It made sense  to pronounce the year 2000 as “two thousand”. 2009 made sense as “two thousand nine”. But I think starting in 2010, it was time to start saying “twenty-ten”, even though the media has been saying “two thousand eleven” for 2011.

Apparently, just as the print media has style books to dictate the “rules” of word usage, capitalization and so forth (AP and New York Times style books come to mind); the broadcast industry has a style book that dictates 2011 be read as “two thousand eleven”.

Well, we think it’s time to end this “two thousand” nonsense. Too much time is being wasted pronouncing and hearing all these unnecessary syllables. 2012 is a fine time to start saying “twenty-twelve”.

So Happy New Year everybody. Let’s hope that twenty-twelve is much better than twenty-eleven.

Back in the dark days of semi-ancient history, victorious armies would kill the leader of an opposing nation or notorious band of villains, cut off his head and parade it around town at the end of a pike. It was a way to gloat and to taunt.

Today, to put a “head on a pike” is a mostly a metaphorical term, but it can still be literal if only in a sanitized form. Such was the behavior of the Bush regime when it killed the Husseins of Iraq. Uday and Qusay (sp?) had their morbid mug shots published in newspapers around the world, and Saddam Hussein had video of his hanging leaked to the Internet.

So when word came Sunday night that Osama bin Laden had been killed, we asked each other how long it would be before we saw pictures of dead Osama on the Internet, and the answer was, “tomorrow morning.” A very large segment of the American population is glad to know bin Laden’s dead, but they wouldn’t believe it until they saw his head on a pike, and the Internet picture of the bloodied skull is the head on the pike of the twenty-first century.

Word came out that such pictures exist, and that they are “gruesome”. But today it was announced that these pictures will NOT be made public.

We applaud this decision. The head on the pike is so tenth century. It’s a barbaric act of gloating and taunting, and such blood sport would be offensive to our enemies and our friends. There is nothing to be gained by doing this. To those who claim it would offer “proof” to the doubters, I say that there will be doubters anyway who will see the “head on the pike” picture and scream, “That’s Photoshopped!”

We have enough gruesome images polluting our collective mind, we don’t need a bloodied skull of Osama bin Laden to become an iconic image for a generation. I want to believe we’re classier people than that.

Do we dress for a funeral?

Or do we dress for court?

We went for a walk in Hixon Forest yesterday. It seemed like a good way to spend a hot day in July. So we were hiking on the Hickory Trail and almost at the junction to Lookout Point. We’d just come around a corner and I was walking in front.

As we neared a tree in the trail Obbie yelled “STOP”. I looked down, saw a snake and heard it’s rattle all at the same time. I tried not to panic, although I wanted to run back down the trail as fast as I could. Instead, we stepped back and let the snake continue across the path and into the woods.

Obbie had the small camera along and recorded what we saw. Kinda shaky, but considering the circumstances…

A large rattlesnake crosses a trail in Hixon Forest.

Close-up detail of the above picture.

After recovering our senses we continued on up the trail to Lookout Point, with a lot more awareness of what’s around us. And respect too. Thanks snake, and Obbie, for the warning.

This encounter reminded us of this silly but fun little Flash video. Watch for the snake.

There’s a movement to boycott BP because of the way they f’d up the Gulf of Mexico… just as Exxon f’d up the shore of Alaska in 1989, and Pemex f’d up the Gulf in 1979, and Unocal f’d up the Santa Barbara coast in 1969, and on and on.

They’re ALL evil. If we keep driving, they’ll keep drilling, making it inevitable that this’ll happen again. We must strive to boycott ALL petroleum. (For the record, so far this year we’ve spent about $20 on gasoline… one small tank of gas.)