Last week gave us lots of news.

Much of the stuff reported on our TV set didn’t float my boat – at least not very much.

For starters, I don’t give a rat's behind about the comings and goings of Rep. George Santos (R-NY). Sorry. I know my Democrat friends would love me to rant about how this poser personifies the modern GOP.

Sorry, he does not. There are lots of Republican folks I admire, especially one in particular who is seeking a senate seat in Indiana. But they have no connection to this Santos guy. He is just a sad, pathetic loser.

Many of the TV news stories were based on video evidence captured on police body cameras. I did not watch any of that footage.

When Memphis law enforcement pros, the prosecutor and police chief, tell me they fired five cops and charged them with murder in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, I don’t need to watch the disturbing video to make up my mind.

I do not need to watch the video of a San Francisco nutjob breaking into the home of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and hammering her 82-year-old husband, Paul. And, I don’t believe the social media knuckleheads who claimed it was a fake incident, either.

After spending much of my adult life covering the cop shop, I know some of them can go off the rails. But I have found most of them take their job seriously, especially locals like Boothbay Harbor’s Larry Brown and Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett.

Recent police reforms, like body cameras, have helped, too. You can put me down as being in favor of police body cameras. Why? Because they catch bad cops? No, because they provide law enforcement professionals with strong evidence to back up their lawful actions. When you watch a police video of Mr. X, who claims he only had one beer, it is easy to determine he had a snoot full. When some citizen challenges a cop using foul, insulting language, it provides additional evidence for a judge.

Another news item caught my eye last week, and I apologize in advance to my friend and colleague, Jeff Wells, and my bird-loving pals. The Washington Post carried a video story about Starlings in Rome. We all have seen photos of these brownish critters flocking together in thousands.

In the words of the Post story, the birds “dip and soar, bunch together and spread out. Seen from the ground, their ephemeral parabolas look like calligraphic brushstrokes.” This writer used pretty fancy language for a bunch of birds. Scientists use an even fancier word to describe their flights. They call it a murmuration.

TV nature programs show them, and we all agree their display seems lovely. I have seen it in person. They are stunning. But, as an old-time radio guy named Paul Harvey always said, “now for the rest of the story.” Just imagine their spectacular flying show coming to a halt as the sun sets. Thousands of birds look for trees and others places to spend the night.

As darkness falls, they land and cover the trees, the ground, and anything below their happy roosting spots with, well, there is no other way to describe it, a covering of slimy starling poo. Here is what the Post said Roman city officials said about their local starlings' post-flight activity.

“Those droppings can cause street closures and motorbike accidents. They can bury cars, bus stops, business awnings, and even gravestones under a Jackson Pollock coating of black and white. (It is) abundant manure,” said Rome’s environmental department.

Now, I don’t need writers of the Washington Post, or Roman officials, to tell me about starlings.

Once upon a time, in another town, several thousand of them would spend early spring evenings in the trees of my front yard and on the roof of my neighbor's lovely home. They made a mess, and we did everything short of unpacking shotguns to discourage them.

We put up a fake owl that was guaranteed to scare them away. It did not. We played recordings of raptors, and loud music and even shot bottle rockets at them until my bride strongly suggested we stop before we set the neighbor's house on fire. None of these tactics worked.

So, in the end, we just let them be. And every morning, before work, I walked outside with the hose and a street broom cleaning the sidewalk so the dog walkers and school kids wouldn’t slip and slide on the bird droppings. It was not the most enjoyable way to start the day.

For the record, I like birds. I feed and enjoy juncos, tufted titmice, and woodpeckers of all sorts that flitter around my back deck.

But starlings …