The War Between the Birds

The sidewalk between my house and the school bus stop looks like the bird equivalent of the Civil War's Antietam battlefield... bodies strewn everywhere.   My 14-year-old daughter walking beside me doesn't notice, even after I tell her to look at what the hawks have done.

Tuesday there was a loud crash when a bird slammed into the floor-to-ceiling glass windows at the back of our house.  Dumb bird, again?   Since a couple of summers ago, I'd figured out the birds weren't so dumb, just panicked.  After one such window slam,  I discovered a big old hawk standing in the middle of the backyard eyeing its prey, which was lying dazed too close to the house for the  hawk to finish the job.   Tuesday I looked around and the hawk was sitting on the wall at the edge of our yard, pondering her next move.   She could see me in the window and after we eyed each other for a few minutes, the hawk flew off.  Maybe I should have let nature take it's course, but instead I went outside and moved a lawn chair to a spot near the dove to give it cover if the hawk returned.   Ordinarily  the doves fly off when I go into the backyard.  This dove was still too dazed or panicked to move.  It just watched while I  positioned the chair.   The dove was gone when I returned from walking through the bird battlefield to meet my daughter at the bus stop after school.

This spring I've helped intensify the war between the birds... not deliberately.   I like having the doves and finches around and put out a feeder, a very clever one that defeats squirrels and roof rats, and only lets small song birds like house finches and lark sparrows feed.   It's a good size feeder and I thought I could fill it up and not have to mess with it again for a couple of weeks.   The house finches tore through the bird seed in two days.  They don't just eat.   They poke, pick, dig, shake their heads like crazy and the bird seed flies everywhere.  This makes the doves happy since they eat the seed that ends up on the  ground ... and the doves bring the hawks. 

So now I have a moral dilemma.   How do I deescalate the war between the birds.   If I stop feeding the house finches,  there won't be as many doves around for the hawks to kill.   I could buy myself a .22 rifle and shoot the hawks -- which would make the Phoenix PD and my neighbors really, really unhappy.   The neighbors and the PD aside, I have of too much experience defending "doves" in days gone by and I know that unless you're totally committed to hawk genocide,  even artillery far more powerful than a .22 won't stop the hawks.   Besides I like the hawks... they're beautiful in a fearsome way ... I just wish they'd take it easy on the doves.

Then there are the grackles.   With the hawks around there aren't any.   The grackles rough up the doves in their own way.   A couple of grackles will corner a dove and start pecking its shoulders.  If the dove doesn't get away immediately, the grackles keeping pecking until the doves head comes off.   What's the point?   The grackles don't eat the doves.  They just kill them.   The hawks are hunting for food.  The grackles are just thugs and the hawks keep the thugs out of the neighborhood.

Bottom line:   good luck trying to save the world.   After years and years of trying, I still haven't figured out how to save the doves.

I am African

My son's an awesome kid... and that's a little hard to fathom sometimes... because from his earliest years he'd bring to mind Grandma Honoragh saying:  Ta an diabhal i agat  (the devil is in you).

One day he came home and asked:  "Dad, can Joscia live with us this summer.  His mom's lost her home and he has no place to live."   Sure, if you don't mind a roommate.

After he started high school, he began coming home late. 
"What ya doin, son."
"Just doin' homework at study hall with my new friends."
"Great [miracle of miracle ... he's studying without being told]"

Later he matter of fact reveals his new friends are from Sudan, Eritrea and Cameroon, and the study hall is where they get help with their homework.   My son's doing his homework and helping the African kids with theirs ... which ended up giving him an insight into how African kids view America.

"You don't like your president?   He's better than the one we have in Sudan."

"Why'd we come to America.   You have lots of food.   There is no food in Eritrea."

"Zukifi, look!  Those two girls are kissing!   Don't they kill them when they do that in America?"

"Why do you Americans sleep with the dogs?"

One day a Black Lives Matters activist showed up at an African restaurant where one of the kids worked.

"Will you donate to Black Lives Matter."
"No."
"Why not?  We have to defend our Black brothers and sisters."
"No... No ... No ...  I am not Black.   I am African."

The Dragon Meets the Karate Nun

The folklore about Catholic nuns and brothers beating the children was just that in my experience.    From my earliest years through Catholic school and college,  I never saw a nun or brother hit anyone... except once... which was remarkable given the hellions I went grew up with.

Mike Lacopo came close once.  Mike was a lay instructor at our high school.  His glasses made him look like Clark Kent.  Under his sports coat we were sure he wore a superman uniform.  He was a former Marine, had made a perfect score on the challenging Marine physical fitness test, and was the JV football coach.  Mike was pretty mild mannered and liked to read us poetry in English class.  But one day Andy Vaughn one of the most hellacious hellions finally got under his skin.  Andy made a wisecrack.   Mike turned red, dropped the chalk he was using to write on the blackboard, turned and leaped at Andy.   Chairs and students flew in every direction as Mike flew at the terrified Andy who was sitting in the middle of class.  Mike grabbed Andy by the throat, cocked his free arm back to strike... and just before he delivered the coup de grace ... regained control ... gently placed Andy back in his seat ... straightened his own tie and said:   "Andrew please see me after class and I will write you a grey slip for detention."   Most of us didn't like Andy and were disappointed by the outcome.

We didn't like Dennis Dunn, either.   And were not at all disappointed the day in 7th grade when he decided to punch Sister Mary Angelica.   Dunn never knew what hit him.   There was a flash of whirling robes like a black tornado ... the cheering spectators jumped to their feet ... and a barrage of hand strikes left Dunn lying on the floor.  Out for the count.   Who knew they taught nuns karate in basic training.

Dome of the Rock... and the Catholic Women

It was just a picture.

My wife dropped in to say "hi" to the new hire.  The new hire worked for the Medical Director, not my wife, but it was part of the culture... the welcoming health plan run by women dedicated to the sick and the poor.

"What a pretty picture."
"Yes, it's of my homeland, Palestine."

Though she's a devout Catholic, this meant nothing to my wife and what followed was a lot of small talk about children and family.

I'd never call my wife clueless.  She'd tell you she was just too serious to have time for politics and world affairs.  She was a nurse practitioner who'd worked in the Bridgeport ghetto and the Native American reservations and was now Chief Operating Officer of the second largest Medicaid health plan in Arizona.  Her spare time was spent going to meetings with the governor's wife to figure out how they could improve immunization rates for Arizona's children. And though she had graduate degrees from Berkeley and Yale and could lecture long and loud about how clinical significance trumped statistical significance, she had no idea how much money she had in her retirement savings accounts. If it didn't have something to do with maternal-child health care or making a dying AIDS patient comfortable, it wasn't on her radar. 

Time passed and administrations changed.  The Medical Director who hired the Palestinian woman left my wife's company to become the State of Arizona's medical director.   The Palestinian woman's new boss walked into her office, said "hi", introduced himself, said a few pleasantries and then stared at the picture on the wall for several minutes and left the room without saying anything except "goodbye."   The Palestinian woman came running into my wife's office:  "Julie, Julie... how can I work for a Jew."

At this point I might have said "You could start by taking down your picture of the "Dome of the Rock", the shrine built on top of Judaism's most holy place by a triumphant Muslim army."

Instead my wife said "Oh, don't worry.  We've known the doctor for many years. He's a wonderful, kind man.  You'll get along just fine."  She didn't feel she needed to add that if there was a problem that she and the CEO, another devout Catholic woman, would deal with it. Many years have passed and they are all still friends.





  

The Bonfire of the Vanities

In the 15th-century,  Girolamo Savonarola appeared as prophet and reformer to purify Renaissance Florence and expel its patrons the "licentious" Medici.  The hallmark of Savonarola's campaign were the Frateschi, Savanrola's religious police drawn from the zealots among the Florentine youth.   The Frateschi drove the immoral from the streets and organized the Bonfire of the Vanities: the burning of objects condemned by Savonarola as occasions of sin, including the works of Renaissance humanist Giavonni Boccaccio like his X-rated Decameron.

In the 21st-century, we're experiencing a new wave of purification, which aims to rid of us of cultural sin and gender oppression.
At Holy Cross College in Massachusetts, it's led by the head of the biology department who wants to purge the college's Christian Crusader mascot, which might frighten non-Christians.   The head of the biology department?   An odd choice for Savonarola, and purging a mascot is a pathetic exercise  compared to exiling the Medici and burning Boccaccio.