The Scout Report

The Vapors, Fiat Currency, and Wolves: 10.26.08

TSR's editorial board members are heirloom rich and cash poor, as mandated by company bylaws. Members exude a snarky gentility and have impeccable manners. During recent weeks, however, when the board witnessed the value of its meager assets morph into Confederate dollars, it assumed the wartime position: Contract the vapors. Second, follow emergency procedures for Continuity of Government (CoG). Convert to modest suppers of root vegetables and kidney-bean rabbit (left) or mutton. Dignify meals with great-grandmama's discontinued Haviland and unnecessarily ornate Chantilly. Third, maintain a stiff upper lip and stiffer drinks until fortunes reverse.

Revealing digression. Mrs. James Peregrine Leger-Demain, IV, TSR's chief of protocol enforcement and defenestration, was reading her favorite Charlotte Perkins Gilman poem, "The Wolf at the Door" (left), to her children—Driveway, Pee Dee, Waxhaw, Chigger, and 雞尾酒—as she does every night at bedtime. "Children are more malleable in the morning, if they lay awake all night trembling." Suddenly, she realized that being torn apart my a pack of rabid wolves was an apt analogy for TSR's current economic downturn. Mrs. IV pulled out her signed copy of M.F.K. Fisher's wartime classic, How to Cook a Wolf (1942), and began planning supper.

Jarring juxtaposition. TSR invited Joe the Aerial Wolf Hunter (right) for cocktails last night. (He preferred the six-pack the board happened to have stored in the bunker its members sometimes share with Dick Cheney, another talented marksman.) Joe argued eloquently that shooting wolves protects the moose and caribou herds, and the bounty he receives pays the legal fees to fight Joe Junior's meth-lab conviction. Mrs. IV, always nonpartisan, commented, "I don't imagine that makes the moose feel any safer, since the governor herself is quite the moose slayer. On the other hand, killing wolves does reduce the competition. I dunno, though, sounds a little like socialism to me."

...The 180 volunteer pilots and aerial gunners who are the backbone of the program can get $150 in cash for turning in legs of freshly killed wolves, Gov. Sarah Palin's office announced Tuesday. Previously, the only reward was a wolf pelt they could sell, usually for somewhere between $200 and $300, said Bruce Bartley, Department of Fish and Game spokesman.—Anchorage Daily News

Wall Streeters Offered Defenestration Kits: 10.12.08

The Scout Report editorial board was reminded of the 1618 Defenestration of Prague (left, click for larger image), while watching things go terribly wrong on Wall Street from the safety of the bunker it shares with Dick Cheney [HAL 17.41 -1.53 (-8.08%) Oct 10 4:01pm ET] at an undisclosed location. TSR's chief of protocol enforcement and downsizing—Mrs. James Peregrine Leger-Demain IV—is familiar with defenestration (the act of throwing someone out the window), as it is the preferred method of attrition at TSR. Not only is it not easy to achieve from a bunker, it's almost impossible to perform in a modern skyscraper, which is hermetically sealed with non-operable, double-glazed, laminated, window units.

Controlled tangent. Fire and rescue departments in the U.S. have equipment for what they call "penetration-deterrent windows" and what Mrs. IV calls "a temporary inconvenience." The tools include axes, hooligan tools (just what the name suggests), and pike poles. Always drinking from a glass half full, Mrs. IV has assembled defenetration kits for sale in handsome and sturdy canvas bags. [Date of Defenetration (DoD) can be monogrammed on the bag for an extra charge]. Kits will be available while supplies last from TSR interns in front of 11 Wall Street Monday morning. Look for the sign: "No money-back guarantee below the fifth floor!"