Snake handlers, finger surgery eve, and talk radio updates

You never know what you'll see in downtown Greenville. This past Sunday, in what used to be called Bergamo Plaza (apparently they are in the process of naming it something else, to go with the fancy new ONE building) I saw this snake-handling lady. She didn't mind me taking her picture.

Just another day in the neighborhood.

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Well peeps, as mentioned previously, the surgery on my ganglion cyst is tomorrow morning. I confess to being a nervous wreck. Not really about the surgery itself, but about the anesthesia-shots (administered with a BIG ASS needle) I'm getting on either side of my finger. I've already had one shot--right in the cyst--and it wasn't fun. This promises to be far worse. Argh.

And the idea of my index-finger-joint being (aiyeee) scraped, is just SUCH AN UNPLEASANT CONCEPT. (Can't they use some other word?)

I hope I can type, but probably won't be able to for a couple of days, so this is the official SURGERY EVE update.

Luckily, I can still run my mouth, you lucky folks. I will be broadcasting as usual. Hopefully, I won't be on so many drugs that I make no sense... but when has THAT ever stopped me?

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This week's OCCUPY THE MICROPHONE shows--

Monday: The Zimmerman verdict, with local activists Traci Fant and Efia Nwangaza.

Tuesday: Zimmerman trial juror #B37's interview with Anderson Cooper, excerpts and analysis. Much fulminating from your humble narrator, echoing the points in my last blog post (and even quoting some of the comments).

Wednesday: Stevie Wonder boycotts Florida, and an interview with Green Shadow Cabinet member Ben Manski, author of a popular statement about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden titled, Liberty is hunted around the globe: What Snowden taught us about American freedom.

Going on in a half-hour, and we'll be talking about one of the best rightwingnuts available for sheer comedy relief, TED NUGENT! (Shooting fish in a barrel, my friends!)

Check us out, yall; if you wanna join us LIVE AT FIVE, here is the WOLI-AM livestream link. Have a listen! Also, podcasts available at the website.

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Hope all is well with you, have a great weekend... and take care of your joints!

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UPDATE/EDIT 7/21: Surgery postponed until Thursday... so I can obsess and worry for another whole week. Argh.

Screamworthy!

Left: Canebrake rattler photo from Kingsnake.com.



Lesson: Don't leave luggage open on the porch!

Snake crawled in man's luggage in SC and bit him when he unpacked in VA.

The Associated Press • March 25, 2008

McLEAN, Va. -- A high school coach emptying his luggage after a team trip to South Carolina was bitten by a small rattlesnake that had somehow gotten into his bag, authorities said.

Andy Bacas in was stable condition at Inova Fairfax Hospital, fire officials said. He remained hospitalized Tuesday morning.

Bacas, a rowing coach at Yorktown High School in Arlington, told authorities he felt a sharp pain on his hand Monday when he reached into his luggage. He then saw the nearly foot-long snake and slammed the suitcase shut.

Fire and rescue workers took the suitcase outside, opened it and blasted the snake, identified as a juvenile canebrake rattler, with a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher. The chemical essentially froze the animal to death.

"The guy who responded had seen (the fire extinguisher technique) done on TV," Arlington County Fire Department spokesman Ben Barksdale said.

Bacas' son, Peter, said the luggage had been left open on a porch during the trip to Summerton, S.C., which is about 75 miles northwest of Charleston. Barksdale said he had no information that the snake was deliberately put into the luggage.

Bob Myers, director of the American International Rattlesnake Museum in New Mexico, said it's conceivable that a snake would crawl into luggage seeking warmth or shelter.

The venom from a canebrake rattlesnake can be particularly harmful, but a young snake is not usually large enough to deliver enough to be lethal, Myers said. Adult canebrakes can grow to 6 feet.

"There's an old wives' tale that says a baby rattlesnake bite is worse than an adult bite, but that's just not true," Myers said.

Three or four people die each year from rattlesnake bites in the United States, out of perhaps 8,000 bites a year, Myers said.

(((screams)))
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Listening to: Bob Marley & the Wailers - Is This Love
via FoxyTunes