View from the North 40: It's a twisty line from A to doomed

A 38-year-old man was stuck for two days inside the pipe base of a giant fan in a California vineyard. And I think this might be a sign.

The man is, The Associate Press reported June 9, expected to recover, though the photo shows a barely-larger-than-human sized pipe with a bare knee and thigh sticking out of an access hole. The guy said he climbed the fan to get a good view of the nearby tractor for a photo.

Before you all succumb to the urge to roll your eyes and say, “Californians,” you should know that officers reported that the man had more methamphetamine in his vehicle than photography equipment. That said, before you go assuming that the meth is the gateway to stupidity, you should keep reading.

Nevada firefighters had to pull an 18-year-old out of the chimney of her own home. UPI reported Wednesday that the uninjured teenager had locked herself out of the house and thought she could get in this way. The flue foiled her plan — apparently they don’t only stop air.

Several news outlets are reporting that a Springfield, Massachusetts man was stuck up in a tree for more than a day and had to be rescued Thursday. He wasn't stuck stuck, like wedged in stuck, he was just incapable of coming down on his own stuck, for more than a day.

And Digg.com posted a video June 10 of a woman who got stuck inside the frame of a metal folding chair. I don’t know how she managed it, but apparently she had no tools to get herself out so firefighters had to cut her out of it.

Now, I’m thinking that meth-guy at least had an excuse. Right? At least he was on meth.

As a whole, though, I’m starting to worry about the human race.

Look at the farmers in Kyrgyzstan, which is the 10th largest producer of horse meat in the world (don’t get uppity, the U.S. is sixth largest) and the Central Asian country is now developing cricket farms to meet a growing demand for high-protein cricket flour, sports protein bars and spicy deep-fried beer snacks.

A cricket-based food promoter said in the June 17 Reuters article they are trying to meet a growing demand for this cheap protein source.

It does seem that this is not an evolution in food production, so much as a devolution. I would imagine that this is what our hunter-gatherer ancestors took back to the cave, and they liked it or supper was over.

And yet, in a May 31 article Reuters reported that a high-end restaurant in Paris is serving meals like prawn salad with yellow mealworm, crunchy insects on a bed of vegetables and chocolate-coated grasshoppers. The restaurant grows its own mealworms, so maybe that could be considered an evolutionary advancement over the cave-dwellers, but I don’t know if I’d brag about it.

The Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Region 6 office reported on its Facebook page Thursday that some of the lobster-like crayfish at East Fork Reservoir near Lewistown look like they’re wearing fashionable shoes. They have Montana-native pea clams attached to their feet. FWP said that some places in the reservoir have so many clams the crayfish can’t help but step on them as the crayfish walk around, and when that happens, the clams clamp down on the crayfish feet and stay there.

I can’t help but think that this is sort of clever. The clams are overcrowded and when they latch onto the crayfish feet, they not only hitch a ride to a less crowded place but they also avoid getting eaten by the crayfish. Maybe the clams don’t have a brain to logic this out, but nature has smarts.

On the other hand, Huffington Post reported June 9 that Ohio registered nurse Joanna Overholt told state lawmakers in the Ohio House that COVID-19 vaccinations make people turn magnetized.

She is shown in a video clip saying she researched this thoroughly over the lunch break. She then proved it by sticking an aluminum key to her chest and, well, almost sticking it to her neck.

I wish, though, she would've produced some research on the special magnetism that attracts a naturally non-magnetic aluminum key and how it only works through one’s sternum.

Y'know, researchers say that crayfish have been around for 30 million years, and clams have existed on earth 510 million years. Some days I feel time may yet prove that humankind’s tenuous grasp on both logic and common sense will be our undoing at a fledgling 6 million years of existence.

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Or maybe our lack of empathy will be the only weapon needed for our mutually assured destruction at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .