs of negativity constantly repeat this misnomer. They have even gotten it into some scientific writing, by having made up a scientific name for the animal. It is “Bison, bison” as if repeating it over and over makes it so. Look it up, they have even assigned a bunch of Italian words to its Scientific Classification. Like bringing Europe into this is going to make them right.

Remember when you were young and you went to the movies. What did every single Indian and a lot of white guys call these animals? That’s right Buffalo. Sometimes Tontonka but that a story for another time. Why would they lie? All through our history, our ancestors, who couldn’t all be lying, have used buffalo in song and story. “Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight, etc.” It’s buffalo, they’re called buffalo just deal with it. Wild Bill Hickok didn’t hunt bison. He was a buffalo hunter. He’d a probably shot you for calling him a bison hunter. They were touchy about things like that.

But we digress. This is just a small part of our bison Buffalo herd. We decided to bring them down from their high country pastures because of the storm brewing back there on the mountain behind them. We bring them in so they don’t get wet. They become irritable when they’re wet and even though we have them trained they become peckish and out of sorts when damp.

It also gives us a chance to trim their hooves, comb them out and remove as much tartar from their teeth as possible. That all works best when you have dry buffalo to work with. Each of the mature buffalo has its own monogrammed blanket which we put on them to ward off the chill. Woe betide the intern who places the wrong blanket on the wrong buffalo. You only do that once. That’s when we bring up the interns assistant to make the change from the wrong to the right buffalo. Sometimes we have to bring up several assistants in a row to get the job done. Cardinal Rule: Watch Which Blanket You Put On Each Buffalo.

We had a moving post card from one of our young readers concerning Buffalo. Here it is.

Dear Mr. The Director, Isn’t it hard to handle Buffalo when they’re alone? How do you do it with a whole big herd? Do they bite, or kick? I’ve seen stories about buffalo on TV and they make a lot of messes all the time. Who cleans that up? I think buffalo are neat and I would like to have one. Do you ever sell them? If so I know where Mommy’s credit cards are and I could send you the numbers. Would that be all right? Sincerely, Towanda Clarice Malachowski, from Green bay, Wis. P.S. If you send one don’t send it on the weekend, that’s when my dad’s home. I don’t think he likes buffalos. Love, Towanda.

Well Towanda, thank you for writing and liking buffalo as much as we do. We can answer your questions. It is hard to handle buffalo when they’re alone and it’s really hard when there’s a bunch of them, which we call a herd. They will bite and kick but only when you do something the buffalo doesn’t like, such as tightening the blankets straps to tight. If you get one, don’t do that. It makes them grumpy. Yes Towanda they do make messes but it depends on how much you feed them. If you get one we will send along a pamphlet to explain their care and feeding. As for who cleans all that up we have a new intern here that does that. Her name is Hane Fonda and you can write to her if you want. Just send your letters to Hanie the Scooper % of The Institute.

The big question you didn’t ask, Towanda, was how do we get them to come when we call them and behave when they get here. That’s our big secret about handling buffalo. And it involves a special invention that we created right here at The Institute. Our staff at our “Inventions Made To Order While You Wait department” made it just for handling buffalo. It’s ours and no one else can have it. It’s called the “Buffalo Whistle”. When we blow it our specially trained buffalo come running to be first in line to get out of the weather. And also to do other things like tricks and synchronized dancing. We have a great big special one that we mount on a half-track ( A great big truck thing that hauls guys to places where they can shoot other guys. Ask your Mommy about War,) and when we blow that one, you can hear it in Kansas, it’s really, really loud. If there are any buffalo out there they’ll hear it and come running for sure. If you get your very own buffalo, and you said you know where mommy’s credit cards were, we’ll send you your very own buffalo whistle with your name on it. It has a hole in the top for a chain so you can wear it around your neck. None of the other kids have one of those we’ll bet. You ‘ll be the most special kid in school. Just think of show and tell day when you get to show off your new pet. We’ll send you a phone number where one of our special friends in Mumbai will help you with mommy’s credit card numbers. Then just sit back and wait. Before you can say “Holy Mackerel! That’s a big buffalo” there’ll be one at your door. Thank you for writing Towanda and you might ask some of the other kids if they like buffalos too.

We here at The Institute love to receive mail from young or old so keep those cards and letters coming in. Email too. We like Emails. We’d like to stay and chat longer but we have to get down to supervise the tartar removal process. That’s a complex process that needs a lot of supervision. It takes several interns to hold the buffalo’s head while we drill and fill as our resident dentist likes to say. Stay tuned.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind. Return to your daily activities. Thank you for your support.