Saturday Night Miscellany

Whiling away another evening with a bottle of wine and the keyboard to keep me company.  Just had a frightening moment where I looked in the mirror and could have sworn that my hair has begun to resemble Rod Blagojevich's.   Must get it cut tomorrow.  So what's going on in that big beautiful world of ours:

- Well the Vatican has weighed in once again on topics related to fertility, contraception, stem cell research, etc., and as always, they don't disappoint.  There's nothing I enjoy more than listening to the wisdom of childless, unmarried, old, supposedly celibate men giving us the benefit of their infinite wisdom on these topics.  They have now added those who partake of in vitro fertilization to the list of sinners, equating the disposal of excess embryos in the process to abortions.  As someone who has known a fair number of couples who have struggled with infertility, and has watched people undergo expense, discomfort, a little humiliation, and a whole lot of anxiety in the process of trying to have children, I find it incredibly galling that these asshats in mitres have the arrogance to condemn them.  It makes me long for the wisdom of Earl Butz.   It's actually worth reading the paper itself, rather than just the summary in the article.  The blithe condemnation (I almost typed "condomnation") of all non-conjugal methods of having children really pisses me off.

- There is an interesting article in the Washington Post today about some very pissed off GM workers whose factory is in, of all places, Spring Hill Tennessee.  The people who work there and those in the local economy who depend on the dollars of these factory workers are more than a little miffed at scumbag Senator Bob Corker.  Spring Hill is in Maury and Williamson Counties, places that were overwhelmingly Republican in 2008, giving McCain roughly 67% of the vote.  Perhaps these folks might want to think again about voting for the party of union busters.   

- In recent weeks there has been the usual spate of articles in which people are asked to recommend books to the incoming chief executive.  Why not?  If I had one book to recommend to Barack Obama right now it would be "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism" by Andrew Bacevich.  Bacevich is a genuine old school conservative, a career military man who retired at the rank of colonel after 23 years in the Army.  He is a professor of history at Boston University and a frequent contributor to the Washington Post.  He has been a brutal critic of the Iraq war, who irony of ironies, lost his son to that utterly unnecessary conflict.  But it is not Bacevich's critique of the Iraq War alone that recommends him -- it is his broader rejection of imperial American power whether in Vietnam or Iraq or in the humanitarian interventions of Kosovo, Haiti, and Somalia.  Bacevich is opposed to not only the neoconservatives, but also the liberal hawks and pro-military "idealists."  He's also opposed to deficit spending, consumer culture, addiction to cheap energy, our egocentric world view, and unwillingness to defer gratification.  He is a very old-fashioned and very smart guy.  I think he is worth Obama reading because of the temptation right now to treat Afghanistan as the "good war" and to view escalation("a surge") there as a road to success.  Bacevich is very skeptical of this world view and I think rightly so.  

- One of the interesting aspects of living on the East Coast over the last ten or so years has been the recovery and then flourishing of species that had nearly been wiped out of many areas when I was young.  Everyone knows that deer run riot now in vast swaths of the area, but they have now been joined by black bear, foxes, coyotes, bald eagles, and up near my parents in Massachusetts, huge numbers of wild turkeys (not the drink either).  I live about a block from a major street in DC -- so major that three pedestrians have been killed crossing it within the last year or so withing three or four blocks from my house.  But I am also very close to the Rock Creek Park, DC's sprawling urban park.  Two weeks ago I had a six point buck stroll casually in front of my car a block from my house.  Last week my wife and I slowly followed a red fox down a neighboring street for several blocks.  My neighbors saw a large coyote by my garbage cans last summer when they were out walking their dogs.  And I often awaken to deer crap on my walkway in the mornings.  I nod knowingly when cab drivers don't want to take me home through the Park because of their fear of deer -- I had my car totalled by one (she didn't do so well either) on the interstate about an hour out of town a couple of years back.  On balance I enjoy seeing these animals, although I would prefer that they leave my walkway alone.            

Comments

[Voice o' Reason]

I know what you mean, man. I had all this bird crap on the front of my car's hood this morning. I think birds are nesting in the rafters of my parking lean-to/structure/thingie.

Nature in all its awesome splendor, indeed.

[litbrit]

We have birds galore in Florida right now. The northern ones come here for the winter, adding to the massive population of native birds and waterfowl already here. I can relate to the dirty car thing!

But it really gets freaky when the owls visit. I refer to this one big guy in particular: his wingspan is at least six, perhaps seven feet, and when I hear his low hoots from the top of the pine trees, I scurry inside as fast as possible, not wanting to be mistaken for dinner. Yeah, I'm a little on the highly-strung side, plus I'm a Hitchcock fan, but I'm telling you, this one owl is a monster. He swooped down and almost knocked Robert over not too long ago, scaring the bejebus out of him.

Not only is he a big, scary predator bird, he's also some kind of weapons-grade Jackson Pollack when it comes to making a mess of the balconies, porch, and cars.

[drip]

Great Owls, which we have here occasionally in the DC suburbs, are the most ferocious raptors in North America. They won't attack humans, but they will attack cats and dogs as well as other small furry animals. Plus Twin Peaks.

We actually had a coyote walking down our sidewalk about 2 months ago. This is 12 miles from the US Capitol! Part of me felt good about it, mostly I wanted it to keep right on going.

[oddjob]

coyotes

Unless I'm much mistaken coyotes aren't native to the East. The only reason they're here is because - thanks to our efforts to exterminate them as well as gray wolves - they have spread into habitat that was never theirs. (Leave things on their own and wolves exterminate coyotes quickly, and so coyotes only naturally exist in habitat marginal/semi-marginal for wolves.)

[oddjob]

Owls figure heavily in at least a few pagan myth systems. The owl litbrit has dealt with is most likely a great horned owl, one of the largest owls in the USA. Nesting season is soon (& they don't like intruders while nesting). Perhaps Rob encountered one getting restive.

[oddjob]

Owls figure heavily in at least a few pagan myth systems. The owl litbrit has dealt with is most likely a great horned owl, one of the largest owls in the USA. Nesting season is soon (& they don't like intruders while nesting). Perhaps Rob encountered one getting restive.

[litbrit]

oddjob, I just asked Robert, and he says "our" owl is indeed a great horned owl. Not too long ago, he and one of his crew saw him (the owl) munching away on a 20lb raccoon.

Hopefully he's found himself a feathered lady friend with whom to keep busy--Robert has never been fond of overly aggressive birds! (That was a little English play on words there, heh.)

[oddjob]

litbrit, given the size, it may be she. I don't know why it works that way with so many of the exclusively predatory birds (the raptors and the owls), but it does. With them the females are larger than the males.

(PS: I have no clue about the double post. The powers that be should feel totally free to delete one of them!)

[oddjob]

(I duly note Rob's reluctance regarding getting hen-pecked......... ;-))

[oddjob]

Oh, another interesting owl anecdote. Years ago a friend of mine owned a pair of old kittens/young cats that hadn't ever really been outside much. One day she was watching a nature presentation of some sort and part of the filming included an owl taking flight towards the camera. As one watched it on television the owl of course appeared to be flying towards you, the viewer.

The cats were both watching this with my friend and at that moment both dove under the sofa.

[Baaaa]

Two things:

I live on the outskirts of town (we have livestock, if that tells you how outskirtsy we are), and we have helped more than a handful of people who have had their cars hit by deer. Yes, the deer hit the car- usually in the side & hard enough to make the car undrivable- not the other way around. We have those rubber things that look like tiny bullhorns on the front of our pickup truck which are supposed to deter deer from jumping out in front of your vehicle and so far they seem to actually work.

The other thing is that in all raptors/birds of prey, the female is always larger, and usually by two thirds. This is (we think) due to the male of the pair having a strong instinct to go out and kill prey, and to bring it back to the nest, but not necessarily to give it up. The female needs to be larger to "convince" the male to give up the prey for the "kids". I actually saw this with a pair of kestrels (the smallest falcon, for those who didn't know) that nested on our house this summer. The male would bring home a lizard or mouse- or really bring it to the electrical connection from the street. The female would come out from the nest and engage in a (mostly) gentle tug of war for the prey, and take it back to the nest box.

So yes, any time you see an unusually large owl/hawk/falcon/eagle- it is a female. Also, the only owl that hoots is a great horned owl. Any other owl sounds you hear are made by owls that are not great horned.