A Little Levity From Dave Barry

 We Need Some
   So far, things are not going well this year and that is unfortunate since most things did not go well for all of last year. It is the case, however, that Dave Barry was able to find some humour in 2024, as he has done for many of the years that came before that awful one. 
  In 2022 his annual year-end review even included some CANCON and for that reason ended up in MM (see, "Year-End CanCon Continued".) He also merited attention in MM for his coverage of the "Great Canadian Worm Wars" of 1993 (see, "On Worms.") That alone should convince you to read on, but, if not, I will also throw in the fact that he has won a Pulitzer Prize and the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. 
  He has been a columnist since the 1980s and his year-end one is widely syndicated. It is as lengthy as a very long novel and I will offer a bit of it since I don't think Mr. Barry would mind, or need more money. He begins with a preamble, which is novella-length and then writes almost a chapter for each month. Here is a portion from the introduction and a few samples from just a few of the months. Funny stuff is even found in the title. If this year also turns out to not be funny, at least we can look forward to Mr. Barry's review of it. 

"Dave Barry's 2024 Year in Review: How Many Goofs Can One Nation Endure? The Answer is Boeing in the Wind." (from The Washington Post and found in other newspapers. It is worth looking for the entire column.)

How Stupid Was 2024?

  "Let’s start with the art world, which over the centuries has given humanity so many beautiful, timeless masterpieces. This year, the biggest story involving art, by far, was that a cryptocurrency businessman paid $6.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction for ...
A banana.
Which he ate.
“It’s much better than other bananas,” he told the media.
And that was not the stupidest thing that happened in 2024. It might not even crack the top 10. Because this was also a year when:

*The Olympics awarded medals for breakdancing.

*Fully grown adults got into fights in Target stores over Stanley brand drinking cups, which are part of the national obsession with hydration that causes many Americans to carry large-capacity beverage containers at all times, as if they’re setting off on a trek across the Sahara instead of going to Trader Joe’s.

*Despite multiple instances of property damage, injury and even death, expectant couples continued to insist on revealing the genders of their unborn children by blowing things up instead of simply telling people.

*The number of people who identify as “influencers” continued to grow exponentially, which means that, unless we find a cure, within 10 years everybody on the planet will be trying to make a living by influencing everybody else.

*Hundreds of millions of Americans set all their clocks ahead in March, then set them all back in November, without having the faintest idea why. (Granted, Americans do this every year; we’re just pointing out that it’s stupid.)

* But what made 2024 truly special, in terms of sustained idiocy, was that it was an election year. This meant that day after day, month after month, the average American voter was subjected to a relentless gushing spew of campaign messaging created by political professionals who — no matter what side they’re on — all share one unshakable core belief: that the average American voter has the intellectual capacity of a potted fern. It was a brutal, depressing slog, and it felt as though it would never end. In fact, it may still be going on in California: a state that apparently tabulates its ballots on a defective Etch a Sketch.

  A few monthly samples:
February:
*In a highly controversial decision, the Alabama Supreme Court rules that frozen embryos are, for legal purposes, children, and therefore must immediately be thawed out and provided with iPhones.
*Tucker Carlson conducts a two-hour interview with Vladimir Putin, offering Westerners a rare opportunity to find out what the Russian leader really thinks. It turns out he thinks Carlson is a useful idiot.
*In a Super Bowl for the ages, two teams compete against each other under the watchful gaze of Taylor Swift.

April:
*As the tragic situation in Gaza worsens, American college students on a growing number of campuses engage in protests and other dramatic actions intended to draw attention to the single most important issue facing the world: the feelings of American college students.

November: (with a bit of CANCON)

*On election night, the TV networks are teeming with political commentators prepared to analyze and dissect and crunch the numbers far into the night as the nation settles in for the long, grueling process of determining the winner — a process that everyone agrees could go on for days, possibly even weeks, because of the extreme razor-thin closeness of the ...

Never mind. In roughly the same amount of time it takes to air a Geico commercial, the networks determine that Trump has decisively won the election, including all of the so-called battleground states and four Canadian provinces. It’s a stunning result and a massive failure by the expert political analysts, who humbly admit that they had no idea what was happening, and promise that from now on they will be more aware of their limitations.

We are, of course, joking. In a matter of seconds these experts pivot from being spectacularly clueless about what was going to happen in the election to confidently explaining what happened in the election."

December:

*Clearly, this year needs to end. Which is why we’re looking forward to New Year’s Eve — when, in a beloved tradition, thousands of revelers will gather in Times Square to say goodbye to 2024 and welcome 2025. We like to think that on that night, as the seconds tick down to zero and that giant ball starts to descend, the people gazing up at it will all be united, if only for a moment, by a common hope — a hope shared by the millions of us watching on television — specifically, that the giant ball was not manufactured by Boeing.

Also, while we’re hoping, let’s hope that 2025 will be a better year. How could it be worse?

Try not to think about it."

Year-End CanCon Continued

   Here is some more CanCon which was found in an American source. It is taken from a piece by Dave Barry who is widely syndicated and hilariously humorous. It is very difficult to make 2022 funny, but in his rundown of that year, Canada gets a mention in February and here it is:

February

"… there is trouble in, of all places, Canada. The news up there is that the capital city, Ottawa (from the Algonquin word “adawe,” meaning “Washington”) is besieged by a massive protest convoy of trucks, clogging the streets, honking horns, blocking traffic and making it impossible for anybody to get anywhere. Granted, this is the situation pretty much every day in, for example, New York City, but apparently in Canada it is a big deal. As tensions mount, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in a controversial move, invokes emergency powers enabling the government to freeze the protesters’ access to beaver pelts.

Ha-ha! We are poking some good-natured fun at Canada, which is actually a modern nation and an important trading partner that we depend on to supply us with many vital things. Celine Dion is only one example. In all seriousness, the Canadian trucker strike is a significant event that raises some important issues, which everyone immediately stops caring about because of the situation in Ukraine."

In a banner year for our country, it again gets a minor mention in October:

The verified drama on Twitter is interrupted, briefly, by the midterm elections. For weeks the political experts, relying on Scientific Polling Data, have been predicting a Red Wave, with the Republicans taking control of the House and Senate as well as large swaths of Canada. The outlook is so dire that the New York Times tweets out a list of five “evidence-based strategies” for coping with election anxiety, including — we swear we are not making this up — “Plunge your face into a bowl with ice water for 15 to 30 seconds.”

Covering the entire, very long year of 2022 results in a very long column, which also includes illustrations such as this one: 

   Mr. Barry has noticed Canada before and I pointed that out to you a couple of years ago in a post that you probably passed on since it is titled "On Worms." In 1993, Barry reported on the Canadian worm wars and the widely syndicated column had headlines like these: 

"We've Got One Really Slimy Problem Here"; "Worms on the Highway"; "Worms On the Road: Recipe For Disaster" and "CANADIAN IMPORT OPENS A WHOLE CAN OF WORMS." 

If I produced headlines such as those, perhaps I would have more readers. By clicking on the link above you can learn more about the worm battles along the 401 and, you must be a little curious. Since it is Boxing Day and you probably won't bother, here is a snippet from the post which should serve to make you even more curious. Mr. Barry quotes from a CP piece and then raised the important questions:

In May, the Canadian Press Service sent out a report that began: "GEORGETOWN, Ontario - More than 50 worm pickers beat each other with steel pipes and pieces of wood in a battle over territory." The story states that two rival worm-picking groups "arrived at the same spot at the same time" and started fighting over who would pick worms there. A number of people were hospitalized . . . and a van was set on fire.

You may have the same questions I did:

 

1. These people were fighting over WORMS?

 

2. Is there some kind of new drug going around Canada?

Mr. Barry is now 75 and is likely surprised given that he wrote this book:

I am not sure if he is allowing his daughter to date: 

Source: "Dave Barry's Year in Review: No One Cared How You Did on 'Wordle,' And Democracy Died At Least Three Times; (It's Time to Don Surgical Gloves, Reach Deep Down Inside the Big Bag of Stupid That Was the Past 12 Months, and See What We Pull Out." Washington Post, Dec. 25, 2022.

On Worms

 

  A few weeks ago an old friend on the West Coast sent me an email about worms. He is generally concerned with more exalted matters and is not, like your friends, one who routinely sends out YouTube links about very cute pets. Apparently he had remembered a long-ago lecture at what was then Waterloo Lutheran University. It was for a geography class and the subject was about what is now referred to as “Worm Grunting” (Wikipedia prefers “Worm Charming”. Such lectures are easier to recall (or attend) than those about Kant.

  He probably also recalls the Kant lectures, but knowing that I am better able to deal with more earthly subjects, he was kind enough to send it along with the suggestion that it might be a subject this blog can handle. I am not above accepting such challenges and will attempt to interest you in worms, which is far easier than attempting to learn about Kant.

   The first reason you should carry on is that you will enjoy the video, especially if you are interested in what the citizens of Sopchoppy, Florida do when they are out there in the Apalachicola National Forest. If you are academically inclined and need more convincing, I will just say that the video is provided and the process explained in this article in The Smithsonian Magazine: “How To Charm Worms Out of the Ground: The Art of Worm Grunting,” Colin Schultz, Smithsonianmag.com, Aug, 15, 21014 (additional sources and links are provided below.)

  The other two reasons are Canadian related and will help me keep up my CanCon quota. You will be astonished to know that currently dew worms or nightcrawlers are a significant cash crop and that recently Toronto was referred to as ‘the worm capital of the world.’ Ontario worms also have historical significance, in that they attracted American attention and were the subjects of a widely syndicated article. As far as I can tell, the worm incident of almost thirty years ago was one of only two occasions in the last one hundred years when Canada was the subject of a news story in the United States.

The Current Worm Situation

    Luckily for me, the worm industry in Ontario is the subject of a recent study which will provide you with all the data you need. The harvesting of worms is a significant agricultural endeavour worth around $230 million. Here are some of the major conclusions from the study done  by Mr. Joshua Steckley and more information about it is provided below:

Highlights

*The global supply of 700 million dew worms for bait comes from Southwestern Ontario.
*Low tillage hay fields and manure application ensure perpetually high dew worm populations.

*Dairy farmers rent their land to worm pickers for between $800 and $1200/acre.

*Some dairy farmers view worms as a cash crop and work them into their multiyear rotations.

 *Current worm pickers tend to be Southeast Asian immigrants, primarily Vietnamese.

The Historical Worm Wars

I vaguely recall stories about 'worm hunters' and flickering lights in fields along Highway 401. In 1993 there were accidents along that highway involving worm pickers and that was the Canadian subject that caught the attention of Americans. The syndicated story was widely circulated in both countries under headlines like these: "We've Got One Really Slimy Problem Here"; "Worms on the Highway"; "Worms On the Road: Recipe For Disaster" and "CANADIAN IMPORT OPENS A WHOLE CAN OF WORMS." The article is by Dave Barry, the Pulitzer Prize winning humorist and it is easily found back in July, 1993. A portion of it is provided here and it is funny, particularly the last paragraph where he makes fun of Canadians and Rush Limbaugh.

In May, the Canadian Press Service sent out a report that began: "GEORGETOWN, Ontario - More than 50 worm pickers beat each other with steel pipes and pieces of wood in a battle over territory." The story states that two rival worm-picking groups "arrived at the same spot at the same time" and started fighting over who would pick worms there. A number of people were hospitalized . . . and a van was set on fire.

You may have the same questions I did:

 

1. These people were fighting over WORMS?

 

2. Is there some kind of new drug going around Canada?

In an effort to answer these questions, I spoke with detective Sgt. Michael Kingston of the Halton Regional Police. He told me that worm-picking is a big deal in Ontario, which produces a long, fat style of worm that is prized by fisherpersons as well as the fish. "There's a huge market," Kingston said. "On a good evening, an industrious worker can make about $185 picking these worms." He said there's intense competition for prime picking locations such as golf courses, where the worms come to the surface at night to breed and and soak up dew. Kingston said the pickers, many of whom are Vietnamese immigrants, wear miners' hats with headlamps and drop the worms into cans strapped to their ankles. Doesn't that sound romantic, in a Wild West kind of way? I like to think that, at the end of the night, the pickers stride into the Worm Pickers Saloon, where they pay for whiskey by slapping nightcrawlers on the bar. But this is not what happens. What happens is that the pickers load vast quantities of worms into their vehicles and proceed to drive on Canadian highways. This has led to a scary new development: worm spills. I am not making this up. Here's a quotation from a May 25 story written by Timothy Appleby for the Toronto Globe and Mail: "TORONTO - A van carrying a group of worm pickers overturned west of Toronto yesterday morning, leaving eight people injured . . . The accident occurred a few hundred meters from where another van full of worm pickers crashed and rolled 10 days ago, sending 18 people to the hospital." The story quotes a constable as saying "I've never seen so many worms in my life." As any safety professional will tell you if he has been drinking, worms on the highway are a recipe for disaster. Suppose a tour bus is tooling along a Canadian highway at a speed of 130 hectares per centigram, the unsuspecting passengers chatting away happily in Canadian ("Eh?" "Eh?" "Eh?") when suddenly their laughter turns to screams as the bus encounters a worm slick and spins, out of control, off the road, and the passengers are hurled out of doors and windows, landing in the Canadian woods, injured and moaning, unable to protect themselves from wild mooses pooping on them or sadistic beavers repeatedly tail-slapping their faces. Your natural reaction, as a humanitarian, is: "So?" But perhaps you will not be so blase when I inform you that, according to a Canadian bait expert (I am still not making this up), most of the Canadian worm crop is shipped to the United States. Yes. This means you could find yourself in a car behind a truck containing 137.4 bazillion Canadian earthworms. And if, God forbid, something went wrong and the truck's cargo suddenly got dumped onto the road, you could find yourself plowing into a writhing slime-intensive worm mass nearly TWICE the size of Rush Limbaugh.

That should be enough about worms for now. Alert readers, however, are not wondering about worms, but rather about the other episode I alluded to - the one other Canadian incident that was reported south of the border. I can provide only anecdotal evidence for this, but I recall a remark made by a friend early in the 1970s. He was a professor, however, so his observation is credible. He said that during the entire year he spent on sabbatical in the United States, the only mention of Canada he could recall was in the story about Prime Minister Trudeau dating Barbra Streisand. After an exhaustive search I found no other mentions of Canada during the last hundred years. I was able to determine, however, that Trudeau did date Streisand, although the author of the source is now persona non grata: "Pierre Trudeau and His (Many) Women," Margaret Wente, The Globe and Mail, Oct. 28, 2009.

Finally - The Video: WORM GRUNTING

The Bonus:

   Since most of you will not go any further, I will provide the bonus here. The fellows in the forest reminded me of Elwood P. Suggins. Fans of Jonathan Winters will remember him.  Enjoy this video. 

Sources:

  Presented first is the source for the Steckley study and some articles about it. The older material follows:

"Cash Cropping Worms: How the Lumbricus Terrestris Bait Worm Market Operates In Ontario, Canada." Joshua Steckley, Geoderma, 2020;363: (The Global Journal of Soil Science).

Abstract:Anecic earthworms such as Lumbricus terrestris are ecosystem engineers whose impacts on soil fertility and remediation have been extensively researched. The majority of L. terrestris used for such research and practical remediation applications are procured through the largely unknown bait worm market that serves freshwater recreational fishermen across North America and Europe. Some earthworm researchers have questioned the use of these bait worms for research and soil inoculations because of their untraceable origins, unknown environmental exposures and growing conditions, as well as the sustainability of harvesting practices. However, there has been no recent study of this unique industry and how it hand-picks hundreds of millions of L. terrestris worms annually from a single region in southwestern Ontario. This paper provides a detailed description of how land and labour are currently organized to supply the world market for the valuable L. terrestris, commonly known as the “Canadian Nightcrawler” bait worm. Based on 59 semi-structured depth interviews, the findings show there are an estimated 500 to 700 million worms picked annually from farmer fields that stretch between Toronto and Windsor, Ontario. Dairy farms in particular have emerged as de facto L. terrestris production sites because of their perennial alfalfa crops, heavy manure application, and reduced tillage practices. This has made L. terrestris the most lucrative crop in the region with many farmers leasing land to worm-picking operations for over $1000 CND per year ($750 USD/ €685) — approximately four times the regional rental rates. Worm-pickers have historically been recent immigrants to Ontario with the majority of current pickers coming from Vietnam. Worm pickers make $20CND ($15 USD, €13.50) per thousand worms, and can pick over 20,000 worms per night in optimal field conditions (moisture, temperature, wind, moonlight). The piece-rate wages tend to reward speed and efficacy with some pickers capable of making over $600 in a single night. This peculiar arrangement between dairy farmers, soils, and worm pickers opens avenues for socio-economical, agronomical and ecological studies of commercial L. terrestris harvesting.

"Agriculture - Dairy Farms; Data on Dairy Farms Reported by Researchers at University of Toronto (Cash Cropping Worms: How the Lumbricus Terrestris Bait Worm Market Operates In Ontario, Canada)" Agriculture Week, April 9, 2020.

"Getting a Grip on the Wild World of Worm Picking: The Bait Worm Industry is Worth an Estimated $230 million, According to a Study From the University of Toronto,"

By: Maxine Betteridge-Moes ,Guelph Today, Aug. 24, 2020.

"Dekker Family Follows Environmental Farm Rules," The Wellington Advertiser, n.d.

An interesting article by the owner of "Country Bait". For example, you will find out that the industry has changed: When Dekker began worms were picked at golf courses; today he will not even accept worms from them. First, the chemicals used on the grass made those worms smaller, and many of them are now black. He said a desirable worm is one that is pale or translucent. Two or three black worms in a flat of 500 might be okay, but more than 30 and the entire flat could die.

_________________________

"Niagara Worm Wars Getting Rough," Tom Spears, Toronto Star, July 9, 1986.

Worm pickers who sneak on to farms without permission in the middle of the night are at the heart of the growing confrontation.

And farmers who were once content to call police to deal with trespassers are changing: One worm picker who came too close to a farmer's garage had a pair of shotgun blasts fired over his head in an impromptu arrest, and sources say one picker was "tied up and beaten severely."

The lucrative bait business has turned rough, and may get rougher.

"Second Spill Reveals Rough Trade Business in Worm Capital of the World Sparks Turf Wars," Timothy Appleby, The Globe and Mail, May 25, 1993.

A van carrying a group of Vietnamese worm pickers overturned west of Toronto yesterday morning, leaving eight people injured - one seriously - and six or seven unaccounted for after they fled.

By coincidence, the single-vehicle accident on Highway 401 near Milton occurred a few hundred metres from where another van full of Vietnamese worm pickers crashed and rolled 10 days ago, sending 18 people to hospital.

"They should be installing a worm-crossing zone or something," said Milton Ontario Provincial Police dispatcher Jane Fleet. "It's a bit of deja vu."

------

The Wikipedia entry is found under: "Worm Charming."

Toronto as "Worm Capital" is found in this article: "Worm Picking a Slippery Industry in Toronto," Dan Taekema, Toronto Star, Oct.26, 2015.

Apparently they used to have a "Worm Festival" in Shelburne, ON and they still have one in Sopchoppy.