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fly-pow-bye · 6 years

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Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Blundercup”

Written by: Haley Mancini

Written & Storyboarded by: Leticia Abreu Silva, John Martinez

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

"Butter makes everything taste better." - Ina Garten

The episode starts with a montage of Buttercup doing radical things. Punching an pig shaped alarm clock to get it to stop! Grinding down the stairway in her Derbytante gear! Making broccoli explode, showing that she hasn’t learned anything since the Brocolloids incident! Punching out that one generic monster guy! Being late for that advanced math class, judging by the background and not the almost entirely different teacher, and breaking a clock in response!

And, finally, kicking a kickball really hard into the sky. So hard, they needed to cover up the impact with a hit flash. In this TV-Y7-FV show, not only can we not see that aforementioned monster getting punched, we can't even see a ball getting hit! I'm sure all the balls in the audience would be happy to not see such wanton violence against their kind.

This was all a montage in an in-universe sense: Buttercup decided to make a video about how she's a great superhero. Who recorded Buttercup doing all of these things? Pineapples. We know it's not Bubbles because she reviews it like an art critic. Blossom isn't as big of a fan of this video.

Blossom spends the entirety of the episode nagging Buttercup on how useless she's being. She reminds Buttercup that she promised to make dinner, and she apparently hasn't made dinner for a whole week. She also tells Buttercup that kickball was the last kickball the school had, so they have to use a empty plastic milk jug instead. She then throws the plastic jug at her head, mostly to prove that it would not give her a dent in the head. Trust me, that's the reason, and it seems rather necessary in this show.

She does get another fan, as we cut to a very buttery person clicking the subscribe button, while laughing evilly. No, this doesn't turn into a "be wary of strangers on the internet" episode, though this scene makes me think it could.

I can't help but notice those recommended videos. Specifically, that one in the middle. Outside of this, this episode rarely uses any outright wacky face gags, even if an ability Buttercup will get later in the episode could allow that. Also, there's a model of a muscular Wonder Woman with a golden helmet. Maybe that's their way to save Wonder Woman from that horrible skimpy clothing she had.

The next day, according to an entirely different narrator that never appears again, Buttercup tries to repeat her performance from yesterday. Unfortunately, as soon as she loses balance and falls off of the guard rail she was grinding on, something is immediately off. She gets hit with the refrigerator door. Worst of all, she walks out of the school, and apparently convinced Blossom to do the same! At least this is supposed to be awkward.

After all of this, Buttercup is worried that she's losing all of her mojo. No points for guessing the joke they do with that line. Bubbles shows up with "scoupons" for free ice cream at Penguin Pete's, but Buttercup denies the offer. I can't help but notice they named that ice cream parlor far more than the school where most of these episodes take place. Shows their priorities. Suddenly, Barry says "look out", and Buttercup wasn't quick enough to avoid it.

She gets hit with an empty milk carton, which the school has to use instead of a kickball because Buttercup hit flashed their last one. Yes, they have to re-remind us about this, but it is helpful if you tuned out Blossom’s nagging. A major difference from the previous scene is that it actually does give her a dent in her forehead. See, that was really the reason, and Buttercup is about to find out why this is.

She walks home, apparently due to flying power getting sapped away, sweating yellow while trying to remind herself that she's awesome. She goes into the bathroom to find out that she's melting from being in the sun too long! See, Buttercup is turning into butter. I can't decide if I hate that idea or tolerate it. Her sorrow at this turn of events gets immediately interrupted by Blossom and Bubbles knocking at the door.

Buttercup: Uh, someone's in here!

Bubbles: I think she's pooping!

Bubbles just has no shame, doesn't she? They ask Buttercup why she's home, as she told them she was going to stay at Penguin Pete's to show off some more. Buttercup did not take that offer for those free scoupons, so she tries to find out what's going on by sneaking out the bathroom window. She apparently had enough flying power to do that. They never do figure out what's going on.

She finds herself chugging an entire tub of ice cream and somehow not getting an ice cream headache. Everyone is cheering her name, nobody knowing that this Buttercup is an impostor, while the buttery Buttercup can just watch as she gets all of the glory.

This faker meets up with the real Buttercup, and calls her "Butterfingers". This is the closest we get to a name for this villain, by the way; this villain isn't in the credits. I could tell it's Natalie Palamides doing the voice, as the body snatcher's voice is just a slightly lower Buttercup's voice. At least that avoids the usual problem with body swap episodes; they just happened to share those vocal cords.

If they swapped bodies, why did Buttercup look like and have the flight ability of the real Buttercup in the morning? Did Butterfingers have to slowly turn into Buttercup, too? The answer to both of those questions is also pineapples. However, Butterfingers does tell Buttercup the story that led up to this possession.

We get to see Butterfingers’ previous form: a normal slacker kid that wants to be a superhero like all the people in the comics! They have superpowers, and, most importantly, they fight giant robots and monsters! They don't just eat ice cream, kick those poor little kickballs, and be late for school, after all.

They cut to these panels while this kid is talking about how cool superheroes are, and I can't help but feel a bit confused. It looks like this superhero guy did all the work beating up that evil Hulk and the giant robot, and then this superheroine just shows up, beats him up, and just heroically stands on top of his buried body. The most charitable explanation is that this is supposed to parallel the Penguin Pete's scene, but it seems more like a misguided "girl power" joke.

Unfortunately, Butterfingers is just an ordinary kid who slacks off all day reading comics. No way will kicking out the bad guys, beating up the monsters, fighting against evil, and rescuing the town be in this person's future.

This all changed when this comic fan was involved in an accident at the County Science Fair of Food! A nuclear-fusion deep fryer exploded, accidentally fusing this person’s DNA with the butter. Finally, superpowers!

One thing that really interests me about this plot is the implication that there are other superheroes around. There are supervillains, even supervillains that have superpowers, but the idea of other superheroes being in the Powerpuff Girls wasn't touched upon that often. Even in the original, there were a few one-episode-wonders like Captain Righteous from Fallen Arches and Major Glory's crossover appearance in Members Only. It's cool to see this idea getting a little more spread out in the reboot. Like butter!

Unfortunately, Butterfingers realizes that these butter abilities aren't very good for fighting giant monsters. Butterfingers constantly gets chased by dogs, people scoff at the existence of this buttery being, and buttery hands ends up being very inconvenient for driving a car. Buttercup does ask whether this person is even old enough to drive. It seems like how these people are supposed to be little kids seems to be an afterthought most of the time, so I am glad that joke exists.

This ends up being a rather interesting jumping point for this "other superhero" plot. The Powerpuff Girls, and even the Reboot Puffs to some extent, have essentially won, if not the Superpower Lottery, then the Superpower $5,000 and a Free Spin. Now we see a superhero who feels like they got the Superpower Whammy, and the envy is what drives this villain's act of villainy.

Wallowing in sorrow, this butter-being looks up videos on this episode's YouTube equivalent. They were never really consistent about it; a certain episode even had the website call itself Me2Tube and TvTV in the same shot. There’s a possibility that this was meant to a reference to former short video website Vine, which probably still existed. though this "SuperCut" is way too long to be one.

Apparently finding out where the Powerpuff Girls live from the SuperCut video, this creepy butter person sneaks into the Powerpuff home and uses the "butter fusion" powers that this person happened to know about. Switching bodies is not exactly fusion, but whatever.

If this kid can take over other people's bodies, why didn't "just use the ability to take over other people's bodies like The Thing or Mario from Mario Odyssey" come to mind? This may be a subtle hint that this villain isn't very creative, which is actually something that comes up in this episode.

Butterfingers, the one that possessed Buttercup's body, decides to melt Buttercup with eye lasers, causing her to go into the sewers.

Butterfingers: Butter luck next time! Hahahahaha!

Butterfingers even absorbed her ability to make bad puns!

Butterfingers does a SuperCut video to show off the awesome might of the new body. There’s definitely a contrast between this scene and the real Buttercup’s video from the beginning. Unlike Buttercup’s, which features her doing ordinary rascal things, some of which involving superpowers, Butterfinger’s idea is to just have violence against a bunch of giant monsters. That’s what superheroes are all about to this former butter-person’s mind. Apparently, Butterfingers never needed any help from the other two, because neither Blossom nor Bubbles talks about how they were there.

They do, however, protest about something else. Blossom is just as impressed as the last time someone with a green dress shown her a video, and even Bubbles decides this video was a step down from the previous one. Bubbles even gets to do her usual thing by yelling at Butterfingers to get in the kitchen. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't word it like that. Unlike the last episode, the problems do not get solved by a tantrum.

Blossom and Bubbles don’t get to do much, but they don’t really get in the way, either. We just get occasional jokes about how Bubbles is starving. If the girls are waiting for Buttercup to make them a salad, why is Blossom not starving too? Much like randomly using a word to describe nonsense, it's probably just bad writing.

Butterfingers isn't too happy about this, needless to say. The villain even complains about how none of this has anything to do with punching giant monsters in the face. I wonder if this is a jab at people complaining about how PPG 2016 isn't as violent as if it's the only problem with the show. You know, aside from all the pineapples.

Eventually, Buttercup, the one that was turned into butter, shows up, persumably coming from the sewers. Got to say; I wish we could have saw that adventure. Maybe she met a rat who taught her everything to do with the way of the Bataa. Paula Deen-Jutsu? I don't know.

Because she’s a more experienced superhero, she’s able to learn to use the Butterfinger’s abilities far better than this slacker did. This shows that even butter abilities can be useful with enough practice. Maybe the toughest fighter doesn't need a reason to be as cool as she is, especially when she's fighting against someone who is clearly a slacker that wanted to be superpowerful.

Butterfingers ends up begging Buttercup for mercy. In a twist of fate, Butterfingers learns that with hard work and patience, anyone can achieve their goals. Butterfingers gives back Buttercup her body, and then goes off and fights crime in some other city, learning new techniques along the way. And then Scrooge McDuck shows up to tell Butterfingers to get off of his lawn.

If you haven't guessed yet, I was joking. As Buttercup accepts this mercy, Butterfingers tries to backstab her by melting her again. Buttercup then reforms, missing an opportunity to reference Watchmen, and then envelops Butterfingers with that same "butter fusion" power. It is left entirely in our imagination to what happened next; we never see Butterfingers again.

Also, there's the implication that Butterfingers apparently smothered Buttercup while she was sleeping, if this is the way the fusion power works. Maybe this person is beyond redemption anyway.

What we do know is that Buttercup ends up getting her body back from that. She explains everything that happened, and Blossom tells her none of that matters. Blossom gives up on Buttercup ever following her promises, and decides to order a pizza for the dying Bubbles. The end.

Does the title fit?

They had the perfect pun, and they decided not to use it. Maybe they wanted it keep the butter twist a surprise, as the TV Guide description doesn’t say this is an episode about Buttercup turning into butter...but that’s ruined by the title card being a stick of butter. Also, the Amazon description spoiled it, too.

How does it stack up?

This episode’s idea should have lead to one of the worst episodes ever, but I honestly think this ended up being one of the better ones. Interesting execution, and a moral I could stand behind. Even the way they barely use the other two means that there's no scenes that are a waste of time in this episode.

I could still find problems, though. The way they handled the villain in the end seems really lazy; it would have been cool to see Buttercup teach this kid said moral. Then again, that's expecting way too much out of this show. Despite that, I can't help but like this episode a little more than usual. Maybe you disagree, maybe you don't.

Next, I'm going to push this rock up the hill once again.

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#fpb ppg 2016 #ppg 2016 #fpb reviews #powerpuff girls #cartoon network

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dwdelaney-blog · 5 years

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feb2019!

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1mPZV8dfL391iwu-L0qW9VJcPHJ9rPz8I

https://fox2now.com/2019/01/27/pritzker-appoints-new-head-of-illinois-air-national-guard/amp/

Pritzker appoints new head of Illinois Air National Guard

BELLEVILLE, Ill. – A U.S. Air Force colonel based at Scott Air Force Base is being promoted to general and will head the Illinois Air National Guard.

The (Belleville) News-Democrat reports that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker appointed Col. Peter Nezamis to the post. He’s replacing retiring Maj. General Ronald Paul and will serve as the acting adjutant general before being promoted to brigadier general.

Nezamis commanded the Air National Guard’s 126th Air Refueling Wing based at Scott for 12 years before being named as the Illinois National Guard Chief of the Joint Staff in March.

In his new position, Nezamis will oversee about 3,000 people at the refueling wing at Scott, the 182nd Airlift Wing in Peoria and the 183rd Air Wing at Camp Lincoln in Springfield

1/29

Ierc - names

From dwdelaneyierc - see esp

Special projects - mary cowles

Asst secty - jannell courtright

Photos – chuck courtwright, dean Williams

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IERC – 97

Prez – Claudio pecori

Vp – jane van hoos

Admin coord – mark seger

Admin asst – jim boyle

Mbrshp coord – Debbie cimarossa

Asst mbrshp chair – dan bollman

Secty – john riech

Asst secty – jannell courtwright

Trsr – mark bartolozzi

Asst trsr – matt gairani

Sgt at arms – randy Ferreira

Asst sgts at arms: larry Andrews, paul ray, bob claton, roger strothman

Scrp chair – irv smith

County liaison – ruth payson

Board mbrs: Jeanie blackman, dick bond, “doc” bredemeyer,tom Cavanagh, nick ciaccio, pete cimarossa, tony libri, jim lobmaster, carl oblinger, bruce stom

Special projects coord – mary cowles

Special projects assts: paula allmon, bob ankenbrandt, brian brewer, geo christofilakis, bill cowls, Juanita donley, mark Dudley, troy gullo, paul harris, Cynthia hopper, ed Jackson, gary krebs, bob klosky, Charlie palazzolo, joe randall, bob radmacher, terry sanderfield, danny scarlett, dawn seger, bob sellinger, andy shandor, Robbie strayer

Club liaison – ramon menendez

Distribution – don and dewana adamski

Editors – bob shurig, matt penning

Photos – chuck courtwright, dean Williams

83 - 2001

claudio pecori was prez of ierc

2/1

33rd - horse people - roth - recruiters - stl - deps - under the radar - cle - d&d - penny marshall - ing - lol - laffers - carmine ragusa - 404 chem - iaff - 37 burton - klutzo - licensed killer - dead bug dale - jeffe ron - op - cifa - clapper - usss - homicidal threats frame - tx - perry gwb - copeland - vala - see site at valacopeland - lone wolf - curveball - servicemaster - franchise - zito - chem - team nix - servus - bunn - ache brackey - miley - haspel - memo - hillen vendors - h&k - pr - ackerman hires - herschell bc04 - cwlpdir utils plows - maps - tracking - nsa - ovp - dm - blessac clergy ft detrich - beanbag - xa enlow - vann - paprocki - wojcicki is at chiefs - thats why the shg baiseball is - untouchable

Sent from Fast notepad

2/1

Northendkc - 4/2006

2/5

Kingmakers - rauner - facio

Lobsters - baiseball - mel sembler -

In media - the people behind the lens - in production - call the people in front of the lens the - talent - its not a compliment - theres an ex - tape on the floor - stand here -

Kurtz - doesnt exist

Suggested that hs classmate involved in chem - war college thesis links to chem - deployment of mechanized infantry in ww2 - I guess some russian genl - xa lincoln cab - scso squads - op upwind - ind cars - etc - clown cars - trucks - amb kurtz - possible reference to stalingrad - stall - delay - stall1 - ildeptag - horse barns - stalls - horse people - it seems like I was intentionally misled about about an important part of my case - disinfo - to make me appear less credible - russian disinfo - im not into ww2 hist or war college theses - how would I know - wanted to use the link to usccb - and kurtz doesnt make sense - maybe it does - I didnt search very long - seems like nonsense - ive got a lot of people telling me a lot of different things - how would I know whether a lot of this stuff is right

2/14

Who is jacob wife - is it rachel - xa chad jacobs - winston - strawberries - ftl fishing - brooks bros - mitch mcconnell - jacob & gal - fu - engel marx - engels - wolfman - criminal record - alpharetta - bullhorn -

New site at flo

2/18

Selective enforcement - increased discretion at local level - the push behind sanctuaries and law enf - is a wider natl effort to decent auth down to local po - just the opposite of what it appears - usgop wants to ignore legal judgement and keep any cities from protecting me from defs - the stated topic - immigrants and incarceration are used to push a more expansive agenda - very sophisticated legal theory involved here - but ive understood the talk show hosts decrying the evil of sanctuaries as a reference to me for years - could be wrong but when I hear them say - this thing could tommorrow if we got rid of the sanctuaries - I hear what they are saying

feb 20

INA - is an end run - around my case - they used immigration language to sell it politically - intentionally drafted to allow application to me - when they say sanctuary cities - they mean places that abide by the court order allowing me to get sleep - thats why ive been able to sleep for several years now - cant remember when I started getting sleep - I remember hearing someone on a radio saying this thing would end real fast if we could just get rid of sanctuary cities - it didnt seem uncertain - maybe a local radio guy - not sure of the town - but I remember thinking this guy is talking about me - hes wanting to have people keep me from sleeping until - until I just say whatever it is they want me to say - 953.

2/21

Ive never been sexually abused - im not comparing my situation to that

I believe the catholic church has been and is - involved in keeping me living like this - through its fraternal org - kcs - nationwide - it has knowingly and intentionally undertaken a coordinated - systematic effort to marginalize me - and conceal evidence of such - using materials and methods taken from chemical warfare and/or pest control - this series of aggravated battery has not escaped prosecution - they were accused by me and charged - they used their political power to evade judgement - found liable - they have continued with the exact course of conduct which formed the basis of the original claim - I believe that those that might want to speak out against this nationwide campaign - extending for a period of time longer than twenty years - have been told that speaking truthfully about my situation risks their relationship w/ the church - im not catholic - my family is catholic - those people should be able to say what they think is true w/ out the church telling them that doing so means they will go to hell

Gidwitz - rauner - myelin repair - rg - jeffe ron - baise - silly - idea - itel -

2/25

site addrs - google - wordpress - flickr - medium https://sites.google.com/site/dwdelaneyfeb2019/ https://www.dwdelaney.wordpress.com - flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/151524170@N03/ “2/22” https://medium.com/@dwdelaney/2-22-17ba9a027575

https://youtu.be/X2EU1lCVlrE

2/26

Gardner peckham - atl - bksh - units of force - spfld - reticle - cross herrs - swimmers - gable cravens - gonzaga - resurgens - ailes - mews - hic - sjh - roadrunners - medium page - belleville gregory - alton - spitzer - callis - slu -

I dont think peckham is in this thing - his name just matches the others - hard to say one way or the other - I can only be certain of the things that happen to me - thats why I post things that arent in question - things that most people can agree upon

2/27

List of all sites w/ audio - video - text Google sites Google photo Google drive Flickr Pcloud Mega Mediafire Medium Youtube Wordpress site addrs - google - wordpress - flickr - medium Google site for feb 2019 - text https://sites.google.com/site/dwdelaneyfeb2019/ Folder for

feb2019 docs etc. https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1mPZV8dfL391iwu-L0qW9VJcPHJ9rPz8I Wordpress site at - https://www.dwdelaney.wordpress.com

flickr site - flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/151524170@N03/ Medium site is at - this is the initial post - “2/22” https://medium.com/@dwdelaney/2-22-17ba9a027575 Mediafire - havent had to use this yet - folders are empty Mediafire - link to audio - voice recorder https://www.mediafire.com/folder/p2ckxcctksa4v/Music Mediafire - link to video - https://www.mediafire.com/folder/2u9704u2chhc9/Videos Youtube site has videos of voice recorder

https://youtu.be/X2EU1lCVlrE

https://m.youtube.com/user/dwdelaney The pcloud and mega should be copies of things that have been synced to google - google didnt work for several months and original audio is on pcloud - nothing new at mega - should be just an extra copy - when sites dont work - I get worried Google photo is the same images from google drive and flickr - handwritten notes - from 2004 and until I started using digital voice recorders and posting messages as recordings

Links to pcloud and mega stuff is at google site pages at page for specific month or other name. Pcloud has link to page. Mega is just a copy. Wordpress page also links to pcloud - google - flickr

2/28

Sea wall - galveston - 2004

Xa ftl2001 - spk 2002/3

notes - deps - ports - hanson - longies o rorke - cleat - hou civaff - hpd complaint - referral to homicide & epa - legal complaint - wal - kappa - seeing things in black culture - hip hop and rap music - up all night to get lucky - cannot understand where this stuff comes from - links from spfld to tx - liuna ed smith had tx in his region - worked day labor jobs for years - pain on jobs and when not on jobs - ushse - spkr - hanson ports - comcast capranica - kc - hou baseball - fl ric scott - bunn busch - homicidal threats frame - gov perry - gwb - usss copeland - vala - gray & vala - generate ac - robert urich - kurt spencer - gag gifts - laffers - thats the kurtz - amb - deployment - emts are ibt - 916 - clatfelter - cogfa - wife at ioicc - sherman - sherman pd - TRU - pages - texas - galveston - donna - tx22

Kurtz - rodavis - psyops - operant cond - ecole - sylvanus - carlyle - skinner - erbacci cerone - aaron schock - mu - cl&e - res - henkle kindred - sleep deprivation and fibro - king of the hill - dales dead bug - h/k - dennispmoore - ftl urinary tract infection - principles - see cite carlyleinspi - bunn - airport site - landmark - frito lay trucks - hillen tracking maps - terr frame - pow - enemy combatant - urine vited - I hear dustin dimond is doing porn now

https://sites.google.com/site/dwdelaneytexas/

Ft worth is vann - xa usccb - dfw - fudd - the seidl stuff from tx22 is gold - zito cellnet - spfld - spfldconsulting - kaiser spk - spkattys - carlson link from spk to tx - and note preston gates - boeing - aluminum - deripaska - hecla - nethercutt - cletus - mark few - the house on boone was where the video was - haspell - guy breaks my nose to create the fibro link to coinfection at nasal turbinates - aggravated by sleep deprivation - dod in spk ran out of ovp - xa link from zito cellnet to ovp - halliburton tx - wolfman - key chainey - lon monk - slave & master - team nix - op - jeffe ron - chem lon - franchises - egyptologists - note esp influence w/ doj - see site inginspk for dod in strange places - xa generally sangamo meters - bunn - natsec personell - most important man nobody has ever heard of - ima - cofer black - geo w bunn - oc - cellnet smart meters - collect data - wattage is usage signature - its invasion of privacy - see generally dutton bonilla - kid rock - duane gibson - a celebrity we can get behind - ache - fu - 2 - zito - cwlp - cwlpdir - hist - icc - frasco - gaming the system - oclincs bunn - chris cox - dan tanna - gettum dan tanna - vegas - bilbray lahood - ubc - calneva - ima baise mark denzler - ideas silly - gidwitz - execs for natsec - chi chamber -

https://sites.google.com/site/dwdelaneydonna

https://sites.google.com/site/dwdelaneytx22

https://sites.google.com/site/dwdelaneygalveston

Note esp - carlson site - links spk to tx - kaiser - usattys - mcdevitt

Dont piss on my head and tell me its rainin Yellow rain - poison - disinfo - Addiction frame bogus

The 'Bee Feces' Theory Undone

By William Kucewicz. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]06 Sep 1985: 1. Publisher logo. Links to publisher website, opened in a new window.

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Harvard biochemist Matthew Meselson now admits that his original "bee feces" theory of Southeast Asian yellow-rain deaths -- that deadly toxins were not biochemical weapons but natural contaminants of feces -- "is not very attractive anymore." But you wouldn't know it from an article he and four colleagues have published in Scientific American this month.

In that piece, Meselson & Co. repeat at length their view that yellow rain is "a phenomenon of nature, not of man." They do not, however, report what Prof. Meselson acknowledged in a telephone interview last week: that samples of bee feces he and a colleague brought back from a celebrated expedition to a Thailand jungle last year show no traces of the mycotoxins that are widely believed to have killed thousands of people in war-torn areas on the frontier of the Soviet empire.

Profs. Meselson and Thomas Seeley of Yale got to test their hypothesis in Thailand with the help of a $256,000 "genius" award to Mr. Meselson from the MacArthur Foundation (though the areas they visited were not ones ever associated with a chemical attack). The two academics returned in March 1984 to say they had been "crapped on" by Asian honeybees. "We were caught in one of these yellow rain showers," they said. "It lasted about five minutes and deposited approximately 200 spots per square meter." The scientists collected samples of the bee droppings, along with foodstuffs from Thailand, "for chemical analysis to test the possibility that mycotoxins reported in environmental samples and the blood of refugees occur naturally in Southeast Asia." They concluded their joint statement, saying: "A detailed scientific report of our findings will be published."

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It had been Mr. Meselson's hypothesis, first laid out at a meeting of scientists in Detroit in 1983, that the deadly tricothecene mycotoxins discovered by other scientists in the bodies of Southeast Asians were a naturally occurring phemonenon of the region. Bee excrement and foodstuffs, this theory held, hosted the growth of the organisms. The U.S. government has maintained, on the other hand, that yellow rain is a Soviet-supplied toxin used in Laos, Cambodia and Afghanistan in violation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.

Their article in Scientific American, however, includes no mention of the results of those chemical tests.

"They were all negative," Mr. Meselson responded in the interview. He said that he had sent 13 twin samples of food and feces from Thailand to two laboratories in Canada and Britain. (Mr. Meselson is not expert at conducting such tests himself.) The chemists didn't find any of the trichothecene mycotoxins previously identified in yellow rain.

There wasn't room to include these negative results in the article, Mr. Meselson explained. He said that the editors at Scientific American had set strict length limitations and "lots" of data had to be left out.

Mr. Meselson said that he now generally accepts the work of Canadian toxicologist Bruno Schiefer showing that trichothecene mycotoxins don't occur naturally in Southeast Asia -- at least not to any significant extent that might cause a health problem. That means the Harvard scientist, whose theories have become the watchword of Western doubters and Soviet propagandists who challenge the U.S. government's position, must now square his own stance. If yellow rain poisons aren't springing up on their own, and if refugees indeed are suffering and dying from them, who's the perpetrator? For scientists who've cautioned against accusing the Soviets over the matter, it's a dilemma -- and one that the critical omission in Scientific American would allow them to skirt.

Mr. Meselson's out, in the interview, was to suggest that perhaps there were no toxins to begin with. This takes the whole debate back two years, reopening issues that were seen as settled at the time Mr. Meselson first suggested that the toxins were natural products. A 1983 essay by Lewis Thomas in Discover magazine, for example, calls for more exploration of the natural-occurrence thesis in the following words:

"There is no question in anyone's mind about the existence of mycotoxins produced by the Fusarium fungus in the samples taken from the leaves and rocks in places where yellow rain attacks are said to have occurred. Nor is there any doubt about the reports by Chester Mirocha, an acknowledged specialist in mycotoxins at the University of Minnesota, that high levels of trichothecene toxins (and their metabolic derivatives) were present in the blood and tissues of patients from the same areas. What remains in question is whether this fungus species has always existed in nature in Southeast Asia, and whether its toxin might be present in the kinds of plant foods consumed by people during seasons of near starvation."

The only thing left to dispute, in short, was the hypothesis Mr. Meselson has now abandoned after negative results with his own samples, and in the face of the work by Mr. Schiefer. The Canadian's latest findings show that the unnatural combination of three different mycotoxins found in the yellow rain samples collected by the U.S. government and ABC News is a "superb" killer -- much more potent than the toxins individually or in other combinations, a cocktail put together by someone who knew what he was doing.

Mr. Meselson, it would seem, can support reopening the old inquiry only by directly challenging the findings of Minnesota's Prof. Mirocha and Joseph Rosen of Rutgers. Does he think their laboratory work in error? "I'm not saying that," he replied.

Prof. Meselson did find it telling that a U.S. Army laboratory at Aberdeen, Md., failed to find the toxins in yellow rain samples that previously tested positive by Mr. Mirocha. While Mr. Meselson uses the Aberdeen negative test results as a foil, he fails to mention that that same Army laboratory did find the toxins on two Soviet gas masks retrieved from Afghanistan in 1982.

Profs. Mirocha and Rosen, meanwhile, stand by their work. In subsequent tests on toxin-infected corn, for instance, they have never turned up any "false positives," which would have indicated that their techniques were faulty. Besides, they both noted, the U.S. Army's laboratory had great difficulty setting up its own testing procedure and delayed a year and more the analyses of many yellow rain samples; during that time, the toxins could have been consumed by bacteria in the samples or otherwise deteriorated. Even Mr. Meselson admitted that that's possible.

So what are we left with? Mr. Meselson has found bee feces, and the U.S. government has found dead bodies. Indeed, detailed medical data about a yellow rain casualty appeared in the April 1985 issue of the peer-review Journal of Forensic Science. The authors are Charles J. Stahl, the former chief pathologist for the U.S. military and now a professor at East Tennessee State University; James B. Farnum, another East Tennessee pathologist; and Christopher C. Green, formerly the Central Intelligence Agency's yellow rain expert, who holds an M.D. degree. These medical experts concluded that the yellow rain victim died from a chemical warfare agent and not from any natural infection.

As they explain for the first time, an encampment of Khmer Rouge guerrillas at Tuol Chrey in Cambodia, near the Thai border, was hit by an artillery bombardment from Vietnamese forces on Feb. 13, 1982. Three shells exploded upwind of the camp, and the soldiers smelled a sweet, perfumelike odor and experienced the rapid onset of incapacitation. There were at least 100 casualties. They suffered from tearing of the eyes, blurred vision, bitter taste, nasal obstruction, vomiting, rapid heartbeat, muscle tremors, and, in some cases, collapse or paralysis.

One of the victims, taken to a hospital, soon showed signs of recovery and was released. It was known that he had been a victim of an earlier yellow rain attack the previous September. On March 11, 1982, he was again admitted to a field hospital after his condition worsened. Five days later, he died after vomiting and urinating blood -- typical signs of trichothecene poisoning. An autopsy was performed, and tissue samples were sent to the U.S.

Both Profs. Mirocha and Rosen found traces of the mycotoxins in the samples. Pathologic examinations of the tissues showed severe damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys, stomach and liver. The victim died from "acute pulmonary edema." All of these symptoms are associated with trichothecene poisoning. The "pattern of injury," said the pathologists, "suggests the direct effects of toxic agents, as well as the possibility of hypersensitivity reaction related to the previous chemical exposure on 19 Sept. 1981."

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union has had a field day with the bee-feces conjecture. The Russians have used this theory in their disinformation campaign to cover up their chemical-warfare crimes in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan. Most recently, Joseph Adamov, a Radio Moscow "commentator" who speaks English with a Brooklyn-like accent, told an American television audience on CBS's "Face the Nation": "There is a fantastic anti-Soviet campaign on in the United States today, including the socalled spy dust, which is completely absurd, just like that yellow rain was, that turned out to be the excrement of bees."

Nicholas Wade of the New York Times shares the same sentiments. In a recent editorial-page article, he wrote: "Yellow rain is bee excrement, a fact so preposterous and so embarrassing that even now the Administration cannot bring itself to accept it." He called the U.S. government's evidence "a speck of dubious data."

What remain, of course, are the corpses and refugee reports.

Rep. Jim Leach (R., Iowa) was at the scientific meeting in 1983 when Messrs. Meselson and Seeley first announced their bee-feces hypothesis. Mr. Leach's response was direct: "We have the bodies, we have the witnesses. When you listen to a father describing his son dying in his arms from a yellow and white rain falling from the skies, you are not one to disbelieve."

---

Mr. Kucewicz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.

Word count: 1652

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