Peter Krupa

Seriously. Despite appearances, this is not The Onion.

Angles on the Obama story must finally be running out.

In what is perhaps the most biblical assertion of woe regarding the invasion - invasion! - of Mexican immigrants into our fair land, Lou Dobbs has repeatedly claimed that those dirty people have brought with them 7,000 cases of leprosy.

Except, they haven’t. In fact, the U.S. has seen a total of 7,000 cases of leprosy in the last 30 years. One would think this would be an easy thing to fact check, but apparently Mr. Dobbs is too busy to hire an intern.

This suggests two things. First, how long before CNN carries images of the Rio Grande flowing as a river of blood? And second, yellow journalism is back, except now it’s on TV.

Progress, shmogress. People stay the same.

UPDATE: Oh, and speaking of television, Bill O’Reilly and Donald Trump discuss how much they hate Rosie O’Donnell. Watching that clip, I felt like a horse trapped in a burning stable.

Plus, I just threw up in my mouth. A lot.

What with all the pets and Panamanians dying from Chinese food and drug exports that were tainted with various degrees of poison, China should be a little worried about the ol’ international image.

So the leaders of this Communist country put their heads together and decided something needed to be done to demonstrate to the world that China was serious about reforming its food and drug regulations.

And they wanted to do it old school.

Hence, the former head of China’s Food and Drug Administration has been sentenced to death “after pleading guilty to corruption and accepting bribes.”

Now I totally feel better about buying Chinese consumer goods.

Nice essay this week in the New Yorker about the Republican Party scrambling around like a three-legged dog tied to a flaming rattle snake.  Some highlights - for example, this choice bit of New Yorker decorum:

[Rove] is a bookish man who plays the part of the anti-intellectual, which fits an Administration whose culture discourages displays of esoteric knowledge and, its critics say, of useful knowledge as well. 

Right. “It’s critics,” meaning, “I.” More seriously, every time I read something like the following, I am reminded of… hmmmm… what does this remind me of?

The difference between [DeLay’s] own adultery and Gingrich’s, he said, “is that I was no longer committing adultery by that time, the impeachment trial. There’s a big difference.” He added, “Also, I had returned to Christ and repented my sins by that time.”

*** 

DeLay says that when, in the coming years, he is not fighting the indictment in Texas (he insists that he is not guilty) he will be building a conservative grass-roots equivalent of MoveOn.org. “God has spoken to me,” he said. “I listen to God, and what I’ve heard is that I’m supposed to devote myself to rebuilding the conservative base of the Republican Party, and I think we shouldn’t be underestimated.” 

Oh yeah, now I remember. The Taliban.

I can think of a lot of ways a developing country could use $20 million that are better than giving it to Danny Glover so he can make movies. Apparently, Hugo Chavez can’t. Of course, considering the cash flow problems the Bolivarian Revolution has been having of late, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the financing arrived to Hollywood in the form of 400,000 barrels of heavy, sour crude.

Sushi robots. Seriously. Robots that make sushi. Gmail ads can be so weird…

A busy blog is the product of an idle hand, and vice versa. That is to say, I no longer waste huge swaths of my day reading various and sundry media, meaning there is not much grist for the ol’ mill.

Oh, there’s a lot I could post about, but I doubt you all are interested in the intricacies of the Costa Rican state telecom monopoly vis-à-vis looming free trade agreements, or whatever. I will, however, note that Fidel Castro has come out against Costa Rica’s free trade agreement with the U.S., which is weird considering that he spends the other half of his time complaining about the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba.

Free trade: Good or bad? Castro isn’t sure.

At any rate, in times like these I think we can all look for answers in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Part III, which I happened to see today, teaches impressionable minds like my own that piracy is all about fighting for Justice and Liberty and Freedom. The British, on the other hand, are evil, and it has vaguely to do with capitalism.

“Good for business”? Fuck that! Let’s go pirate stuff!

Anyway, it’s possible I’ve drank too much Coca-Cola.

Sometimes my wife needs help with her English. For example. The Spanish word puta connotes something similar to the English word bitch - son of a bitch translates as hijo de puta.

Literally, however, puta means whore, and so occasionally I find myself explaining to Ona that, no sweetie, that woman is not dressed like a bitch, she’s dressed like a whore.

It’s all very cute.

(Previously: Prologue, Day 1, Day 2)

Ona wanted me to buy poison. She wanted to get glue traps and air rifles and maybe rent a cat (craigslist?). Her mother (my mother-in-law) would arrive in a few days, and the rat, she said, was getting the better of me. There was a bit of drama.

“Maybe you’re just drawing this out so you can write about it on your blog,” she said.

The thought had crossed my mind. But I preferred to think of rat killing as at once a battle of wits and a process with rules, like a bull fight. One of us would end up dead - in this case, the rat by my hand or me at the hand of my wife.

Sure, the bull fighter could expedite things by using firearms, just like I could sprinkle anti-freeze all over the building. Yet no one likes to pay money to watch a man in tight pants and a funny hat murder a bull so efficiently, and likewise my landlady probably wouldn’t be so happy if I inadvertently poisoned her small dog.

No, the contest would continue. Ona would have stomped off into another other room if we didn’t live in a studio apartment. Marital bliss hung in the balance (not really, but work with me here – I need a story arc).

The next step in this battle of wits, therefore, wasn’t to change tactics completely but to adjust the ones I was using. The rat safely licked the peanut butter off the trap triggers because, firstly, the traps weren’t set delicately enough; and secondly, peanut butter is practically a liquid, and no fatal tugging/gnawing/finagling is required.

I resolved that second problem with canned anchovies that had been languishing uneaten in the cupboard. A chunk of that smelly, stringy stuff mashed good and cleverly onto the trigger seemed irresistible, though I resisted. Then after a few false starts, I set the traps on “whisker-touch” mode. Put them in the usual places. Then we left.

***

And so the story comes to an end. When we got back a few hours later, I found our little friend caught right on the bridge of his nose, eyeballs protruding, limbs splayed stiffly in what must have been a spasm of surprise.

I took pictures. Ona kissed me. Ding-dong, the rat is dead. We celebrated because, hell, any excuse to celebrate. I was a little sad to see the contest come to an end so quickly, and Ona suggested that I drag the “rat” saga out by posting fiction, or I guess these days we could call it “embellished memoir,” and not tell anyone about the “embellished” part. Sadly, I declined, due to time constraints.

Oh, but we left the other traps set. Just in case.

A U.S. company recently announced the discovery of roughly $500 million worth of gold coins in a sunken British warship. The Spanish, however, are suspicious that the ship (the British ship, but whatever) was located in Spanish waters:

The Spanish Civil Guard, on request from the government, is investigating whether the company could be charged with theft of Spanish heritage if the haul came from a ship found in Spanish waters….

Right. Theft of heritage in the form of gold. The Spanish would know something about that, wouldn’t they?