"Now when he plugs in the stinger, flex and he'll explode!"
"Now when he plugs in the stinger, flex and he'll explode!"
by Peter Kelleher
Bronxville-I'm sipping coffee in front of the coffee shop while all the regulars mill around and attempt to talk with each other. "My God," I think, "the only people more boring than drunks are sober people." Or at least these sober people. Thankfully one of the more insipid ones notices a TV van down the street and drags off his pal to see "excitement in Bronxville." Not likely. Shortly after they come back, I've finished my second cup and given up on any hopes of interesting humans showing up, so I'm off before I can hear what the coverage was about.
The Eleven O'Clock news fills me in. There was a "red tailed hawk" found dead of West Nile Virus.
There were a few disturbing things about this story. For one, the image of the "red tailed hawk" looked a lot like what we from the area call crows. I think many field guides also use that same terminology.
I wasn't all that surprised by dead crows in the news. Last year, a month before this whole scare started, I was noticing dead crows along the road to the Bronxville train station. Now every suburban kid knows these damn birds are indestructible. I've heard stories of pigeons being taken out by a well thrown stone, or squirrels repeatedly shot with pump action air rifles, twitching and flipping, spewing blood over the yard and running in circles til they finally keeled. (I'm not sure of the story, maybe the squirrel was finally put down with a shovel blow, but it wasn't going anywhere) The crow, however, is a formidable foe. Those pump action guns are said to only elicit looks of disdain from these scourges of the late afternoon sleeper. I remember being none too upset about the deaths of those birds, just a little mystified.
News of the West Nile Virus cleared up the mystery.
And the News and the West Nile Virus is really what disturbs me. It's damn easy to blame the media for blowing things out of proportion, but that doesn't make it wrong. Last year's West Nile Virus Debacle was a great example of how to cause a panic over next to nothing.
Spraying. No one liked the thought of nerve gas flitting down onto their gardens and cars and pets. But it was accepted. The City and the Counties were acting, "Swiftly to curtail this threat." But there was no threat. 7 people out of more than 8 million. Those were the casualties. 56 sick, then better. That was the root cause for nerve gas. Which is of course dispersed in "levels not harmful to humans" So far. We all know it'll be 10 years before the symptoms start showing up, before people start suggesting that little Timmy has trouble breathing now because his mom left the window open in the sweltering summer of '99...or 2000.
AIDS was and is an epidemic. West Nile Virus was a few car accidents on a rainy day. Most people walked away. A few got killed. Most people drove home unscathed, rubbernecking.
I plan to be out in the woods a lot this summer. I plan to walk more places. I enjoy the evening bar-b-que and fishing til it gets dark. I don't like the idea of helicopters gassing me while I do all this. I don't like people being worried about something that's probably less deadly than the flu.
Getting rid of mosquito larva is barely talked about. That would be a key way to curtail this "threat". Send all those workfare folk and DEC folk and hell, even some of the too many cops out to look for standing water. There's usually tons (well, gallons) of it. I've seen mosquito larva in soup cans, garbage cans and swimming pools. Tires, dumpsters, and even plastic bags can trap water for long enough to provide a home for these buggers. Send people out to get rid of that. If you want to panic people about something, panic them about standing water. Yell, scream and run multiple stories about tipping over that old plastic kiddie pool.
There are far better ways to control or eliminate mosquitoes. And there are viruses that kill many more than seven people out of over eight million.
I'll no doubt sip a cup of coffee or two in boring old Bronxville this summer. Hopefully at night with no fear of patrolling helicopters. Not exactly newsworthy, but sometimes that's OK.