Animals in the news today. Palin's pardoned turkey gobbles while brother Tom gets the axe. Japs launch annual whale "research" expedition, which will collect close to 1000 whales using grenade tipped harpoons. Hamelin is again overrun by rats for the first time in 725 years, with no piper in sight.
Perfect irony, that piper, and a metaphor for the travelogue. Posit: we are all pi-ed pipers, believing the promise that our playing is rewarded when the rats (we are all given different challenges) are drowned. We pipe our rats to the river (you never get them all) and what's the payment? You keep your job piping, and then the mayor surreptitiously throws the pipers in the river along with the rats. Baby with the bathwater. The irony? We never pipe their children away. No need to. The mayors need no help in abandoning their offspring, and now the towns are crumbling under a new infestation with little progeny to offer hope. Today the piper is paid in preferred shares and warrants. Let's hope that piper doesn't become just another mayor of Hamelin.