Chasing Unicorns

Kill or be Killed

By Tippy Gnu on March 29, 2016 • ( 14 Comments )

It started with a meal. We were over at my in-laws, and wanted to cook some dead bird, or pig, or cow, or some other poor critter that had been killed in a slaughterhouse. But hey we all have to eat. It’s kill or be killed in this world.

We used their oven in the back patio, because it was big enough to toast this feast. My wife set it to preheat. About ten minutes later a rank smell invaded our osmic senses. Smoke curled out of the oven. My wife killed the flame just in time, to prevent a fire that might have killed everyone in the house.

Field mice were scattering everywhere. They had ripped and torn all the insulation from the oven, and made a huge nest inside, where they could live cozy and warm. Now they were trying to save themselves from being killed by this very same, very warm home. Meanwhile, my senile mother-in-law cursed these mice that killed her “brand-new” oven. After all, she’d only bought it 20 years ago.

My father-in-law disconnected the oven and had it hauled off. But he too is getting forgetful in his old age. He neglected to completely shut off the gas. If my wife hadn’t noticed, we all would have been killed.

But my father-in-law still has most of his marbles. And he knows how to set traps for mice. My mother-in-law wanted him to use poison. They argued about it into the night, and almost reached the point of killing each other. But traps won and they both lived. However dozens of mice would soon be killed.

Then they decided we could get them a cat. The cat would kill a few mice, but that would scare away the rest, sparing their lives.

“Killer Sam”

We went down to the animal shelter and selected a ball-bearing mousetrap. A six-month old male kitten, to be exact. But it won’t bear balls much longer, as it’s the policy of the town to fix the felines they adopt out. It’s their way of killing future kittens before they’re conceived, to save them from having to kill them after they’re born.

So now, to save the next brand-new oven from being killed, we’ve saved a kitten from euthanasia at the animal shelter (well, we saved everything but its balls). The kitten will kill some mice, but will save the rest from being killed by traps. But cats also predate upon birds, snakes, gophers, and anything else that moves. So there will be a general slaughter of wildlife, in my in-laws’ backyard.

No matter how hard we try, there’s no escape from bloodshed and death in this kill-or-be-killed world.

Rave Reviews

By Tippy Gnu on March 27, 2016 • ( 11 Comments )

I think I’ve finally caught a unicorn! I’ve discovered that this blog has received rave reviews. Now, fame seems to be just around the corner. I found these reviews by going through a maze of clicks. For some reason, WordPress has been hiding them from my view, on an obscure page called Spam. But that’s the way unicorns are. They’re very elusive.

Here are some of the outstanding reviews my sensational, superlative blog has received:

“Magnificent goods from you, man. I’ve understand your stuff previous to and you’re just too fantastic.” – silvanomorandi.

“I would like to thank you for the efforts you have put in writing this site. I am hoping the same high-grade blog post from you in the upcoming also.” – diadelcazador.

“I am just commenting to make you understand of the helpful discovery my cousin’s princess found reading through the blog. She picked up a good number of pieces, which included what it is like to have a marvelous helping character to have many others completely learn several specialized matters.” – dyrlaegevagten.

“楼主,请原谅我的自私！我知道无论用多么华丽的辞藻来形容楼主您帖子的精彩程度都是不够的,都是虚伪的,所以我只想说” – sesexy.

“Thank you a lot for sharing this with all people you really know what you’re talking approximately!” – aeiautomocion.

“This video post is actually enormous, the sound feature and the picture quality of this tape post is in fact awesome.” – thomasbiler. (I don’t do video or tape posts, but thanks for the rave review, Thomas.)

Who knows, you may have rave reviews hidden on your blog, also. To find them, hover over My Sites, then click on WP Admin. Then click on Comments. Finally, click on the Spam menu, under the Comments heading. That’s a long information scent to follow, but no one ever said catching a unicorn was easy.

Bad Rad

By Tippy Gnu on March 26, 2016 • ( 3 Comments )

Radovan Karadzic had a bad day this Thursday. On 3/24/16, he was convicted of ten war crimes, and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Let’s just call him Rad. Back in the 1990’s, Rad ordered the killing of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebinica, during the Bosnian war. He was also responsible for the Siege of Sarajevo, which killed over 5,000 civilians. Many of these civilian casualties in Sarajevo were cut down by relentless sniper fire from the surrounding hillsides.

Rad is a former Yugoslavian psychiatrist. In the 1980s he used his credentials to issue fake psychological evaluations, which helped healthcare workers secure early retirements. Later, he and a friend obtained an agricultural loan, which they used to build houses for themselves. He was arrested and convicted of fraud, and served a year in jail.

Bad Rad’s mugshot from his arrest for fraud in 1984.

When Yugoslavia broke up in the early 1990s, Rad entered politics – the perfect job for a con-man. He became the President of the Republic of Srpska, and Supreme Commander of the Bosnian Serb Army. I won’t get into the weeds concerning all the bad Rad was convicted of. He wasn’t the only one to commit war crimes in the Balkans. Genocide was committed by both Christians and Muslims, on many different fronts. But Christians were behind about 90% of it.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the United Nations in 1991 to address these war crimes. Since that time, ICTY has indicted 161 people, from lowly soldiers to high-ranking politicians such as Rad. 74 have been sentenced, 18 have been acquitted, and most of the remainder have had their cases transferred to sovereign nations, or withdrawn.

Two trials remain: that of former military leader Ratko Mladic, and former Serbian president Goran Hadzic. I love the name Ratko. Doesn’t it befit one who is accused of a war crime?

Rad hid from authorities and disguised himself for more than 11 years, before his arrest in 2008. I think it’s fitting that he had to spend time on the run and in hiding. Many accused war criminals are never caught. But I like knowing they have to spend time and energy looking over their shoulders and perhaps holing up in uncomfortable quarters.

Times seem to have changed. Political and military leaders must be more careful when considering whether or not to murder innocent people. And soldiers must think twice about which orders to obey.

War crimes continue to occur in places like Africa and the Middle East. But hopefully Rad’s conviction will sober up some of the bloodthirsty despots running around our world. Maybe we’ll have a few less disappearances of innocent civilians, over the coming years.

There have been attempts to bring war crime charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin. And there have also been attempts to charge former President George W. Bush, former Vice-President Dick Cheney, and other former members of the Bush Administration. I doubt we’ll ever see these people arrested, but if they were, I wonder how it would affect our political rhetoric.

Perhaps candidates like Donald Trump wouldn’t be so quick to advocate torture or the killing of terrorists’ family members. Maybe there’d be less Bad Rads running for President.