A 5 Point Post

The good: As much as I was happy to have the snow a few 5 pts ago, I'm happy that spring is starting to poke its head out of the clouds. My baby, or as I like to refer to her, the only lady over the last few years to stick by me, has been pent up inside for the winter and she wants out. It'll be nice to take her out and pamper her again with road trips with scenic lake front stops and visits to our favourite coffee and dessert cafe. After all it's not all the time that both of you go through something where one or both could, and quite possibly should have died and made it through even more devoted to one another. : )

The bad: What's going on with teachers sleeping with their students these days? In recent weeks I have heard of at least 3 or 4 teachers getting caught for their trysts and having the law step in to sort them out. At first I thought this was an American phenomenon starting off with Mary Kay Letourneau and her student husband but it has transcended boarders with a teacher here in Toronto 7 months pregnant with her student's baby. The second part of this is that of the teachers that have made the news lately, they have been all female teachers. And with some of the photos, they appear to be educated, good looking women as well. I don't know if their looks have anything to do with it, but it is a peculiar point of interest. Secondly, I am not naive enough to believe that it's only female teachers sleeping with their students. I know male teachers have done the same with their female students but for whatever reason, and feel free to opine on the matter, they don't find their names in the news.

The funny and in this case, wise: I was sitting down with my grandfather yesterday afternoon watching a little television and enjoying a meal when we got to talking about the lottery. Yesterday night's lottery was worth 20 million dollars and the dreams and hallucinations quickly started on my end. After all, there is pretty much nothing you can not do when you've got 20 mil at your disposal. As he filled out his ticket slip, Grampa or Kung Kung as we call him in Chinese, asked me if I'd bought my tickets yet. He did so while handing me my own lotto slip to fill out. As I started to fill out my slip, he said to me, "wait, we share our tickets and go 50 / 50. 20 million is too much money for a young guy like you and 20 million is too much for an old guy like me". I guess he figured that I might waste it and he wouldn't be able to spend it all. I guess you would have had to have been there to get the full feel of it, but the wisdom runs deep within him I tells ya.

The sad: The war in the Middle East has hit a new low, at least in my opinion. The Americans need to leave there as soon as possible. The war is one that should have never happened and its conclusion now seems even farther away than ever with the commitment of even more troops to the region, especially in Iraq. On the flip side, these "insurgents" that have been labeled as the enemy are reaching new despicable lows in their own rights. It is now practice to use (sacrifice) innocent children as decoys to get past security checks into guarded areas. Once in, the adults park the car close to their intended targets and then run from it, leaving the children inside the car as the explosives are detonated. This insanity has got to end some time.

The down right odd: Officials have tried poison, gassing and euthanasia to control a breeding frenzy among squirrels in a city park in Santa Monica. Now, they plan to give birth control a shot. Under a new program to start this summer, squirrels in Palisades Park will be injected with an immuno-contraceptive vaccine to stunt their sexual development. The intention is not to kill them if needs not be, but parks staff also have to be receptive to the county's concerns. Health officials say the squirrels, which number about 1,000 in the park, pose a public health risk. They warn that the rodents are aggressive and may carry rabies or host fleas that can spread disease, such as bubonic plague. Since 1998, Santa Monica has been cited five times by Los Angeles County for squirrel overpopulation. But the suppression methods it has used, including euthanasia, have angered animal-loving activists.

City officials say the infertility shots offer a diplomatic solution. The vaccine, developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, stops ovulation and lactation in female squirrels, and testicular development in males. The shots, running $2 to $10, have no side effects such as swelling, cited a USDA wildlife biologist.

A local animal activist supports the vaccine program but believes any health risk posed by the squirrels is overblown. "There is not a pressing threat of squirrels attacking people, so I don't know why the county is getting their panties in a bunch."