In the Fifteenth Century, the Italian peninsula was a collection of oppugning states tied together by treaties often not worth the paper they were written on. Patriots yearned to unite their troubled homeland into a single nation. When Alexander VI (the Borgia Pope) ascended to power, he charged his son, Cesare, with the task of subduing the family's enemies (this pope had several politically astute children.) Through adept generalship, and a succession of brilliant strategies, Cesare was about to lay the prize, the Itallian peninsula, at his father's feet. The Borgias gathered at Rome, a place then surrounded by marshland, to celebrate and talk political strategy. They dined alfresco and passed the afternoon in pleasantries. The seductive summer night unrolled, the wine, the music, the illusions of a family victorious spurring the conversation, instigated a reluctance to climax and move indoors; candles were burnt to ward off insects whining in their ears. The night air rife with mosquitoes, and natures tyrannical hand, not man's meandering machinations set the world on its wobbly course that night. The next day Alexander fell ill, and soon died. Cesare too took to his bed, and lingered for weeks near death. Italy would wait three more centuries for unification.

        Perhaps it was divine retribution, the angry heavens disgorging vengeance for the crimes engendered in those brilliant Borgia strategies. Politics is, at best, a dangerous game, and nature, at her worst, uncomfortably random.

        Immanuel Velikovsky, ( Worlds in Collision ) poses an interesting theory on the genesis of mosquitoes. He conjectures that Earth, Mars and Venus collided (or came into extreme close proximity) in early historical times, in fact, the collisions are recorded in the bible, and occurred during Moses' manumission of the Hebrew slaves. As Earth and Venus collided, portions of atmosphere were commingled and ripped away sending a ghastly Venusian bug, the mosquito, to Earth. According to Velikovsky, mosquitoes were the heavenly messengers that delivered the plagues of Egypt.

        Whether Velikovsky's theories are true or false, does not change the body count; numerous waves of mosquito-borne plagues (Such as Black Death) have struck during recorded history and nearly depopulated this planet.

        Mosquitoes are very dangerous creatures, pay them no mind if you dare, but mark the risks nevertheless.

        In Queens County, we live under a mild tyranny called a political machine, weakening social fabric and suspending the public good in favor of private parties; we also live in close proximity to New York City's marshland, Flushing Meadows, a vast playground of both natural and man-made beauty. The new wave of mosquito-borne disease emanating from the marshlands during this time of unprecedented prosperity and record government surpluses disconcert, indications of warped priorities.

        The mosquito must go - notwithstanding abstracted social nonplus, obfuscated budgets and exorbitant election campaigns preposterous in their superficiality; absent extinguishment of these breeze borne agents of pestilence, these dirty needles that fly, and a commensurate attenuation of the numerous diseases mosquitoes transmit, government fails in its very reason for being.

        It is the author's ancient habit to take exercise at Meadow Lake, in Flushing Meadows the year round; last season, bit by a flying bug - a sharp pain in a sweaty muscle, a slap and blood stained hand; the subsequent malady passing as a ferocious summer cold. News reports, an aching arm, long-legged mosquitoes the size of AA batteries, and rats big and bold, prompted a retreat to Forest Park for the winter. (Once before, for several seasons, I had abandoned this park being literally chased out, a rat nipping at my heals.) But enchantment of the beauteous wetlands is ever enticing, a song of the Sirens no free spirit can long resist.

        Earlier this spring, shafts of late afternoon sunlight slicing through the tree branches lit a fated vision: swarms of newborn insects, black dots dancing on the rays, perhaps anticipating a feast, the million sweaty humans that will frequent the marshlands this summer (more if the Mets get hot and the US Open plays to packed houses.) The realization was instant: government's quick fix and noxious chemical sprays were too little, too late, they might just as well have burnt candles, the pestilence proliferates still; the park must be abandoned, and the only question is, how long a procrastination?

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by email    t@tiraco.com