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I walk gingerly when using a sinking ship analogy. This is because we know what is alleged to come from sinking ships. Quite honestly I don’t want to start off with a blatant insult to rats for simply doing what a sane rodent would do when its ship goes down. Being a rat overboard in hope of finding another free ride should best be presented in a kindly and optimistic statement of eternal rodent hope for a secure berth providing food and transport. Being a rat it does not intend to work its passage nor does anyone, most especially the working crew, expect anything of it but dirt and continual consumption by means mostly resulting in destruction.

In past days of long voyages making it necessary to carry aboard a small farm of food animals for the trip the presence of rats was unavoidable. The rats were aboard in tight places that made them as difficult to find and eradicate as roaches. Also in times past sailors made as good a thing as they could of the rat by catching and eating them, cooked of course. Roasted rat was a nice change from gruel and fatty salted meat. I suspect that in most other situations the rat would not be a food item, but it is true that the ancient and noble Romans of the empire had a fondness for nicely prepared door mice. They loved these tasty morsels, but then they were also highly fond of sugar of lead, a faux sweetener of a sort to drive hatters madder than the Mad Hat himself.

Of course we up here should (as some pure hearts expect from us) acknowledge and apologize and make reparations for our part in the fur trade that opened the area and was quite directly responsible for the suffering of many in the felt trade who suffered insanity from their vocation by inhaling mercury fumes while making fur felt. OK, that’s a lot to swallow or breathe in, but furs from the trade (fur being one of the resources scoped by Sieur Du Luth) were the main ingredient of fur felt used to make the find hats worn on noble and successful heads as marks of wealth and standing. A large or tall hat signaled a person of consequence much as big feet are thought to be a sign that someone is a seriously big dick. In most cases fancy headwear is easier to show off than are Bozo shoes, so fashionable hats won that social contest and were the cause of many a hat maker (hatter) going mad. See, there WAS something there after all and I eventually got to it for the historical improvement of all.

So OK, we are in an area once prime in the fur trade. That connection does exist and so it is possible for the pure of heart and motive to trace back all the woes of animal exploitation and partial extirpation (look it up) that ravaged (in another era one might have written savaged instead) the environment. (Silly note: I recently heard someone morph obliterate into oliberate while meaning the former, which is kind of curious when you think about it. Please do.) We could be held to account (atonement is what’s actually sought, but saying so is to religious in sound and needs be disguised as accountability) for past ills too numerous to list in total and therefore all the worse for magnitude (in this case meaning something like maggot interlude). Oh woe our history is black and tainted say members of the clerical order of non-faith fundamental dogma, WOOF! Those who seriously think we have a debt to pay for being part of a very successful culture and society that made, as all do, many gaffs along the way is, seems to me, madly mad as any fume inhaling hatter. On the other hand such insistence, seems t’ me, useful for giving those with otherwise useless views a platform to stand on and look almost rational if one looks beyond the absurdity of assertions that reason chuckles at as it would the image of a serious vegan debate done with a bit of rat or mouse tail dangling out the side of one’s mouth.

With the sinking ship image sufficiently diluted I might safely say what spews from cooking cities is a great lot of humanity herding north to escape the heavy bask of heat. The regular migrants are outnumbered. The regulars, Badger State plated trucks dragging boats freighted under cover with cases of Yankee beer, take up more room than migrants in practical little (often to the point of humorously so in both size and style) cars that unload a freight of children in loose attire many of whom are so connected to the outside world they don’t seem to have much reckoning of where they are in the here and now. Both ears plugged in and both thumbs talking, they are not present when called. That may be just as well. In any case, heat drives the migrants up the shore where they disgorge from tiny cars to find relief buying T shirts from China. Ill weather is a migrant stopper. Not so for Badgers. They stream through in any weather when lakes are open and hope of landing the mythic lunker makes the eighteen foot over equipped Bass Boat an essential, along with beer. Our boats, like our citizens, have grown wider. To be fair about this, I go to Europe where I presumably look as outlandish as any refugee from city a cooking.

Reports: I’ve not had much chance to use the NRA hat; something to look forward perhaps. On a new angle I’m using a Teddy Roosevelt quote for another trial. TR is not among my idols or gurus, but I like this. “To anger a conservative lie to them. To anger a liberal tell them the truth.” Slipped into conversation the quote gets either a laugh or anger. My appreciation for TR may be on the rise.