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Town Fights Cricket Plague With Led Zeppelin

The residents of Tuscarora, Nevada are getting ready to fight the annual invasion of mormon crickets with the power of Rock-N-Roll. Trial and error has shown that the crickets don't think much of Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones. The residents circle the town with boomboxes at regular intervals to drive off the millions of crickets. "It is part of our arsenal. You'll wake up and there'll be one sitting on your forehead, looking at you." says Laura Moore, an unemployed college professor and one of the town's 13 residents. The crickets devastate crops, cause slicks on the highway and evidently love rap.

54 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Funny

    The crickets devastate crops, cause slicks on the highway and evidently love rap.

    I suppose that ends all speculation that rap isn't cricket, eh, old man?

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I suppose that ends all speculation that rap isn't cricket, eh, old man?

      I didn't realize Buddy Holly even played rap.

    2. Re:Well... by jo42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "rap" 75% of the word "crap".

    3. Re:Well... by 4D6963 · · Score: 4, Funny

      "rap" 75% of the word "crap".

      Impressive find! Semi-relatedly, I think you just proved to have 75% of the wit necessary to start writing rap.

      --
      You just got troll'd!
    4. Re:Well... by cabjf · · Score: 4, Informative

      That makes him overqualified for a career in the music industry.

    5. Re:Well... by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Funny

      About 14% country
      And 75% rap
      These are the components
      of 100% crap

      Thumping and bumping
      And your old belt buckle
      A gat and a nine
      and your old truck'll...

      [chorus]:

      ...produce 100 per cent
      Stupid and ig-nor-ent

      Bumpkin and ghetto
      It ain't no libretto

      It's just 100 per cent
      crap.

      Chords are G, A, and E. Bass line is subsonic and at least 12 db higher than the vocals. Wear a kerchief and cowboy boots when performing. Ad libbing about your dog is permitted.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    6. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh, I thought De la Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, et. al. produced quite decent music...

    7. Re:Well... by gnick · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think that the idea that they like rap was just invented by the local parents.

      "If you keep listening to that, the mormon crickets will come and get you!"

      I'll have to remember that trick for when mine are old enough to start playing crap on the radio. "Sorry, m'boy. The only way we can keep the boogy-man away is to spin up some of Dad's Floyd albums. Maybe you can listen to your music really quietly in the basement."

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    8. Re:Well... by djdavetrouble · · Score: 4, Funny

      "rap" 75% of the word "crap".

      "classical" 100% of the word "ass".

      Seriously, how long have you been quoting that stupid cliche......

      --
      music lover since 1969
    9. Re:Well... by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'll have to remember that trick for when mine are old enough to start playing crap on the radio. "Sorry, m'boy. The only way we can keep the boogy-man away is to spin up some of Dad's Floyd albums. Maybe you can listen to your music really quietly in the basement."

      My oldest is 15, and so far he has been immune to peer pressure on the subject of music. And most other things too... he's a good kid. In any event, he's been exposed to a lot of good music since he was a baby, and has definitely acquired a taste that is similar to mine (and to a lesser extent his Mom's, but only since she doesn't listen to music nearly as much as I do). The same thing happened to me growing up. I ended up really liking what I was hearing from my Dad ("classic" rock, back before it was a cliche, some country, some proto-progressive music), and my tastes branched off from there. I completely bypassed disco (ugh!) and punk and other popular movements.

      My kids are free to listen to whatever they like, but since they've been exposed to so much good stuff at home (all kinds of progressive rock, jazz and classical) they tend to like that. Will they change their tastes or interests as they get older? Maybe... and that's fine. Nevertheless, my plan has been to set the example and let things grow as they may. The contrast between what I consider to be "good" music and what's popular is much stronger than it was in the 70s when pop music hadn't yet completely devolved to the level it's at today.

      My little brother (13 years younger) liked some of the same things as me when I was still living at home. After I moved out, he went through a brief rap phase, discovered the "classics" (big air quotes because I refer to "classic rock", not classical music) and now digs jam bands and bluegrass. There's are not often my cuppa, but are definitely something I think is cool.

      It's all a matter of what you're exposed to. In the absence of good music, many people won't find that overly simplistic and repetitious music can get tiresome, or that better alternatives are out there. Some people never see music as more than background noise or something to dance to. I also have a personal pet theory that tone deafness is a spectrum and that most people have it to some degree or other, so melody and harmony just don't have the same effect on them as it does for others. Others don't have the patience or interest in acquiring the taste. (e.g., I sometimes didn't like many of my favorites the first time I heard them). And other people just like what they like, and there's never anything wrong with that.

      Of course, I find the idea of scary stories very appealing...

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    10. Re:Well... by beav007 · · Score: 3, Funny
      It's already been done :P

      <Batty> Euch, rap is just missing one letter. c.
      <zeep> rapc?
      <Batty> ...
      <Batty> Crap you idiot. you put the c on the other end
      <zeep> oic
      <Batty> Though you could also say it's missing an e
      <zeep> wtf is erap?
      * Batty bangs his head repeatedly against a wall

      http://bash.org/?329292

    11. Re:Well... by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Some people have a low opinion of rap, and admittedly a lot of rappers simply aren't very good. Fine. But there are some rap artists who deserve a lot more respect than they either get, or indeed might even want.

      The bottom lines is, rap is poetry. Or at least, rap is our societies current form of poetry. Don't believe me? Would you believe a Nobel Laurette? Rhyming verses, set a to meter. To be sure, rappers do not frequent poetry readings or college debating societies, but these are not essential artistic qualities.

      Rappers are ultimately wordsmiths rather than musicians. Most may not be spectacular, but even the weakest typically have a command of English vocabulary over and above that the general population. When you finally see something like a freestyle rap "battle", you will understand just how sharp they can be.

      Now some might say that a lot of rap is "wasted" on the "gansta'" lifestyle topics. That's the choice of the artists, and frankly, it sells. But there is a lot of alternative rap out there if you are willing to be open minded about the artform.

      I am reminded of a certain Calvin and Hobbes strip.

      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
  2. the Devil's music. by drfool · · Score: 2, Funny

    More proof that Jimmy Page was a satanist!

    1. Re:the Devil's music. by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Informative
      "More proof that Jimmy Page was a satanist!"

      Or that Keith Richards can scare the hell out of anything....

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  3. PC police by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

    The crickets devastate crops, cause slicks on the highway and evidently love rap.

    That's racist.

    1. Re:PC police by Gat0r30y · · Score: 5, Funny

      They are Mormon crickets dude.

      --
      Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
    2. Re:PC police by danking · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because no white (or any other ethnicity) person has ever created a rap song/album.

    3. Re:PC police by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because no white (or any other ethnicity) person has ever created a rap song/album.

      It's because of comments like yours, that parent is +5 Funny.

      (In case you haven't noticed, the parent comment doesn't contain words such as "white" or "black". It's funny how he could make all your stereotypes fill in the blanks at once with just two words.)

    4. Re:PC police by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's funny how the Mod system can make someone look racist.

      I wonder if the trolls bait people for just this purpose? Could they have achieved that level of intelligence? Surely not, or we are doomed!! I'm just going to assume it was a lucky (for the troll) accident and hide under the table just in case I'm wrong.

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
  4. LOL, it's cricket *bugs* by multipartmixed · · Score: 4, Funny

    At first, I thought they were trying to get rid of haughty Englishmen with funny bats!

    --

    Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
  5. I had to do it by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wonder how they feel about Buddy Holly?

    I'll go ahead and hit myself for that one.

    --
    "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    1. Re:I had to do it by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I wonder how they feel about Buddy Holly?

      That would be the day... :P

  6. I though I was the only one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Finally another species that hates Led Zeppelin as much as I do.

  7. Interesting article by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 4, Funny

    FTA: Rock music blaring from boomboxes has proved one of the best defenses against an annual invasion of Mormon crickets.

    Yeah, but you get one alone and he'll drink all your beer.

    1. Re:Interesting article by Ytsejam-03 · · Score: 2, Informative

      FTA: Rock music blaring from boomboxes has proved one of the best defenses against an annual invasion of Mormon crickets.

      Yeah, but you get one alone and he'll drink all your beer.

      +1 Funny. Unfortunately, it probably went over the head of anyone who hasn't lived in Utah.

      Always take at least two Mormons fishing with you or the damned Jack Mormon will drink all your beer.

  8. Most hated song by diablovision · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess they really must hate "Trampled Underfoot".

    --
    120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
    1. Re:Most hated song by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Funny

      And "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp"

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    2. Re:Most hated song by bughunter · · Score: 3, Funny

      They destroy crops and lots of the other leafy vegetation.

      But "robert" plants leave them Dazed and Confused.

      --
      I can see the fnords!
  9. The joke writes itself. by LaminatorX · · Score: 4, Funny

    In addition to Rock n Roll, the mormon crickets are repelled by alchohol, caffine, premarital sex, and gay marriage.

    1. Re:The joke writes itself. by bgray54 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just to clarify, the LDS church has never taken a stand against caffeine. It's been coffee and tea, but never caffeine specifically. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_Wisdom

    2. Re:The joke writes itself. by buraianto · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think that interpretation is less common today than it was 30 years ago or so.

  10. Almost Onion Material by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 3, Interesting

    TFA: "...best defenses against an annual invasion of Mormon crickets"

    Mormons and Zeppelin don't mix?

    Tuscarorans are preparing once again to get out their extension cords, array their stereos in a quarter-circle and tune them to rock station KHIX

    Sounds like another Burning Man festival.

  11. copyright violation by castironpigeon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Playing copyrighted music out in the open like that?! Better hope the RIAA doesn't get wind of this.

    --
    mmmm...forbidden donut
    1. Re:copyright violation by Red+Flayer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Playing copyrighted music out in the open like that?! Better hope the RIAA doesn't get wind of this.

      If a Led Zeppelin song is broadcasted but there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound^H^H^H^H^Hvalid claim of copyright violation?

      Seriously, though, this is why they should play from a radio station broadcast -- then the royalties were already paid. If they play from CD or from mp3, then they could be subject to a public performance complaint... plus then they'd have to deal with the not-so-fun issue of synchronization of a crapload of stereos.

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    2. Re:copyright violation by dcollins117 · · Score: 3, Funny

      So what are you going to do - sue the crickets for being illegally repelled by Led Zepplin?

      ps. That's a sentence I'd never thought I'd write

    3. Re:copyright violation by T+Murphy · · Score: 4, Funny

      Playing copyrighted music out in the open like that?! Better hope the RIAA doesn't get wind of this.

      Did you even read the summary? Their music wards off pests.

  12. Re:Yeni by Phroggy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Did you mean Yanni?

    --
    $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
    $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  13. Re:They Love Rap? I Think Not by pz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The TFA doesn't say they love rap. What it says is that the 2007 and 2008 crickets had "hipper tastes" (i.e. weren't as deterred by heavy-metal music as the 2006 crickets were). Apparently samzenpus mis-read "hipper" as "hip-hop" and assumed they love rap.

    Le Sigh.

    Also means the residents of Tuscarora might be applying selective pressure on the cricket population by playing loud rock music.

    --

    Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
  14. Much better idea by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just put each cricket in a little box with a caterpillar. That will teach them not to screw with your town.

  15. Re:Easy Solution by mikael · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Stairway to Heaven by Rolf Harris would get me out of bed in zombie mode and change the CD-player/radio to anything else.

    --
    Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  16. "Unemployed college professor"? by zindorsky · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... says Laura Moore, an unemployed college professor and one of the town's 13 residents

    If you're unemployed, you're not a college professor. You're a former college professor, or a wannabe college professor. Also, maybe a town of 13 doesn't have a lot of college professor openings?

    --
    If the geiger counter does not click, the coffee, she is not thick.
    1. Re:"Unemployed college professor"? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you're unemployed, you're not a college professor.

      Bah, that's as stupid as saying that I'm not an unemployed Divine Emperor of Everything! And I'd crush you beneath my boot heel (or rather order my underlings to crush you) for saying such a thing. At least as soon as a position opens up...

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    2. Re:"Unemployed college professor"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      How does a place with thirteen people in it qualify as a town, again?

  17. daitomaceous earth by Zecheus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hints from Helen: diatomaceous earth (from a pool store) and borax scratch open the shell of these bugs and they dry up. Little is needed unless it blows away. D.E. can irritate the nose, but otherwise earth friendly. D.E. is tiny fossils. I guess it can take out other insects, too, but in that town, it doesn't seem that there are any other insects.

  18. "publicly" by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    If a Led Zeppelin song is broadcasted but there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound^H^H^H^H^Hvalid claim of copyright violation?

    Probably not, because US copyright law defines "publicly" as "at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered", and a cricket isn't a "person" except perhaps in works of fiction written by Carlo Collodi or George Selden.

    Seriously, though, this is why they should play from a radio station broadcast -- then the royalties were already paid.

    The royalties to ASCAP and BMI were already paid, but not for performance in an establishment "open to the public". Such royalties are the responsibility of the owner of the establishment "open to the public" unless the performance qualifies under 17 USC 110(5), which was enacted as a rider to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

  19. "Mormon Crickets: Neither mormon nor cricket.... by weston · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... Discuss." ;)

    They're not called Mormon Crickets because they're considered adherents to the faith, they're called Mormon Crickets because they're one of the fine local features the Mormons found waiting for them when they settled in Utah the mid 1800s. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Gulls .

    Mormon Crickets are also not only not Mormons, they're not crickets either. They're shieldbacked katydids.

    They're also cannibals.

    And polygamists.

  20. Pun by Mr_Icon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not that shocking -- they normally listen to the beetles.

    --
    If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
  21. Re:"Mormon Crickets: Neither mormon nor cricket... by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

    Mormon Crickets are also not only not Mormons, they're not crickets either. They're shieldbacked katydids.

    "... shieldbacked katydids?" Please do not use these abstruse metric or imperial system units. What are they in Texan talk: Varmints or Critters?

    They're also cannibals.

    Great house pets. No need to buy pet food, they just "feed themselves."

    And polygamists.

    Well, that sounds interestings. Send some over. I hope they will be more entertaining than the Presbyterian Toads.

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  22. Re:"Mormon Crickets: Neither mormon nor cricket... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    They're also ... polygamists.

    So they at least used to be Mormon?

  23. Manuel Noregia and crickets? by Neanderthal+Ninny · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I remember I was deployed to Panama for Operation Just Cause as an forward air observer and Manuel Noregia fled to the Vatican's Embassy (Apostolic Nunciature) and the US set some boom boxes around the embassy and they played rock music all day and night. We were camped about mile from the embassy and we can still hear the music clearly from that distance so I know much louder it was at the embassy. Nevertheless, Manual Noregia gave up afterwards.
         

  24. Re:At the risk of being modded down by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And I fucking hate the Beatles.

    Then your opinion on music is empirically worthless.

    Hate to break it to you, but that's just science.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  25. Idiot is as idiot does... by denzacar · · Score: 2, Informative

    NEITHER crystalline (the pool store kind) nor amorphous (raw) silica in DE causes cancer. They CAN cause silicosis if inhaled though.
    Silicosis is NOT a cancer - but it is quite nasty and there is no cure as the damage to the lungs is permanent.
    It can't metastasize like a cancer though - but you can't fight it with chemo either.

    BOTH kinds of DE will do just fine against the bugs as they work by absorbing moisture and causing dehydration.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  26. Re:I wonder... by Telepathetic+Man · · Score: 2, Funny

    How about Iron Butterfly?

    --
    Just because you can, does not mean you should.
  27. Re:Not the best article by mrbcs · · Score: 2, Funny

    You must have read it in Quarks voice. I say Mor-man like Quark used to say Hu-man. Pretty funny actually.. well I'm amused.. doesn't take much... this whole thread has been a riot!

    --
    I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.