Sixty days is the scheduled length of the 2012 legislative session in O-Town. It’s also the typical length of a breeding season for cattle.
Either way, 60 days is just enough time to produce a bunch of bull.
Not to mention an ark full of bills affecting animals of nearly every family, genus and species.
As much as the pols want you to believe they’ve gotta bear down on a $1.5 billion budget problem and may have barely enough time to legalize gay marriage, don’t let ’em fool you. You’re not sheep.
They’ll find space in their calendars to play Dr. Doolittle. They always do. They’ve already started.
In this committee over here is a retread proposal to change Washington’s state bird from the willow goldfinch to the great blue heron.
Better yet, why not the Foster Farms chicken? Those zany puppets in the TV ads crack us up.
In that committee over there is a bill “concerning the management of beavers.” It sets forth that the state “shall offer a beaver relocation permit … to capture live beavers in the areas of the state where elevated beaver populations are considered a nuisance or are causing damage.”
That’s a spiffy idea. Far as we’re concerned, one equals a nuisance. Relocate ’em all to Corvallis.
Lookee here, a bill “regarding large wild carnivore conflict management.” Makes us picture team-building classes, complete with wild carnivore listening and empathy exercises.
It declares: “A person may not intentionally feed or attempt to feed large wild carnivores or intentionally attract large wild carnivores to land or a building.”
Apparently it would not apply to wild vegetarians. It still would be lawful to intentionally feed them and attract them to that special place set apart from the rest of us.
The Evergreen State College.
One more for the critters: Sen. Mike Carrell of Lakewood aims to make it a crime when pet-care workers leave animals unattended on choke chains “for more than a de minimus period of time.”
OK, as long as it comes with a law requiring legislators to be fitted with shock collars if they exceed their de minimus time.
Sixty days. Then all you elected lads and lassies, go home.
But did he get their phone numbers? Elected this week as vice chairman of the Pierce County Council, Rick Talbert might want to be more discreet in what he puts on the Interweb.
An admitted latecomer to the social media scene, Ricky T posted a photo with his Twitter account that shows him snuggling up to a threesome of low-slung, bare-midriffed temptresses.
As Twit scandals go, this is hardly Anthony Weiner-esque. The fact that they’re Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, and Talbert’s wearing a T-shirt proclaiming his team loyalty, is what may compromise his future electability around these parts.
Le Schoz asked Talbert: What’s wrong with our homegrown Sea Gals?
Nothing, he said. By the time the Seahawks came along in the ’70s, he was a boy of 9 or 10 and had settled on America’s Team as his rooting interest. A few years ago, he was in Dallas on business, went to a Cowboys game and lucked into a photo op with some Texas cuties.
“I’m a Seahawks fan, too,” the Tacoma Democrat told us.
Spoken like a true bipartisan. Or a flip flopper.
Let’s play The Feud! Name the best place to hold auditions for one of America’s most neurotic game shows. Survey says … South Hill! And it happens this weekend.
The original “Family Feud” of the late ’70s was a deep dish of angst and resentment served under a thin apple-pie crust. It is forever etched in pop culture for host Richard Dawson, who put his lips on women of varying receptiveness and performed all manner of offensive stereotypes in his leisure suit.
It’s also memorable for the too-truthful answers contestants blurted out under the duress of a quiz-show buzzer.
Tell me something your neighbor has that you wish you had? (A beautiful wife!)
Name a beverage that you drink from a can. (Wine!)
Did we mention the show’s a perfect match for us?
The public can watch tryouts Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the South Hill Mall. Should be a hoot to see even the most upstanding local families turn on each other faster than Republican presidential candidates.
Hope you can make it, Sonntags, Weyerhaeusers, Russells and Ladenburgs. But please, no fistfights.
Got news for The Nose? Write to TheNose@thenewstribune.com.
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