Two years ago I installed upon our back deck a pair of squirrel feeders. Nice contraptions made of metal (wood-made ones supposedly promote gnawing and we sure don’t want that!), which I fill with in-the-shell peanuts each and every day. The peanuts aren’t cheap, but they aren’t uber expensive either. A 25-pound box costs, with tax, about $28 and the box lasts three weeks at most.
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t completely altruistic of me. I do enjoy helping the wildlife, but I’m equally motivated by providing the cats something to watch. The cats just love (and I do mean love) watching the squirrels, the birds (we have bird feeders too) and the chipmunks, who also love to eat the peanuts. The cats can sit at the sliding glass door for hours and enjoy the show of hopping birds, tail-twitching squirrels and scampering chipmunks. Damn if it isn’t great!
But there has been a darker side to this programme of wildlife feeding/cat porn. The squirrel feeders include openings which are backed by clear plastic, thus making it possible for the squirrels and chipmunks to see the peanuts. But this winter I noticed that the clear plastic was frequently being broken, which was both new and, I thought, unusual. How and/or why would the squirrels or chipmunks be breaking the plastic? Then one day I noticed a blue jay pounding the living shit out of the clear plastic and breaking it.
Huh?
A blue jay wanted at the peanuts? “Odd,” thought I. I didn’t know they even liked peanuts, but I could understand that if they did they would feel so inclined to break the plastic to be able to get to the peanuts, where the squirrels and chipmunks just lift the lid. Other than being irritated that they were breaking the plastic I didn’t think much about it. To be frank I thought it was just some errant blue jay with some preoccupation with the peanuts. But I was wrong.
In the past few weeks the number of blue jays visiting our back deck, and the squirrel feeders in particular, has increased rather dramatically. Instead of a few showing up during the course of the day I’ve seen maybe seven or eight separate blue jays coming to visit the squirrel feeder. And this certainly makes me happy as the blue jay is my most favourite bird. I love both its look and song very much. But I’m not particularly interested in the blue jay stealing these peanuts! However, this morning I saw something unusual, which caused me to take action!
As I sat upon the couch in the t.v. room this morning I had the opportunity to watch a blue jay land upon the west lawn. He had a peanut in his bill and upon lighting on the ground he set to pile driving the poor peanut into the soil. “What?!” I said aloud as I watched him beat the living shit out of the peanut. When he was satisfied that the peanut was properly buried he hopped around, collecting bits of dried leaves, which he promptly used to cover the spot where he buried the peanut.
Seeing this I began watching some of the other blue jays who were visiting the squirrel feeder. A number of them would grab a peanut, fly off into some other part of the back yard (or my neighbor’s back yard) and proceed to pile drive their peanut as well.
This was too much. I needed information so I phoned my local Audubon society to which I am a member. I asked to speak to their resident blue jay expert and this kind and informative young man explained to me that indeed, blue jays LOVE peanuts. I couldn’t put out a more powerful blue jay attracting food than peanuts according to him. He also confirmed that that they love to cache food in all sorts of places, including burying in the ground.
He further explained that blue jays are highly intelligent, very social (with other blue jays) and rather skittish of humans, which I had already noticed via my efforts to photograph them (quite unsuccessfully). But the important thing for me is that I now know and understood that these peanut-stealing blue jays are not just carrying them off for no reason, but because they love to eat them. It feels good to know that I’m helping yet another woodland creature.
2009/03/03
2009/02/23
The WSJ points the finger at....
Oh the hypocrisy of it all.
Everyone and their mother has an opinion regarding how we, and much of the rest of the First World, wound up in the current economic mess/crisis/disaster/(insert your preferred word here). And leave it to the ever-so-smart folks at the Wall Street Journal to have their scapegoat as well: the Federal government.
Take a peak at the article titled "Synchronized Boom, Synchronized Bust" by Marc Faber over at the WSJ website:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123491436689503909.html
It's quite short, but it really doesn't take much time to skewer the government.
It would seem that all our current financial woes were due to poor insight and planning by the federal government; the Federal Reserve in particular. Nothing to do with Wall Street. Of course not. Perish the thought.
Funny though....while the article (and the many commentators that followed) talk about run up during the boon times there isn't anything stated to indicate that Wall Street had any problem with the policies that led to the boon times. The sharp criticism for poor Fed policy only seems to come now: during the bust.
Why exactly is that?
Could it be that as long as there was a boon and folks working in and on Wall Street were making money hand-over-fist there was absolutely no reason to point out the alleged folly of Federal Reserve policy? I mean, why tip over the apple cart when the eating is so good, right?
But now that things have gone awry the best thing Wall Street can do is stick out it's collective hand for a collective hand-out, and then point the finger of blame at the very folks saving their asses today.
Amazing.
I don't know how they do it. They truly must have brass ones.
Everyone and their mother has an opinion regarding how we, and much of the rest of the First World, wound up in the current economic mess/crisis/disaster/(insert your preferred word here). And leave it to the ever-so-smart folks at the Wall Street Journal to have their scapegoat as well: the Federal government.
Take a peak at the article titled "Synchronized Boom, Synchronized Bust" by Marc Faber over at the WSJ website:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123491436689503909.html
It's quite short, but it really doesn't take much time to skewer the government.
It would seem that all our current financial woes were due to poor insight and planning by the federal government; the Federal Reserve in particular. Nothing to do with Wall Street. Of course not. Perish the thought.
Funny though....while the article (and the many commentators that followed) talk about run up during the boon times there isn't anything stated to indicate that Wall Street had any problem with the policies that led to the boon times. The sharp criticism for poor Fed policy only seems to come now: during the bust.
Why exactly is that?
Could it be that as long as there was a boon and folks working in and on Wall Street were making money hand-over-fist there was absolutely no reason to point out the alleged folly of Federal Reserve policy? I mean, why tip over the apple cart when the eating is so good, right?
But now that things have gone awry the best thing Wall Street can do is stick out it's collective hand for a collective hand-out, and then point the finger of blame at the very folks saving their asses today.
Amazing.
I don't know how they do it. They truly must have brass ones.
2009/02/13
Don't mess with Texas.....because you'll get salmonella
If you have been following the news at all in recent weeks you will be well aware of the salmonella outbreak that has resulted in over 600 illnesses and potentially 8 deaths. These illnesses and deaths have been traced to peanut products processed by Peanut Corp. of America's Georgia facility and potentially its Plainview, Texas facility as well.
First, let me state that I do not believe that only the higher ups in Peanut Corp. of America should be hung by their tits and testicles in a public forum. No. I think all the employees at these plants should join the bosses. I don't believe for one minute that these employees didn't know what was going on (the filth, the rats, the feces, etc.) and elected to do nothing. No whistle-blowing to the appropriate authorities and/or agencies. No anonymous reports to local news organizations. Nothing. They are just as guilty and should suffer the same consequences as do their bosses and managers; which I really believe should be a public hanging.
Second, let's hear it for good ol Texas. Yep. That bastion of "Don't mess with Texas,". That "Hey! We gave you W. Weren't you lucky?!" That state that makes it alright to shoot and kill a person in the process of repossessing your automobile. Yep. Texas.
How about this bit of news from the folks who are supposed to be watching out for the health and welfare of fellow Texans, "The plant in the Panhandle city of Plainview, which employs about 30 people, must close indefinitely after operating unlicensed and uninspected for nearly four years since it opened in 2005." (courtesy of http://www.wsbtv.com/news/18707694/detail.html#-)
Look at that again: unlicensed and uninspected for at least three years. Okay. One could make a variety of excuses as to why this plant remained both unlicensed and uninspected for so long, but check out this additional information from the same article, "David W. Evans, executive director of the Hale County Industrial Foundation, said the company was lured to the area with tax breaks and
incentives for maintaining an employee quota. He said that quota wasn't met." So it is clear that the State of Texas, and whatever other local taxing authorities were involved in this deal, were well aware that the plant both existed and was in operation during this time period, yet somehow the state and/or local authorities never bothered to ask themselves "Hey? Is the plant licensed? Has it been inspected since starting operations?" But don't worry because it gets even better.
Again, from the same article, "Health department spokesman Doug McBride said it was up to Peanut Corp. to inform its clients of the recall, but it wasn't immediately clear if the company was complying."
Can I get a What The Fuck?
Let me get this straight, the Texas department of Health wants the company who has been knowingly selling tainted peanut products without a license or inspection to exercise due diligence and notify its customers that they need to return any and all of Peanut Corp. of America's products. (when I say "knowingly" I should add an allegedly, but I think we can all agree that they knew based upon what has come out thus far in news reports)
Huh? Are you fucking kidding me? This is an example of the full power of the Texas Department of Health? This is an example of the Department of Health's concern for further potential victims of this salmonella outbreak? Jesus fucking tap-dancing christ.
Amazing. But should we expect anything more from a state that put in an express lane for executing prisoners when the rest of the nation has found many death penalty inmates to be not-guilty after DNA evidence has been examined when such wasn't possible during the original trial? Go Texas!
But this story isn't just about corporate greed, corruption, laissez fair employees and Texas being pretty much at the bottom of any semblance of intelligence. No. It's actually a story with two concerns.
Let us return to one of the above quotes, but jump right to the most interesting part, "...the company was lured to the area with tax breaks and incentives for
maintaining an employee quota. He said that quota wasn't met." If you follow the news on a regular basis you will regularly, and sometimes frequently, come across articles about how governments (local, county and/or state) will offer companies all sorts of incentives to lure them to build plants/open stores in their tax district. Often they will cut or completely remove things like impact fees, corporate income tax, offer to build roads, etc. on based upon the notion that if you can attract a business to your community it will, even with all the tax/fee breaks, generate income through employment.
Really?
I have yet to read one single news piece that has researched whether or not this policy of rolling out the red carpet actually results in a net benefit to the tax base for any given location across this nation. The Peanunt Corp. of America clearly received some sort of incentives to locate to Plainview, but it also (apparently) didn't live up to part of the bargain. So what was done about this issue? Did the relevant taxing authorities come in and say "Sorry. You haven't lived up to your end of the bargain/our expectations, so you need to start paying property taxes/income taxes/reimburse us for those impact fees we waived." Do you really think this is happening? I don't.
I think companies go out of their way to convince government authorities that offering all those breaks to attract them will help grow the local economy through employment, sales taxes, employment taxes, etc., but I haven't seen anything in the way of a study done to show whether or not this sort of sweet-heart deal actually results in a benefit to the taxing authorities. Not one. And here is an example where a company hasn't lived up to it's promise, but nothing is done and I want to know why. Actually the people of Texas should be asking why.
But it seems pretty clear that Texans aren't on the ball anyway.
First, let me state that I do not believe that only the higher ups in Peanut Corp. of America should be hung by their tits and testicles in a public forum. No. I think all the employees at these plants should join the bosses. I don't believe for one minute that these employees didn't know what was going on (the filth, the rats, the feces, etc.) and elected to do nothing. No whistle-blowing to the appropriate authorities and/or agencies. No anonymous reports to local news organizations. Nothing. They are just as guilty and should suffer the same consequences as do their bosses and managers; which I really believe should be a public hanging.
Second, let's hear it for good ol Texas. Yep. That bastion of "Don't mess with Texas,". That "Hey! We gave you W. Weren't you lucky?!" That state that makes it alright to shoot and kill a person in the process of repossessing your automobile. Yep. Texas.
How about this bit of news from the folks who are supposed to be watching out for the health and welfare of fellow Texans, "The plant in the Panhandle city of Plainview, which employs about 30 people, must close indefinitely after operating unlicensed and uninspected for nearly four years since it opened in 2005." (courtesy of http://www.wsbtv.com/news/18707694/detail.html#-)
Look at that again: unlicensed and uninspected for at least three years. Okay. One could make a variety of excuses as to why this plant remained both unlicensed and uninspected for so long, but check out this additional information from the same article, "David W. Evans, executive director of the Hale County Industrial Foundation, said the company was lured to the area with tax breaks and
incentives for maintaining an employee quota. He said that quota wasn't met." So it is clear that the State of Texas, and whatever other local taxing authorities were involved in this deal, were well aware that the plant both existed and was in operation during this time period, yet somehow the state and/or local authorities never bothered to ask themselves "Hey? Is the plant licensed? Has it been inspected since starting operations?" But don't worry because it gets even better.
Again, from the same article, "Health department spokesman Doug McBride said it was up to Peanut Corp. to inform its clients of the recall, but it wasn't immediately clear if the company was complying."
Can I get a What The Fuck?
Let me get this straight, the Texas department of Health wants the company who has been knowingly selling tainted peanut products without a license or inspection to exercise due diligence and notify its customers that they need to return any and all of Peanut Corp. of America's products. (when I say "knowingly" I should add an allegedly, but I think we can all agree that they knew based upon what has come out thus far in news reports)
Huh? Are you fucking kidding me? This is an example of the full power of the Texas Department of Health? This is an example of the Department of Health's concern for further potential victims of this salmonella outbreak? Jesus fucking tap-dancing christ.
Amazing. But should we expect anything more from a state that put in an express lane for executing prisoners when the rest of the nation has found many death penalty inmates to be not-guilty after DNA evidence has been examined when such wasn't possible during the original trial? Go Texas!
But this story isn't just about corporate greed, corruption, laissez fair employees and Texas being pretty much at the bottom of any semblance of intelligence. No. It's actually a story with two concerns.
Let us return to one of the above quotes, but jump right to the most interesting part, "...the company was lured to the area with tax breaks and incentives for
maintaining an employee quota. He said that quota wasn't met." If you follow the news on a regular basis you will regularly, and sometimes frequently, come across articles about how governments (local, county and/or state) will offer companies all sorts of incentives to lure them to build plants/open stores in their tax district. Often they will cut or completely remove things like impact fees, corporate income tax, offer to build roads, etc. on based upon the notion that if you can attract a business to your community it will, even with all the tax/fee breaks, generate income through employment.
Really?
I have yet to read one single news piece that has researched whether or not this policy of rolling out the red carpet actually results in a net benefit to the tax base for any given location across this nation. The Peanunt Corp. of America clearly received some sort of incentives to locate to Plainview, but it also (apparently) didn't live up to part of the bargain. So what was done about this issue? Did the relevant taxing authorities come in and say "Sorry. You haven't lived up to your end of the bargain/our expectations, so you need to start paying property taxes/income taxes/reimburse us for those impact fees we waived." Do you really think this is happening? I don't.
I think companies go out of their way to convince government authorities that offering all those breaks to attract them will help grow the local economy through employment, sales taxes, employment taxes, etc., but I haven't seen anything in the way of a study done to show whether or not this sort of sweet-heart deal actually results in a benefit to the taxing authorities. Not one. And here is an example where a company hasn't lived up to it's promise, but nothing is done and I want to know why. Actually the people of Texas should be asking why.
But it seems pretty clear that Texans aren't on the ball anyway.
2009/02/12
The never-ending march of technology
Being 44 I'm old enough to remember a world without cell phones. Hell, I'm old enough to remember a world where only the Bell Company controlled all our telephony communications. I'm old enough that I remember the days before call waiting, call forwarding and answer machines.
Well maybe the answer machine thing isn't completely true. I know they were around, but let's just say that I'm old enough to remember a time when answering machines were expensive and about the size of a VCR.
Anyway.....the daughter is home today from school; ill. Or faking it. Who can tell? She was supposed to have a two-hour stint of car driving with her driving instructor, but we have opted to phone and try to reschedule seeing how the daughter doesn't feel well. Or pretends to not feel well. The daughter phoned the firm earlier to inquire about rescheduling today's lesson and the woman said that she would call back.
It's now 1455 and we haven't heard back so I suggested to the daughter that she phone again, which she did. The daughter came into the t.v. room, where I was vegging, with this perplexed look upon her face, phone in hand, and said "Listen to this," and she proceeded to dial the phone number. Turning on the speaker phone I listened and heard the busy-signal that we so rarely hear today in a world of call waiting, call forwarding, voice mail, etc. Instead it was that awful cacophony of noise that used to tell us that the other party's line was engaged and that you would have to try them again later.
The daughter looked truly perplexed and I had to explain that she was hearing a busy signal, etc. It suddenly struck me how odd her world is compared to mine at that age. Technology has truly changed the face of our everyday world. Just a few generations ago technological advances didn't typically have much impact upon the everyday life of consumers, but this clearly isn't the case today and for our future.
It leaves me wondering what sort of sights and sounds will be completely unfamiliar to my daughter's children when they reach her age and how funny she will find those moments.
2009/01/22
The power of life and death
Not far from my house there sits a small apartment complex and next to that a small church. Between the two is a small strip of land with a line of trees growing; sort of a natural barrier between the two properties.
Some months ago I noticed a black and white cat hanging out in the field. As the weeks went by I also noticed an all white cat as well as one that appears to be all black. One day I stopped and looked for these guys and came across the black one: feral. I had already suspected as much, but who knew for certain. Any one or all of them could have belonged to someone in the apartment complex, but that appeared quite unlikely now. As this strip of trees is situated next to a busy road I felt it imperative to try and relocate these cats. Perhaps I could find someone with a farm and/or barn who would take them in? Anyway...
I rented a trap from my local Humane Society and set out to trap these cats, one at a time. The first success was the black and white cat. A handsome little fellow, but his longish fur was matted and he was rather a mess. He lived in the basement in a reasonably sized cage while we waited for his spay/neuter appointment with the Humane Society, which was today.
Of course I spent the cash for the feline AIDS/Leukemia test as I knew there was no reason to return the cat or find it a new place to live out its feral life if it had either of these diseases. It would simply be too risky for any other cats. Unfortunately this was the case with this particular little fellow.
While I know I made the correct decision to have the cat put down (destroyed, put to sleep....whatever you want to call taking his life) it still hurts inside. He spent a month with us, looked up in the basement. He never came to like me even though he saw me numerous times a day. Regardless of the fact I brought him both food and water. Never mind that I cleaned his litter box. He was feral and nothing was going to change that. But I still feel a bit guilty about taking his life.
What right do I have to do such? Who made me his God? I didn't do it for him, but to potentially protect those other cats he may have come into contact with in the future. But there is not future now for him. An overdose of meds to put him to sleep followed by a cremation with other animals who met the same fate.
And now I'm worried about the other two I need to capture as it's likely they too will be infected seeing how they lived so closely with this one.
Today just sucked.
2008/12/26
on christmas.....
being an atheist you wouldn't think that i would bother with christmas. after all, it is supposed to be about the birth of jesus and all that nonsense and not about shop-till-you-drop consumerism. but our nation (and others) have turned this religious holiday into something completely different. we have turned it into the time of year that many retailers return to working in the black (profitability, if you will). while that may be akin to a religious experience for many a ceo and cfo out there, i don't think it is quite what god (had he existed) had in mind.
yet i have no problem with celebrating christmas in many of the tradiational ways, just as long as they aren't religious in nature. i mean things like the exchange of gifts, well wishes via hallmark cards, visiting family and/or friends, fancy dinners with family and/or friends, etc. i only wish it didn't take this season to bring folks together in such a way. it would be difficult for most of us to maintain the level of happiness that can come with this season, but wouldn't it be nice to try? wouldn't it be nice to have dinners more often with each other? to exchange a small treat, a tiny gift every so often? oh well......
this year, this christmas, was one with which i am not happy though. while we did enjoy a very nice meal at the home of a close neighbor, we did not exchange presents. that is, my wife, daughter and i did not exchange any gifts. this is due, in large part, to the lack of cash-money on hand for such. i've been unemployed for the past four years (since we moved to the dayton, ohio area) and my chronic unemployment has made life difficult fiscally. not harsh, mind you, but difficult. and we agreed this year to not purchase gifts for each other (the wife and i) and now that the day has come and gone i can say with complete certainty: i don't like it.
i can live without the christmas tree (besides - the cats would, in all likelihood) destroy it). i can live without the birth of jesus. i can live without christmas carols and coloured lights and i could even live without christmas television shows, but i don't think i can ever again go without getting something for my wife. it just feels wrong.
maybe it is in part because i'm not the best person at expressing my feelings of love, warmth and caring. i'm not saying i'm cold or appear unfeeling; far from it. but i'm not as good about showing feelings of love as i could be. so when birthdays or christmas roll around i use these times as an opportunity to try and show what the person means by obtaining a really nice present. clearly that did not transpire this christmas. clearly this has left me irritated.
next year i will not make the same mistake.
2008/12/24
can the weather ever be normal?
what's with the weather? it's all over the place. i don't mean that weather is actually located everywhere, but that it doesn't seem to know what it is supposed to do based upon what day of the year it is.
the winter of 2007/2008 was a perfect example. here in s.w. ohio it warmed up enough and stayed such long enough that some trees started to bud with leaves in february. try reading that again.
february.
this year (2008) our fall was heavily skewed towards warmer-than-average temperatures and i don't mean by a few degrees, but by 10 to 15 degrees above average. for days on end. no. for weeks on end. we had no appreciable autumn this year. one day the trees were covered in green leaves and the next they were brown and falling off the trees en mass. needless to say this did not bode well for fall photography. not one bit.
and here i sit.....just a day before the holiday of xmas.....and it's 53-degrees outside with rain falling. 53-degrees. rain. the average for this date is 36-degrees. sounds like like fall, doesn't it? oddly enough this warmer-than-average situation didn't exist the previous few days when it was much colder. much colder than average. and while i cannot speak about the long-term because i've only lived here for three years, i can say that our lack of snow is unusual. we have had snow on at least two or three occasions by this time of the year during each of the past three years. we have had nothing but flurries this year.
still....i'd rather be sitting here in 53-degree weather with rain falling from the heavens than be back in florida.
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