WTF Is It Now?!?

Decline of Civilization, the continuing saga
Old stone walls falling victim to new houses: New England stone walls are so popular that they are disappearing from their centuries-old resting spots. They are being dismantled, placed on pallets and shipped throughout the Northeast and, to a lesser extent, across the nation.

''People who build these new McMansions don't realize there's a hidden cost when they order a large fieldstone wall. The wall may be strip-mined from where it's been for 200 years so it can sit as a lawn ornament on some cul-de-sac,'' says geologist Robert Thorson, author of Stone By Stone: The Magnificent History in New England's Stone Walls.

New England stone walls are made from stacked fieldstones, without mortar, and are seldom found outside the Northeast. Between 1750 and 1850, farmers clearing fields created about 240,000 miles of stone walls. As Thorson points out, that's longer than the U.S. coastline or the distance to the moon.

Today, about half of the original stone walls survive, he says (link).

American landscape losing its old barns: Barns are becoming victims of decay, suburban sprawl, changes in farming practices and a growing trend to use old barn wood in new ''rustic'' buildings. Vermont loses about 1,000 of its 30,000 barns a year to fire, collapse and the bulldozer. The demand for old-growth wood is so great that salvage dealers are knocking on doors and taking out newspaper ads offering to tear down obsolete barns. The most valuable barns for timber are at least 100 years old -- the same barns that preservationists would like to save (link).

Mobster, Wife Indicted in Sperm-Smuggling: Whaaaaahh?! One of five New York mobsters believed to have smuggled their sperm out of a Pennsylvania prison to impregnate their wives has been indicted, along with his wife, on a charge of criminal conspiracy (link).

Jerry Falwell still a regular guest on CNN. ...sigh...