Brickbat: But No Mosquitos Attacked Them

The Brazoria County, Texas, mosquito control district doused more than 350 students of Pearland High School with pesticide. The students, all members of the band, were practicing one day when a mosquito control plane sprayed the field they were on. Mosquito control district officials say the pilot did not see the students.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Police warn parents to look out for a new fad sweeping schools this summer: kids huffing pesticides to get high.

[Idle Hands]

I forsee an episode of Oprah in which they discuss this fad at length and display exactly how the best way to huff said pesticides to give you the best high as a warning to the kids to show them what not to do.

[UnCivilServant]

Wait - why does one high school have a band of 350 students? That's almost enough to put on a North Korea style parade. How many students go to this school anyway?

[Brett L]

You are obviously unfamiliar with the first rule of suburban Texas high school planning: The bigger the school population, the bigger the football recruit pool.

[Fist of Etiquette]

You know who else strafed civilians?

[UnCivilServant]

Flying Nuns with Tommy Guns?

[Flying Nun Strafing Run]

Yeah, see?

[Poppa Kilo]

Your mother?

[Honestly, am I always the one who has to fill this in?]

[Jerryskids]

Some other guy who realized that marching bands were annoying pests who should be eliminated?

[Ted S.]

It's not as if they had bagpipes in the band.

[Cyto]

This one doesn't feel very brick-batty. It just sounds like an ordinary mistake. And not a very high-order mistake at that. Back when mosquito borne diseases were common in the US, trucks spraying a fog of pesticides were a common sight in the neighborhoods of the era.

Are we against public health efforts at mosquito control? With a handful of new mosquito-vectored viruses on the move and the potential for a malaria comeback, I'd say we are likely to see a return to major nationwide mosquito control efforts. It isn't really something that can be left to individual discretion - mosquitos don't really care about property lines after all.

[UnCivilServant]

So less of a brick bat and more of a wiffle bat?

[l0b0t]

Agreed. I grew up in the Florida Keys during the 1960s-70s. Mosquito Control would fly (IIRC) C-130s over the islands and fog the shit out of us. As a child, it was an opportune time to play war and imagine one was under gas attack from the dreaded Hun. Good times.

[Flying Nun Strafing Run]

Near where I live is the Air Heritage Museum. They have an old C-47 that they are restoring. Up until a couple of years ago it was a mosquito control sprayer operating in Florida at night. It had these massive spray bars and floodlights. The whole inside of the plane reeked of insecticide even after the tanks had been removed.

[Isaac Bartram]

I was in the Keys 79-81.

The county mosquito control flew either DC-3s or (more likely) C-47s. They sprayed over residential areas, schools and mangrove swamps alike. And they flew so low you could just about see the rivets.

I don't know what the insecticide was but the solvent was diesel fuel.If you were outside when they went over you ended up with a nice oily film all over. Saved on sunblock. 🙂

[Isaac Bartram]

The other thing that was neat was dragonfly season. You could sit and watch the dragonflies stop in midair and gobble up a mosquito and then go on to the next one.

Of course the mosquito control didn't distinguish between friendlies and non; just killed pretty much everything, I think.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

*dons monocle and tophat*

Those damn mosquitoes, always leeching off those who produce in order to keep having kids. They do nothing but buzz about all day.

[UnCivilServant]

This is why you want bats. Insectivorous bats will eat literal tons of mosquitos without you having to lift a finger. So if you have a branch of your diamond mine that hasn't produced anything in a while, think about making it bat-friendly to clear the mosquitos out.

[Florida Man]

Plus you can use the guano to make explosives to expand your mine. It's synergy baby!

[Wasteland Wanderer]

That shit's liquid gold, man. You don't waste it expanding your mine, you sell it for more profit.

[Idle Hands]

Bat's create so much guano, the inflation rates are insane in that market.

[Brett L]

Guanine. I forget which, but one of the simulations I did in my year as a environmental engineer consultant used it. Its cheaper to make it out of ammonia now.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

It's just the city of Houston gassing and killing people in a nearby town to depopulate it for annexation. You know, the usual.

[Lady Bertrum]

+1 Affordable housing.

[Marshall Gill]

Agent Orange!

[Fist of Etiquette]

You know what other musicians practically bathed in chemicals?

[Idle Hands]

Madonna?

[UnCivilServant]

Given that Hydrogen Hydroxide is a chemical - All of them!

[Lord Humungus]

Led Zep?

[userve32]

lol, thats pretty funny dude.

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