Don't Look Up!

Hi there! Flying high today? Got to stop putting those funny mushrooms in your oatmeal! Help yourself to a mug of Arabica and a virtual treat, why don't'cha? Say...have you ever been to Trafalgar Square in London; Piazza San Marco in Venice or anywhere else where pigeons and tourists gather in equal numbers? Pigeons can be messy. Remember the pigeon lady in Home Alone 2 (set in New York)? But then again, those plentiful birds have served mankind for ages.

For centuries, probably millennia, homing pigeons have been the most reliable forms of communication. They were used by the Roman Army, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon. They were also responsible for relaying secret messages during WW1 and WW2 that could not be sent via radio. The Indian police force was still using carrier pigeons as late as 2002. 

Notwithstanding its nuclear submarines, ballistic missiles and spy satellites, France still maintains Europe's last "squadron" of military carrier pigeons. Legislator Jean-Pierre Decool lauds the pigeons and campaigns for their upgrade, warning that in the event of war or other catastrophe, the birds would be a valuable messaging network. (Pigeons have been used at times in the current Syrian civil war.) Until very recently, according to a November Wall Street Journal dispatch, pigeons wearing harnesses had been used by a hospital in Normandy to ferry blood samples to a testing lab (a 25-minute flight).

In classrooms, cell phones and text messages recently replaced carrier pigeons to ferry illicit messages among students during exams. Thank goodness, eh! The flutter of wings made it difficult for teachers to teach lessons and proctor tests. It also made it difficult to tell whether an answer was really b) or if the blackened in circle was just pigeon poop!

See ya, eh!

Bob 

PS: There is a rumour that both Iran and North Korea are looking at the possibility of breeding nuclear pigeons!