Free Range by Bill Whitehead for December 07, 2023

When life offers lemmings, don’t give a “rat’s” butt.

Oh no not this fake news lemmings trope again.

Must… conform… to…… society’s… expectations…

They took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

For some reason, Lemmings remind me of religion.

If it’s suicide you’re looking for, go to the sand dunes just west of Yuma during the holiday season, you’ll be sure to get run over at least once by the hundreds of crazy dune-buggy riders.

If only we had a supply of cool, refreshing lemming-ade. Then we could make it to the cliff and just stand there, while we protest Disney’s perpetuation of a myth.

The lemming is the focus of a lot of busted myths.

The best-known one today is that they throw themselves off cliffs

For suicidal purposes. Despite what I’ve been told,

That didn’t start with Disney; no, the myth was pretty old

When Disney made White Wilderness and forced a bunch to drown.

The truth is, when they crowd along a cliff, they may fall down

And try to swim to safety, but it doesn’t always work.

The rather rapid die-offs make the lemmings seem berserk,

Tho partly it results from competition and predation.

Their “suicides” were not the first mistaken ideation:

Before Linnaeus came along, a scholar’s thought for why

Their numbers rise so fast was that they plummet from the sky.

More recently, when some folks heard “exploding population,”

They got the mental image of a lemming detonation.

Important as it is to spread the truth, I have to say,

Without these myths, I might not know what lemmings are today.

—me

But you have reputation to uphold.

Sounds like a good idea. It’s a realistic, manageable goal.

Bring a saucer sled, it’s fun!