Thursday, February 21, 2008

The Birds

So, I'm reading this book called "The World Without Us" by a dude named Alan Weisman. The premise of the book is "what if human beings completely and instantly vanished from the Earth". It's a ton of research into what we have done to our planet, and what will continue to happen without our presence. A lot of the stuff is way over my head, but it makes me feel smart to read it, and I feel really good when I write about it in my blog.

Anyway, I just finished this part about birds - in particular, how many birds die every year from man-made problems. Read 'em and weep (if you like birds): 1 billion (yeah, a billion) break their necks when they fly into windows; 60-80 million wind up in the grill of your SUV; 500 million see the blinking red lights of a radio tower before they hit the actual tower; and 210 million are killed by domesticated cats in rural WISCONSIN alone. Add that up and it's a gigantic pile of dead birds.
In fact, you could probably fill up the entire shit-state of Wisconsin with all of them - and when I'm emperor that's what I'll do. It will be a monument to our success.

It's our manifest destiny. The birds outnumber us, and we need to dwindle their numbers. We cannot risk the bird population banding together to destroy us. I mean, you don't think that if the birds are the closest relative to DINOSAURS that they can't evolutionize again and become the masterminds of the downfall of humanity? Think about it: birds can FLY. Humans had to build planes before they could fly, and that took FOREVER. If birds can figure out how to combine their ability to fly with mutant talons strong enough to hold nuclear warheads we are FUCKED. Trust me. Hitchcock knew something.

If you are ever in the position to vote for more windows, cats, radio towers or cars, I say "DO IT". Instead of killing two birds with one stone, we'll be killing about a billion with one gigantic boulder.

Reason Number 476 Why I Will Never Be A Famous Writer:
Birds will strategically mutate their talons to hold nuclear bombs; the world will subsequently end before I can finish my
magnum opus.

2 comments:

Mikey Filmmaker said...

A bird once flew into a window at my house. Dead on impact. Just thought I would share.

Kent said...

Kyle,

I went to WinCo this past Sunday to do some grocery shopping. The second I stepped out of my car into the parking lot, I look up towards the heavens and there they are! A flock of seaguls JUST taking off from the roof top of WinCo. They start to fly straight over me, and as they pass I am surrounded by shit bombs everywhere. The first one landed right in front of me. I reared back as if it would have helped. Then I was hearing the bombs everywhere. They were surrounding me. Some how I wasn't struck down...but it was scary Kyle. I could have been shitted on by a seagul.

One time when my uncle was a kid, he fed a Dorito chip to a seagul. It got stuck in its neck, and you could see the triangular shape bulging out the sides.