-- Heading Into the Weekend ; - ) --

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Just to show folks that I AM open-minded, I think it's time that I state right here and now in print some of the things that could transpire which would make me reconsider that Ivory-bills might really be extinct:

10. The editors at SCIENCE EXPRESS finally admit that they originally accepted Cornell's paper for a special April Fool's issue, but due to a production snafu it didn't show up in print 'til their Apr. 28 edition.

9. George Bush goes to the U.N. to proclaim that Woodpeckers of Mass Destruction have been documented in Arkansas... no doubt about it.

8. Someone discovers a suicide note with a 45-caliber revolver next to an Ivory-bill in the woods that reads, "Good-bye cruel world, I was the very last of my kind."

7. A n unannounced raid of David Sibley's painting studio by Federal agents finds shelves and shelves and shelves of stuffed Ivory-billed carcasses with time, date, and place of collection meticulously recorded, but none more recent than Sept., 1989.

6. Immigration papers reveal that Mary Scott's REAL name is Svetlana Scamtewski, famous escaped Russian con-artist of the 1970's.

5. It turns out that, unbeknownst to one another, as an unusual hobby, 87% of the residents of Brinkley, AR., enjoy constructing and flying paper-mache models of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in their free time.

4. A behavioral field ecologist from a major Ivy League university discovers wholly unexpectedly that Pileated Woodpeckers have a keen and demonstrable sense of humor, and that their favorite prank (after a few too many fermented ivy berries), is to dress up like an Ivory-bill and go swooping through the woods.

3. The participants on "BirdForum" take a secret poll and lo-and-behold find out that, to their amazement, everyone there actually thinks that every other poster there, except for themselves, is full of crap!!

2. John Fitzpatrick makes a surprise announcement at the next A.O.U. meeting that Cornell has documented a small population of Moas residing deep in the heart of Staten Island (...though the videotape is a tad fuzzy).

1. A snowball makes its way through Hell unscathed.


(....with apologies to David Letterman)

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