Jan. 16, 2025

You're playing Monopoly wrong

Show Notes
Transcript

Host Johnny Mac shares five uplifting stories, starting with Katie the dog, who has successfully hunted 364 rats in New York City. The show also covers China's ambitious Great Green Wall reforestation project to combat desertification, the increasing population of thick-billed parrots in Mexico, Chicago's achievements in running all city-owned buildings on renewable energy or offsets, and a lighthearted discussion about Monopoly house rules. E

00:11 Katie the Rat-Hunting Dog
01:54 China's Great Green Wall
02:28 Thick-Billed Parrots in Mexico
03:00 Chicago's Renewable Energy Milestone
03:28 Monopoly House Rules

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Caalaroga Shark Media why they are shinning Mack with five

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good news stories. Good news if you hate rats. The

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New York Times profile Katie the four year old dog.

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Katie has teamed up with human Sarah to get rid

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of those rats. They head off to Prospect Park in

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New York City. Sarah lets Katie go, Katie takes off,

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comes back with a rat. In this story, it was

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Katie's three hundred and sixty third rat kill of the year.

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A couple minutes later there went number three sixty four.

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The Times tells us Katie is twenty eight percent Chihuahua,

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sixteen percent pug, sixteen percent rat terrier, and forty percent mutt.

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Does that even add up? You guys do the math,

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I'm too lazy. Sarah adopted Katie from a shelter in Texas.

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Not too long after that. I was walking her in

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a playground that had tons and tons of rats, and

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she revealed to me her interest in doing this. In

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twenty twenty three, Katie the Dog bagged one hundred and

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fifteen rats. There's a Google map titled Katie's Rats twenty

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twenty four that if you want to follow the rat

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killing about forty percent of the kills. We're in Prospect Park,

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the restaurant on the sidewalks of park Slope, and Guantis.

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What is going on in Brooklyn. I've lived in New

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York City. In the subways, you'll see rats. I don't

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normally just see rats on the street. New York City

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has a rats are who is introducing comprehensive pest management techniques.

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There will be four rat mitigation zones. These are super successful.

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In Harlem, the rats have been so mitigated that there

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was a social club of dog owners who used to

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take their dogs ratting on Friday nights. They gave up.

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Richard is the organizer of the Writer's Alley Treacher Fed Society.

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They go by the acronym rats. Richard said, you'll get

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one or two, but it's not what we're there for.

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The dogs are now filling their time tackling mouse infestations

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in food warehouses. Meanwhile, in China, they are using reforestation

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to hold back the expansion of the Gobi Desert. They're

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calling it the Great Green Wall. They've planted red willows

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and some other tree species to act like a security

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wall to stop the flow of desert winds and sandstorms.

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They started this back in nineteen seventy eight. It could

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be finished by twenty fifty and will involve as many

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as one hundred billion trees. Some experts worry the project

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is not sustainable and won't have the desired outcome. They

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argue that planting trees where they or not native could

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have larger negative implications for the ecosystem. We'll keep an

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eye on that one and report back to you in

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twenty fifty. Good news if you are a parent in Mexico.

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The current population of thick billed parrots is approximately twenty

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five hundred. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it's

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ten percent higher than that recorded twelve years ago. Since

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nineteen ninety five, the species has been listed in danger

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of extinction by the Mexican government. A major effort to

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restore populations of the parent was undertaken in the nineteen eighties.

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If populations recover substantially enough in Mexico, it's hopeful that

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the bird will recognize its former haunts in the southwestern

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United States without the need for intervention from science. Good

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news out of Chicago. All four hundred and eleven buildings

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owned and operated by the City of Chicago now either

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run on renewable energy or offset their emissions through financing

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renewables across the country. Angela is the chief sustainability officer

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for Chicago. Angela told the Chicago Tribute every Chicago and

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interacts with the city owned building, whether it's the Cultural Center,

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City Hall, O'Hare, Midway, your local library. To achieve this

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milestone on behalf of city residents is exciting. All right,

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Monopoly fans, what happens when you land on free parking?

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The way we used to play it in Johnny Max

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House was we'd throw a five hundred dollars bill in

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the middle, and then any of the fines would also

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go into the middle, and if you landed on free parking,

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you got to collect that. I don't know where that

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rule came from. I was seven years old. It's just

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how we played well. I played it wrong. The correct

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way to play. According to Hasbro, the free parking space

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is just free parking. Nothing happens when you land there,

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But they say, like many commonly used monopoly rules, most

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of which serve to make the game longer, people play

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by their own rules. The most popular for free parking

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is to not return fines to the bank, but to

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a kitty that's won by the next person to land

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on free parking. That's right. Hasbro recognized this after commissioning

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a study on how people played Monopoly and made a

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house Rules edition that includes many of the rules people

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actually use in real life. Like I think, I was

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forty years old before I found out about how the

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mortgagees thing worked. I didn't know, Hasbro says. For instance,

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many don't allow players to collect rent money while they're

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in jail, but traditional rules so you do collect money. Amen. However,

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you want to play Monopoly, ugo nuts. All I know

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is the game usually ends with either somebody being frustrated

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and throwing the cards at someone else or everyone just

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going I can't play this anymore. I'm done. Those are

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your five good news stories for today. If you enjoy

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the program, tell a friend about it. They may like

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it too. If you would like the program without commercial interruptions, well,

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if you land on free Parking, you're still gonna get commercials,

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so you're gonna have to click the link of the

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show notes to find out how to get the show

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without commercials. And you have a great day.