All Things Reconsidered

Did any of you catch that NPR show last night? Here it is excerpted:
"...And now for something a little more organic. In the remote forrests of Belarus there is a controversy brewing in the normally quiet remote village town of Kyurkstyck known more for its annual throat singing contest. It seems the warbling woodpecker finch has been pecking away at the unity of this small town and has the people divided on an issue due to appear on an upcoming referendum. For more we turn to Tom Maltzie, who has been in Kyurkstyck following the story of The Woodpecker That Just Wouldn't Laugh Hysterically. Tom...
...Thanks Kurt. Here in Kyurkstyck life normally moves in predictable patterns. There are those that work in the fields in the dairy industry. There are also those that work in the cheese factories. Still another segment tends the quaint shops and inns that provide a wide variety of some of the area's finest Cheddars and Fromundahs. As one local man, churner Johahnn Smyeyeth puts it, "I got cheese coming out of places I didn't even know I had holes..." But all is not well-aged when it comes to the issue of the warbling woodpecker finch. (Cut to the stacatto rhythmic sounds of the woodpecker finch pecking at wood) It seems this normally innocuos little creature has been causing quite a stir in Kyurkstyck. "The little bastard just don't quit with the buttabuttabuttabutta...buttabuttabutta...buttabu," says Smyeyeth. And it's got local residents split more than the mighty oaks the woodpecker finch calls home. "I think it is a nice pleasing sound," says Johahnn's wife, Jayayhn Smith. "Kind of like a drum corps." Life at the Smyeth household has not been easy these days. The house has been divided-literally. Johahnn has put a strip down the center of the house to protest the difference of opinion. Jayayhn is not conceding anything. "Perhaps if he talked to me more than to say 'Why don't they put a 'right' and 'left' on socks? Then you wouldn't end up with the small toe part cramping your big toe,' then I wouldn't look to the constant relentless drone of the woodpecker." The Smyeth's are not the only ones who can't see eye to eye. Kyurkstyck has an upcoming vote to decide if the woodpecker finch has pecked away at the last nerves of a town more accustomed to the sound of nightly T.V. programs. At stake is whether or not to release the natural predator of the warbling woodpecker finch- the warbling woodpecker finch vulture hawk. As natural biologist Mikkyel Jeeyohnnes describes, the warbling woodpecker finch vulture hawk would in effect eradicate the noisy bird. (Breathy tones with rising intonation on nearly every sentence) "The warbling woodpecker finch vulture hawk is a fierce predator. The skill and acumen possessed by the beast is truly a marvelous spectacle. The dexterity and stamina of the birds is unparalleled in the woodpecker predator phyllum. The way its muscles ripple and flex as the sun highlights the chestnut brown feathers is a thing of beauty. It would not be an overstatment to say that the woodpecker finch colony would be eradicated in a short time. I personally would marvel at the cycle of nature of predator stalking prey as it unfolds in its splendor. It truly would be magnificent." But of course, not everyone agrees with this solution. "Jayheehyn of the Jungle" Jayheehyn Johannsonson has been cultivating a symbiotic relationship with nature in a stump burrow in the middle of the Kyurkstyk forrest. There she sustains on a diet of squirrel droppings and fallen leaves, while "being at one" with the environment. "I don't think we should be intruding on Mother Nature. I believe the ecosystem to be a fragile egg to hold and cherish and not to cook with a bigger egg. That is why I have invented the "broom tail". It is a white willow asp broom attached to the back of my belt. That way wherever I walk my footprints are swept away. No trace."
The Kontroversy in Kyurkstyk, as it has come to be known, has received much attention and has come to represent much broader issues of man versus natural rights. Frequent NPR contributor Vladimir Stealyurface has even written a new book on the subject. "For me it was important to capture a moment in the history of man's relationship with the environment. That we are but bit players in a bigger game. And that is why I wrote my new book, The Pecking Incident. It looks at the issue within the framework of a 5 part play that is underscored with classical opera sognettes within a mideival Franco-Gregorian context."
Whichever way this drama in a small Belarusan town unfolds it is clear that the sound of buttabuttabuttabutta-buttabuttabutta-buttabuttabutta will resound for some time...(fade into a old time flamenco guitar player)