The Last Word On Nothing

Snark Week: Man’s Best Friend?

By: Cassandra Willyard | July 9, 2015

Back in the 1970s, Saturday Night Live ran a skit in which Chevy Chase played a very clever land shark. He selected his victims by going door to door. And because no one would in their right mind would open the door for a shark, he pretended to be other, more benign things: a plumber, a flower delivery person, a dolphin.

Land sharks, of course, don’t exist. And even if they did, we wouldn’t bring them into our homes. But a dog in a shark costume? We’d kiss its wee fuzzy wuzzy face off.

But consider this: DOGS ARE JUST AS DANGEROUS AS LAND SHARKS — maybe even more so. Continue reading →

Snark week: Killer Cows!

By: Christie Aschwanden | July 8, 2015

Apparently there’s some television extravaganza going on this week that makes it seem as if the beach is a scary place where a shark could attack you at any moment. Don’t believe it. You want a dangerous place? I’ll show you a dangerous place. A farm.

It’s not just the little roosters. If you’re worried about being killed by an animal, fear the cow. The most recent CDC statistics show that between 2003 and 2007, at least 108 people were killed in cow-related incidents. The CDC report provides a chart describing some of these incidents, and they’re brutal. Continue reading →

Snark Week: Sand, Sea, and Family-Oriented Flesh-Ripping Aliens

By: Jennifer S. Holland | July 7, 2015

Sea Stone Photography-Krista Queeney-Gloucester MA-2 (1) — Alien sand flea nicknamed “Old Blue Eyes.” Cuter than it deserves to be.

Some years back, in search of sunshine and sand, my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I packed up the Bronco II and headed down to the Florida Keys (we love punishingly long and mind-numbing drives). We’d brought camping gear because we hadn’t booked anywhere to stay and, more important, we were dirt poor. The fee to pop a tent on the beach was manageable, plus we were still young enough to count Cup-a-Soup and gritty cheese sandwiches as a meal.

The “beach” we ended up on wasn’t quite what we’d had in mind. It was narrow back to front and there was more dried-up greenish black seaweed than sand in any direction. But there it was, and there we were, and we were tired of driving. So we set up camp on the sandiest spot, took a walk, ate a granola bar each, and, having run out of ideas and energy, crawled into bed.

That’s when the many-layered nightmare began. Continue reading →

Snark Week: A Silent, Adorable Killer

By: Erik Vance | July 6, 2015

I have noticed a disturbing trend on the internets recently. A series of videos, pictures, and posts have portrayed the duck-billed platypus as an adorable, lovable creature. As if it is some cute little bundle of playful, ticklish fun. They’ve even been given a cute little web nickname of “puggle.” In fact, I might go so far as to say the platypus is on the verge of becoming the web’s new hedgehog. This needs to stop and it needs to stop now.

The duck-billed platypus – often called “nature’s mistake” or “holy crap, what is that freaky thing” by scientists – is not a toy, not a pet, and not even remotely safe. You see, platypuses (or “platypi,” as they are called by people who also use the word “octopi”) have a deadly secret. Continue reading →

Welcome to Snark Week

By: Erik Vance | July 6, 2015

Welcome to the third annual Snark Week! Every year, the Discovery Channel spends a week reminding us how frightening sharks around the world can be. It’s a week of half-truths, embellishment, and occasional outright fabrication. But man, it’s good TV.

But what about all the animals that aren’t sharks? Don’t they want to kill us too? In fact, yes, they do. Pretty much all of them. And thanks to the hard working journalists at LWON, you will learn about five such frightening creatures this week. Are they genuinely dangerous? Sure, why not? Are they interesting? Absolutely. Are they terrifying? Well, they are now.

And just like its namesake, it’s less important that the creatures you learn about are truly dangerous as much as that you feel they are dangerous. Because who needs facts when you have good old fashioned intuition? So sit back, kick up your feet and enjoy Snark Week. Because nothing is as much fun as being frightened by the world around you.

Just when you thought it was safe to say “Awww, how cute…”

The Last Word

By: Jennifer S. Holland | July 4, 2015

June 29-July 3

This week Craig waxes poetic and scientific on how wanderlust may (or may not) be etched in our genes.

Cameron plays with fire in her dreams but can’t light one in real life.

Guest poster Naomi Schon and regular LWONer Sally tease out (squeeze out?) the flaws in the breastfeeding-makes-you-skinny promise. (Spoiler: It doesn’t.)

Photographer Steve Smith, who grew up in the Mormon church, shares photos from his new book Waiting out the Latter Days, which he says investigates “the world that did not meet its armageddon.”

And Jessa takes us up a river with a paddle—drawing and cross-drawing masterfully on whitewater but always returning to dip silently into her beloved river of glass.

(Photo by Steve Smith)

Dip, Dip and Swing

By: Jessa Gamble | July 3, 2015

Another Canada Day has passed, eclipsed in my part of the country by the festivities of Aboriginal Day, which falls just a week beforehand. Bizarrely, it was the Google Doodle this year that most roused my patriotic spirit on July first. In the image, a woman kneels up in the bow of a canoe — possibly scouting some rapids ahead – while a man steers in the stern.

It’s quite a beautiful scene. Trouble is, neither of them seems to know how to hold a paddle. Their top hands are wrapped around the shaft instead of clasping the grip, and the paddles themselves are outlandishly outsized, in an otherwise realistic painting. That might be a minor quibble, but it doesn’t sit right with me. Nothing says Canada to me like paddling, but much more than that, nothing marks a Canadian more than paddling expertise. There is a certain kind of competence you can only display in a canoe. Continue reading →

Guest Post: Waiting Out the Latter Days

By: Steven Smith | July 2, 2015

Steven Smith — a photographer who grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormon church, and whom I’ve known a long time — sent me a book he’s just published. It’s called Waiting Out the Latter Days. It’s almost entirely photographs which I love but am incapable of reading, so I asked him to explain it a little. His full answer is in the following post but his first answer was:

“I have been thinking about how to talk about this book but it is so personal, I get self-conscious. The book has a catchy, almost clichéd, title but I mean the phrase in every sense possible. The Mormons viewed the nuclear apocalypse as the Bible’s promise of the end of days. That was when Jesus was going to come back and take every one to heaven. I did this book because I was so curious to investigate the world that did not meet its armageddon.”

– Ann

Fourth grade was the last time we practiced diving under our desks and turning our faces away from the windows. In middle school, we were sent down into the basement from time to time for what our teachers told us were earthquake preparedness drills. We knew the drills were for atomic bombs. The looming nuclear attacks were all part of God’s plan. Our job was to remain faithful and wait.

While waiting, we saw the TV programs on Nuclear Armageddon and When the Russians Invade that aired right before Saturday morning cartoons. Then in Sunday school, we found out how Satan and the Communists were conspiring together against us. The Cold War was escalating, the Russians were going to attack soon, and we had better stop touching ourselves. I didn’t really have any hopes or dreams then. I just wanted to live long enough to get married and have sex before God called us Home. Continue reading →