Speaking of the continuing meltdown horrors at Fukushima...

Speaking of the fresh fuel rods jammed into damaged buildings so fragile they couldn't ride out a wiggle...

Speaking of hydrogen gas and steam explosions carrying radioactivity aloft...

Speaking of all the radioactive water dumped into the sea, over and over again, sometimes by accident, sometimes by helplessness and design...

Let's see now -- which template to use today in the ol' homestead and standby, the Mainstream Cafe?  Not good to use them without some creative rotation, you know -- best to keep mixing it up, so's it keeps the product looking fresh.  When it comes to food for thought, the main dish can't be splotchy and a sickly green -- it can't be sprouting multicolored, science-project fur, not and get sold to the public and swallowed whole, like everybody all up and down the food chain wants.

Of course, between you and me, the stuff is almost identical -- we might as well be pushing soy served up a zillion different ways:  pummeled, tenderized, injected with flavor and some color, then -- Bam! Texturized, too.  You'd never believe your taste buds or your eyes.  Same thing here, no difference at all.  Facts is facts, like the man says.

At long last, we have a path for possible success, a template of civility to use in treating many terrible and ferocious maladies,  such as runaway, take-no-prisoners, violently predatory, vulture capitalism -- even on sports hooliganism, too.

That we have to teach civility in society says quite a bit, right out of the gate, uh, right off the bat.  That is to say: Right from the opening kickoff.

The NFL has made its pre-game announcement to football fans:  If you're tossed out of a game for unruly, drunken, violent behavior, be prepared for the ref's penalty call.  The truth of those consequences:  a four-hour, online course, at 75 bucks a throw, before anyone will let you back in and welcome you into the civilized fold.

Where will you go when the cow, whale, and/or volcano blows?

Instead of starting with Parrotheads -- fans of Jimmy Buffett and his songs -- for clues, we first go to Colorado, where the U.S. Forest Service is pondering what to do with a group of stray cows that wandered away from the herd over the winter, then moseyed into a ranger cabin, making themselves at home.

Problem is, the guest cows never left the impromptu cow hotel, but checked all the way out at some point during the harsh winter.  Six cows are inside the cabin.  A few more are outside.  The carcasses were found in late March near the Conundrum Hot Springs in Aspen;  what to do next has become its own hot conundrum this Spring.