- Typically, highways are not friendly places for wildlife. They’re
places where the carcasses of car-struck deer, squirrels, birds, groundhogs and
other of God’s creations lie on the side of the road, bloody and flattened
reminders that fast-moving vehicles and intellectually limited beasts don’t mix
well. So it’s a pleasant change of pace that Massachusetts highways may soon
become havens for monarch butterflies and other declining insect populations.
State wildlife and transportation officials have an interesting plan to use a
$21,500 federal grant to help plant milkweed and other native plants for
pollinating insects alongside some highways and on median strips. This effort
is in part a response to scientists’ recent claims that the monarch butterfly in
particular has seen its numbers dwindle in recent years in the U.S. Northeast,
in part due to the loss of meadow habitat and milkweed. Putting two and two
together and using federal cash to make it happen, the Massachusetts Department
of Transportation says it will identify potential locations for seeding while
MassWildlife chooses the right native seed mix for planting. Their joint
efforts will result in newly created meadows to be marked by signs so the
public can see where its tax dollars are going as it whizzes by at 70 mph while
changing the radio station, checking their Google Maps app on their phone and
talking to their passenger. To help cultivate this effort, MassDOT plans to
reduce mowing to just once every two to three years to give the plants time to
flourish. Yes, government workers being asked to do less actual work, it’s an
unheard-of concept……..
- Bitter much, Pat Riley? The Miami Heat’s team president
and resident don has taken a few veiled shots at LeBron James since James left
South Beach to return home and win an NBA title in Cleveland, but this is his
most direct blast to date. Riley set it up well and then executed a verbal
salvo in which he claimed Hall of Fame inductee Shaquille O'Neal is the most
significant prize the Miami Heat have landed during his 21-year tenure with the
team. "I'll say this, and I mean this," Riley said. "Shaq's
acquisition was bigger than any acquisition that we ever made, including the
Big Three." Right, and this wouldn’t have anything to do with dissing
James after he spurned you following two titles in Miami so he could go home to
become a basketball deity by bringing Cleveland its first-ever NBA crown. Oh,
and the fact that the superteam of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade is
miles in the rearview and there’s a decent chance none of the three will suit
up for the Heat this season, we should expect Riley to be bitter. Sure, O'Neal
came to the Heat in a July 2004 trade that sent Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Brian
Grant and a first-round draft pick to the Los Angeles Lakers and helped lead
Miami to the 2006 NBA title, but Riley’s argument that his acquisition made the
Heat “really, really legitimate” fails to pass muster because O’Neal came via
trade and therefore, didn’t really show that Miami was a great destination for
free agents. O’Neal is part of a 10-member class that will be inducted into the
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday in Springfield,
Massachusetts and no one can question his greatness, but holding him higher
than James in Miami is dubious…….
- Be careful what you say and where you say it, residents of
Margarita Island. Yes, it’s technically the right thing to do to greet despotic
Venezuelan President/dictator Nicolas Maduro by shouting angry things at him
and banging wooden spoon on kitchen pots to amplify the sound of your dissent,
but if grainy cellphone videos from the night encounter are to be believed,
then the Venezuelan leader is probably going to come looking for payback at
some point. See, a socialist leader jogging through a crowd as residents loudly
bang on pots and hurl obscenities may not immediately imprison or oppress those
who dare to speak out against him, but when those images circulate on social
media, Maduro probably feels like he has no choice but to battle back against
those who stand in his way. His supporters started that effort early, trying to
cast doubt about what happened, with one pro-government lawmaker posting on
social media a short, edited video of what looks like the same appearance and
in which Maduro can be seen greeting well-wishers as he jogs through the crowd
with his fist raised. The government didn’t immediately issue an official
response, but in a time when there is increasing support for a recall
referendum that could remove Maduro from office, staying silent really isn't an
option. Hundreds of thousands of people poured into the capital city of
Caracas’ streets the previous day to demand that authorities allow the
referendum to take place, but the fight is still in its early stages and now,
islanders separated from the rest of the country are looking like they want a
piece of the action………
- Why so angry, Blood Orange, why so angry? Blood Orange,
a.k.a. Devonté Hynes, sounds a bit chafed and he’s directing his rage at an
unexpected target. That target is none other than mellow indie rockers Devendra
Banhart, who’s music Hynes took to Twitter to denounce as “insufferable” before
telling fans he intended to delete his Twitter account - a promise on which he
has yet to follow through. His first punch came in a since-deleted tweet in
which he wrote, "The music of devandra banhart is so insufferable I feel
sorry for the entirety of Los Angeles, you deserve better." It was an
unprovoked attack and prompted one fan to ask him why he would be “so
insufferably rude,” to which Hynes replied by simply writing, "Happiness.”
Perhaps feeling he had been a bit too cryptic, he added, "You should all
know by now that I don't attack people for no reason. me not liking someone's
music is not news lol.” At the end of his social media rant, he told his
followers that he planned to delete his Twitter account so he could enjoy his
life. Like the rest of his diatribe, those words seem to have been uttered in a
rash, angry fashion, because Hynes’ account still exists and coincidentally,
all of this is a great way for him to garner some more attention for his second
album, “Blood Orange,” which he just so happens to have released earlier this
summer and which features guest appearances from Nelly Furtado, Carly Rae
Jepsen and Debbie Harry. Brilliant attempt at self-promotion, Devonté, but
maybe next time attack someone in your own genre……..
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