Drone Alone

     From The Copy Desk: Mourning has broken, the boys are back and ready to resume their lives in a post-Harold Ramis world.


     Marty and Warren were discussing their favorite animals, dolphins, pheasants and elephants.  They agreed that dolphins are cool because they're smart, like to play, polite (Thanks for all the fish) and they live in the ocean - where they pose no risk to marmots. Pheasants have their uses, like bursting up out the grass and scaring the pants off anyone crossing the meadow, and in addition there is the preferred 'ph' spelling of their name.
     Now as for elephants, Marty said, "I think they're just about the greatest animals, after marmots, on the planet." Warren for once agreed with Marty's opinion, citing his research on Marmopedia, "It says they live in family groups led by their matriarch, so they always listen to their mother or grandmother."
     "But the elephant in the room is under attack," Marty said. He is, in fact, just a little confused. The elephants on the savannah are under attack . . . By greed and poverty. Greed is fueling a holocaust of elephants as gangs of impoverished humans are gunning down elephants at a record rate,  using axes to chop off tusks of dying animals and shipping the ivory to Asia so China and Philippines can get rich selling carved trinkets.
     "Somebody should do something," Warren said. Marty thought for a moment and then said, "It's simple. I know how to stop the elephant slaughter." Warren gave Marty his trademark 'do tell' look and waited.
     "Drones, alone, can save the herds," Marty said. "Work with the national governments in Africa and put armed Predator drones overhead to hunt the poachers. A few cases of Hellfire missiles raining down on poachers from unseen drones, both day and night, will crush the poaching business, don't you think?"
     "Like an elephant stepping on a grape," Warren said.