3/4/09
Softball: Comparative Reassurance in Animal Biology
Dear People,
I’m tempted to announce that I’m simply too demoralized to organize another game, and yet I must concede that I’m also overwhelmed by the despair of knowing just how many weeks it’s been since you last enjoyed a vital aerobic release. Nevertheless, as I started reflecting on how cruel nature has been to us as a people, I soon realized that it’s still better that we are people, as opposed to say, garden-variety bacteria, urban rodentia or one of the myriad of contemptible insects that ceaselessly invade our homes.
Oh sure, the creepy-crawlys don’t suffer from high unemployment or insufferable bosses or insolvent financial behemoths that suck the wealth dry from their tiny little buggy yurts. Nevertheless, I mention all this because after succumbing to last weekend’s rain, I retreated to the sanctity of my lair and for whatever reason, I started to read an article in the current New York Review of Books on Edward O. Wilson’s The Super Organism: The Beauty and Elegance of Ant Societies. The title of the review is simply “The Superior Civilization,” but with all due respect to both Mr. Wilson and the reviewer and even the dumbass ants, I vehemently reject the thesis that that as an organic culture, they are somehow “better” than we are.
Collectively, of course, they’re as wicked smart as anyone else on earth—a veritable Borg of complex and annoyingly hyper-efficient society. And yet before you decide that given the damn economy and the ceaseless rains, you’d rather be an ant, I’d likely to gently refer you to a couple passages from the review in question. Indeed, I learned that as advanced and wondrous as they are, they’re actually more sicko than humans. . .
In one species, the female worker ants (the gamergates) venture outside of the nest to attract a male, engage him in copulation, then carry him into the nest before snipping off his genitals and throwing away the rest of his body. The severed genitals continue to inseminate the gamergate for up to an hour, after which they too are discarded.
Frankly, I find this lacking in even the slightest pretext of romance, and the fact is that if female workers of our own species did this, they’d likely be charged with an entire array of misdemeanors. Of course it’s not just their hideous sex lives that shows their inferiority, for look at what else we learn. . .
Ant morticians recognize ant corpses purely on the basis of the presence of a product of decomposition called oleic acid. When researchers daub live ants with the acid, they are promptly carried off to the ant cemetery by the undertakers, alive and kicking. Indeed, unless they clean themselves very thoroughly, they are repeatedly dragged to the mortuary, despite showing every other sign of life.
If that isn’t the most rarefied form of carbon-based idiocy, then I don’t know what. Yes, morticians do not a society make, but I think we’ve now learned enough to see that as a species, we homosapiens clearly kick their insectual little asses. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Ray
PS: I’m going to be in Asia for the last couple weeks of the month, so if you want a game on the 22nd and 29th, a stout organizational masochist will need to step forward.
PPS: As of this writing, Yahoo Weather is predicting a few showers on Friday but then sunny and glorious the whole weekend. It is time. . .
3/6/09
Softball: Your Official Daylight Savings Sport
Dear People,
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11AM, and of now there are still three slots left. If you’re playing, please remember to set your clocks forward on Saturday night. Why? Because if you don’t, you will undoubtedly arrive an hour late—the unhelpful moniker of chrono-retardo forever your cross to bear.
This week’s field fee is just $4, and that includes a succulent wok-fried duck in black bean sauce and dill….Ray 845-7552
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