Eclipsing events
Editor, The Commercial,
Tired of the eclipse yet? Too bad; they're just getting started. In the time we have left until the Big Event, we can look forward to:
-- PETA will encourage pet owners to protect their furry friends with pet-friendly wraparound "eclipse goggles," available for a one-time low price of $39.95/pair.
-- A professor at a Midwestern college, who hasn't had anything published in three decades, will come out with a ponderous analysis predicting a mass fish kill as thousands of surface feeders go blind.
-- A Southern governor will decry the event as a Biden-born left-wing conspiracy to deprive hard-working Arkansas farmers of vital sunlight, and will provide a half-ton of verbal fertilizer to support her allegation.
-- A handful of luckless folks will discover the hard way that the cheap knockoff "eclipse glasses" were ridiculously inadequate.
-- Highway troopers will report abnormally high numbers of rear-end crashes, including at least one involving a semi hitting a car stopped on a bridge. (Why a bridge? The view is the same from any open area.)
-- A lot of people will be very, very disappointed. Much of the hype for the coming event features the iconic /National Geographic/ photograph of a new moon encircled by a "ring of fire." Indeed, that is the view that awaits a number of people (including some elitists who will view it while airborne, probably unaware that their pilot can watch the eclipse, or the instrument panel -- but not both).
Most people, however, will be outside the zone of totality, including Pine Bluff and areas south and east. Some around Redfield might be treated to a less-than-glorious scene akin to a teacake with a bite missing, or just nibbled. This will come as no surprise, though, to any who have bothered to view one of the more common lunar eclipses.
D.H. Ridgway,
Pine Bluff