Cnn reports the Black Rhino has been declared extinct. Gee, I wonder what all those men needing rhino horns for their hard-ons will do now? Assholes.

Robert James Waller became rich and rather famous with his Bridges of Madison County, but he is a fine writer of essays, and among my favorites is in a bookcalled “Old Songs in a New Cafe.” The essay, entitled, My Name Is Orange Band, is written from the perspective of the last dusky seaside sparrow, who died in 1987. There is a lot of anthropomorphizing–we are talking about a sparrow after all–and yet I strongly suspect that even sparrows know when he is dying utterly alone.