Loyola Chicago’s Mosaic

Pigeons: downfall of humanity? Or just New York? And would anyone care?

I couldn’t resist.

Pigeons are living breathing organisms. They also carry millions of them on their backs. Do I NEED to explain why people hate pigeons?

Do they deserve the sort of treatment people give them? Culling their populations? Calling them terrible names?

In the Trib. two weeks ago, they ran a front-page article about the birds living in big cities.

What about the methods? Birth control for birds sounds cockamamie, but hear the supporters out: it might work, and it doesn’t involve dead pigeons in the streets.

Personally, of the other ideas, I like the mechanical hawks. Expensive but very cool. Until they go crazy and begin carrying away household pets and taking over the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

I don’t know how likely that is.

A hurricane, a forest fire, and an earthquake walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Why all the gloom and doom?”

I got myself out to the Chicago Humanities Festival for a couple shows. Mostly I went to “Comedy Night” on Monday, November 5, which involved a presentation by the editors of The Onion (one word: hilarious) and a panel of some intellectuals supported by comedian and former Saturday Night Live “Weekend Update” anchor Colin Quinn… don’t ask about HIS intellectual status.

I have to say, the panel of “experts” sorely disappointed me. Billed as “The Comedy of Global Warming,” it talked a lot about comedy in general. The head panelist, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, tried to steer it toward a discussion of doom, at least, but it never quite stayed there.

And the comedy about global warming? There was just about none, and I got the idea that really, the only thing to do with global warming comedy is to make fun of Al Gore. Also, Colin Quinn’s set at the end spent two minutes on the subject and the next 15 on anything else that wasn’t global warming he could muster.

It also snubbed one form of comedy that definitely would not help Chicagoans like the panel (especially ones like me). Everyone up there simply talked about standup comedians. “Standups this, standups that, standups are the bravest souls, standups put themselves out there in front of the audience to perform…” There was not a mention of Improv. Silly non-Chicagoans.

This is not to say the panel didn’t have its moments. Very intelligent people, all of them, they made plenty of good points. Comedy from doomday predictions comes not in the events, but in the human reaction. 9/11, of course, served this point admirably.

Organic is that buzzword that everyone is gawking at these days. Some are sulking, of course. The mass food production industry faces the major task of figuring out how to continue mass food production when people are clamoring for less chemicals and more natural goodness.

But why do people go organic? The health scares don’t just END when you give up pesticides and various other chemical treatments. Some of those are meant to keep the plants healthy and E. Coli free (unlike some frozen pizzas I know).

I know my roommates prefer to buy the organic peanut butter. Of course, organic peanut butter is about the better quality of stuff, less about chemicals. I grew up on the other stuff, nothing natural about it.

I complained about the ridiculous extra cost, but today I tasted the natural stuff for the first time. Kinda looks digusting to dip a knife in, but…

Well, I understand why it’s worth it for some people. Now if only my roomies would buy the “Super Chunky” versions of that stuff.

Anyway, I started thinking about this because of this: here’s a New York Times article from a few weeks ago, short and sweet, about five organic things to look for, especially when raising a family.