WELCOME  TO  MY  AUTHOR  PORTFOLIO

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Originally this month was to be about Lemurs, Lemmings, and Leeches, but space constraints have necessitated Lemurs being thrown to the curb. Our focus is now on lemmings and leeches only.

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Lemmings are misunderstood creatures. They have been wrongly mis-characterized as unthinking suicidal crowd followers, all relating to a Disney produced 1958 nature documentary White Wilderness in which hundreds of them were made to appear to careen over a cliff into the freezing waters below. They are not suicidal at all, it turns out, although some are prone to the blues.

 

Leeches are also quite happy and positive creatures—sanguine you might say. They are simple creatures that find their way into the limelight every hundred years or so. We are now in a leech renaissance, a golden age of leeches, all because of their singular ability to suck blood. Medicinal treatment with leeches is known as hirudotherapy. Hirudin is a protease inhibitor that binds to thrombin, interfering with clot formation by stopping the conversion of fibrinogen to fibrin. Among leech therapy devotees is Colson Baker a.k.a. Machine Gun Kelly, the nickname referring to his rapid fire delivery (however, recently changing his moniker to MGK or simply Machine)

 

The original Machine Gun Kelly was George Kelly Barnes, not a proponent of leech therapy, but also not necessarily the automatic weapon enthusiast either. Like lemmings, Kelly was deliberately miscast. His wife promoted him as a ruthless killer to make him seem scarier and more infamous to the underworld. And the ruse worked as he spent some time as Public Enemy Number One. Before his criminal career, he began college at Mississippi A & M, now Mississippi State, but did poorly, his highest grade a C+ in personal hygiene. After serving time in Leavenworth prison and Alcatraz, Kelly died on his 59th birthday. Later he was memorialized in a James Taylor song.

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Little known facts about leeches: They are hermaphrodites. They absorb oxygen through their skin. Their saliva acts as a pain reliever so they can attach to a victim without being noticed.

 

Little known facts about lemurs: they are high strung, prone to jealousy, and don't like being left out.

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