The bad news: the sermon was so long and rambly it left everyone irritated and my daughter informed me she was not going back until the hired a permant pastor.
The really irritating: target practice over the empty field nearby on Easter Sunday afternoon. And knowing with reasonable certainty that the sermon and the target practice are driven by the same things, if not the same perspective.
We got our entire family to church as well! Although my oldest was 10 mintues late (he needed coffee).
The sermon was weak. It rambled too! Our pastor is a proud progressive, but cannot construct a sermon to save his life. He likes to mix in eastern buddhist mysticism, but like the majority of white Americans who embrace Buddhism, his knowledge of it is superficial. Calling came up in his sermon (did I mention it rambled? It rambled), and he compared it to slavery, God taking away our choices. He prefers "invitation". I'm sure he does, but theologically, his argument is weak.
We went to Bob and Janet's for lunch (Pam's family). We had enough to feed the 5,000. Katie convinced me a dozen devilled eggs were enough for 16 (one an infant). We left 5 egg halves for Janet, she was very pleased. We brought a crock pot of green beans, the devilled eggs, a container of sliced peppers, a container of peanut butter balls, a container of spinach roll-ups, fudge, and cashews. I forget what else. Jenni brought 4 dozen cupcakes, three pies, and I forget the other goodies. You get the idea.
Sadly, Pam's middle sister was absent, as was her BF. She had to work today, but couldn't come by after work since her daughter has a birthday party (to which none of us were invited). When your child is 10, you mostly have it on their birthday, but at age 27, not so much. The relationship conflict is getting worse.
I fell asleep (sugar coma, I think). Overall it was a good day. Bob and Janet loved seeing our oldest.
I think the pastor has a bee in her bonnet - mostly legitimate - about the politically induced disconnect between caring for the poor and salvation. I think she's tone deaf but don't know how to say it.
But lack of consideration, along with opposite polarity tone deafness works for the neighbors.
"I think she's tone deaf but don't know how to say it."
Doesn't know how to make a point effectively? Wanders about but doesn't arrive at a destination?
While I sympathize with what you think is the point, maybe Easter Sunday is the time to stick with the rock bottom basics in your sermon. Father Redacted seems to have been told not to be a total disaster, so his sermons recently have been mainly restatements of what it said in the lectionary, in case you weren't paying attention. Along with the sort of, "And what was I saying?" that you get from people with dementia.
It's common for people to lose their second language when they get daffy, so he's forgetting how to speak Spanish. Meanwhile, one of my Puerto Rican friends in his 70s is losing his English vocabulary.
No, sorry, I want to tell her she's tone deaf. Language connotations have changed over the past eight years. She preached passionately on the value of diversity a week after the first wave of anti-DEI action from the White House, as if we are closer to 1965 Atlanta and the word still carried late 20th century connotations. This in a very red county and in a church that lost a large portion of the membership, left to start a new PCA congregation.
Yes, I agree that Easter Sunday is the time to stick to the basics. Sigh. People might come back after a pithy, meaningful sermon, less likely after today's.
I think age has something to do with it, too, but physical challenges rather than mental.
There is a chance for wise leadership to make a difference here, to build a bridge. It is very frustrating.
There are certain Sundays where you play the classics, and you don't try to launch meaningful insights. Easter? Don't try to write new revelations or relate Jesus to some wonder movement, talk about Easter! 🤦♂️ At Christmas, talk about the birth of Jesus! It's.not.rocket.science.
Mother's day is a good day to praise mothers, but not a good day to talk about a guy with a prison ministry (it happened last Mother's day, and it wasn't great). 20 years ago I brought the Mother's day message, borrowing material I wrote for my Mom's eulogy. Our pastor heard the eulogy and asked me to share it. People liked it. BTW I did praise my mom in the eulogy and in the sermon.
Interesting articles. Tal Fortgang's review confirms the impression I got from Jonathan Rauch's appearance on The Remnant: that while he seems to be a nice man, his thesis is fundamentally incoherent.
They've just rebranded with a bigger mission than the original Botanical Garden, and we, having been members over 20 years except when they stopped everything for Covid, because bonkers, were very pleased with the new vision. Attendance was very good today. They were having some Easter-themed children's activities, which did not interfere with people who wanted to sit on a bench and think about trees and maybe fall asleep, I'm not sure.
I’m sure the website isn’t exhaustive. One item that sprung to my mind regarding the blurb on the Piedmont Prairie landscape was whether or not they tried to account for the pre-Columbian landscape and flora. Just about all of Eastern North America is believed to have been a human-cultivated landscape, where indigenous populations used traditional farming as well as fire management over many generations.
Of course, a lot of the details of that prehistory are forever lost. But some mention and speculation about it would seem worthwhile, time and budgets permitting.
The fire management of the pre-European residents is a big topic these days. Whether they will burn to keep the prairie open, or just use a mower, I don't know. One main difference from the old days is that the site is on a reservoir, which used to just be a river before they built the hydroelectric dams.
They've done significant forest thinning, which will make a big difference to the woodland in five or ten years. I'm going to see if we can get a field trip there for the Envirothon teams next year.
I saw or heard via Merlin bird app, 28 different birdies this am. That's the most number of types I've recorded since I began about 2 years ago. Of note, the Calliope and Costa hummingbirds. Ladderback and Gila woodpeckers. Northern Cardinal, and a Carinalis Sinuatis (a cousin Pyyrhuloxia). Hooded Oriole. Good spring for birdies.
We have some stale crackers, chips... I toss em out buy Gumbi's (dogggie) resting place.. he love birds. The numbers have been increasing.
Ms. Pinki was picked up back from a delightful time with my brother and his wife around 1130pm.
62F now.
My neighbor in the back, about a 1/2 mile and closer to more of the US Forest had their property insurance not renewed. Farmers for 25 years. No claims. Reason - wildfire.
Climate change is here. Like the famous "Winter is coming...GOT"
Afternoon, Doug! I'm pleased to hear that things are well in your habitat. That's a lot of bird diversity.
Our ruby-throated hummingbirds have returned, coincidentally with the first blooms on purple salvia in the front flowerbed, just out the window from where I sit for my prayers in my Official Short Person Chair that nobody else is allowed to sit in. It will bloom until October at least.
Is there anything your neighbor can do to remediate his wildfire risk?
Well, yes he does and we do create fire breaks around structures. Per Foresty service and Wildland Fire guidelines.
But apparently it doesn't mean a thing to corporate desk bound actuarial underwriting nobs.
I would not be surprised to eventually see the collapse of private insurance companys property fire insurance businesses. And then state and federal will have to take over. Or let the risk go to both mortgage issuers and home owners.
I know from my writing about Pam that she comes off as a saint, but she really had a mischievous side to her. She just didn't brag about it, so you had to witness it to know that side of her.
The TSAF reminds me of a Pam story. Pam's baby sister is 9 years younger than Pam. When Jenni was 2-3 years old, they were out in the yard playing, when Pam told her the Vultures overhead (they lived in 10 acres of woods, they had vultures) only ate dead animals, so as long as Jenni kept moving, she'd be safe. 😏
Jenni ran for 2 hours before collapsing, sobbing how she was about to be eaten. Pam got a spanking for it. I heard the story from her Mom when Pam and I were dating; When alone, Pam winked, telling me it was "totally worth it". 😉
No, despite marrying me she did not technically qualify for sainthood, but she was doggone close!
Good morning. I get the Irn-Bru joke, because I am a fan of the 44 Scotland Street series by Alexander McCall Smith, in which we learn that it is a popular regional soft drink in Scotland, especially favored by the young boys who are among the characters in those stories. The video is a very good example of the mock-nature-documentary genre, and also seems to illustrate how far afield from reality one can get AI to go.
In other bird news, Imani the piping plover showed up at Montrose Beach yesterday. He is a son of the late Monty and Rose, and the father of the one surviving chick from last year, Nagamo. Now we're waiting to see if that chick, and maybe his mother, Sea Rocket, return. The two young males who arrived at Montrose Beach last week were probably just making a stopover en route to some other Great Lakes beach.
As I was watching “The Last of Us” last night I scrolled the news during what I knew was going to be a scary part. I saw a headline to the effect rare brain disease kills two and is suspected in a third case. CJD (I can’t spell it.) All three cases were in an Oregon county of 24,000. This is concerning, at least to me anyway.
CJD is scary! Personally, I would suspect contaminated venison around here, where I’m aware of at least one case some ten years ago. The deer herd here has had signs of “chronic wasting disease”, the deer version of CJD, quite often in the past.
Also, beef cattle are typically fairly young, and I’d assumed thus less likely to have developed or contracted BSE…afaik, which isn’t saying much…
I refuse to eat venison (deer jerky) anymore. Nope, no way. Southern WI has a lot of CWD. People say I had my deer tested. It doesn’t matter when there are untested deer being processed at the same facility. “They” say CWD hasn’t been known to pass to humans but how would we know when it can remain dormant for years?
Watching vultures dismember a carcass is actually interesting. For all their reputation of being gentle and laid back, they go at it when they are tearing apart a carcass. They won't attack you, but they will try to scare you. And they're pretty good at that. But if they think they've lost they leave.
I do not interrupt them as they are doing their thing, unless I am driving down a road and they are eating in the middle of it. I'll slow down and drive well to the side. Although on some country roads, there isn't much room to do so. When I drive near them they hiss as they waddle off. They've evolved enough to know cars are a predator for them! 😡
I hear Katie moving about the kitchen. Yesterday she made blueberry muffins. The issue is hers have a greenish tint to them (which doesn't affect flavor), but my youngest is afraid of eating mold, so I get more muffins! 😀 I told her last night we should eat out tonight. She feels she should cook, but I told her the kids won't mind, and they understand. She's off today and tomorrow, then works 7 of the next 8 days. 🤢 They asked her to work the 8th day, she declined.
IIRC, our vultures (turkey vultures and black vultures) are all New World vultures, and are completely unrelated to the vultures found in Eurasia and Africa, which are more closely related to hawks or eagles, but I can’t recall which. The New World vultures don’t have any ability to vocalize or squawk at all. The best they can do is hiss.
They also love to soar together in large flocks in the winter months, after which they frequently roost together. They’re pretty mean with each other fighting over carrion, too.
In a year and a half we will reach the 250th anniversary of American independence, a celebration that I am hearing absolutely nothing about.
Coming in the wake of Watergate, the Bicentennial in 1976 was considered understated at the time. But even so, there were events like the flotilla of tall sailing ships entering New York harbor. But compared to the "Semiquincentennial" (to give it its official name), the Bicentennial seems like a riotous party.
I didn't remember immediately. But the Bicentennial was also my grandmother's 80th birthday. We celebrated with a big reunion with our extended family in Oklahoma, where my mother's family was from.
I was working in the Boston Mayor's Office during the Bicentennial. The Queen and Prince Phillip, aboard the royal yacht, Britannia, visited. Various luminaries and the Mayor's staff were invited to a black tie gala. We actually were given lessons on how to greet the Queen and behave in her presence. I met her and the fact that I was not renditioned proves that I listened to the lessons.
I remember the Bicentennial. We lived in suburban Maryland. I was very much into Johnny Tremain and on April 19, 1975 I got up early and hammered rolls of caps in the driveway to celebrate.
July 4th was on a Sunday and that seemed to be an affirmation. People were into colonial crafts and clothes- many people (including me) wore 18th century clothing to church (no doubt embarrassing my brothers).
I remember the Tall Ships and would have loved to have seen that.
And here we are in 2025 and the NC Museum of History is closed for renovation, no date for re-opening listed.
I remember the bicentennial. We lived at NAS Corpus Christi then. I don't remember whether my father was at sea during July, but I feel like he wasn't.
"On Rocky Island gulls woke. Silently they floated in on the town, but when their icy eyes spotted the first dead something something among the ships and wharves they began to scream and quarrel."
She writes some great historical pieces. Excellent. When she gets into her political rants, though, she's just awful. If she's top dawg on Substack, she's banking some very serious dough.
I don't disagree, though I'm inclined to lean into her rants more than you are. She reportedly makes more than $1mm/year on Substack, which leads one to question why she still teaches at Boston College. Interestingly, before she was at BC she was a history professor (THE history professor?) at MIT.
Good morning. it reached into the 80s yesterday, This morning, temp is 66 with highs in the 70s and rain later today.
This is no Morning Dispatch this morning of course, but there is an explainer on the controversial, and worrisome, case of Kilmer Abrego Garcia, an illegally present immigrant Nader a deportation order, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in contravention of another court order specifically barring deportation to El Salvador. This was discussed here earlier this week.
What is of greatest concern is that, while the Trump administration is not yet in the position of openly defying a court order, it is refusing to fix its mistake, gleefully thumbing its nose at the rule of law in the process and cozying up to Yet Another Strongman. We all know that if Trump wanted to have Garcia brought back, he would make it happen, using pressure tactics on El Salvador he has used on other countries to get the to accept his deportees.
I enjoyed every minute (90 of them) of the Good Friday service yesterday. I must be getting old. Tomorrow we will celebrate Easter mass at my “family” church in Iowa. My husband asked me why I called it the “family” church. Because my grandparents and parents were married there, all four grandparents’ funeral masses were held there and I was baptized there. I love that church.
“Enjoy” is not a word I would use for Good Friday, but I too had a blessed Good Friday service, also about 90 minutes.
Tonight I will attend Easter vigil, where 2 catechumens will be received into the Church. One will be baptized. (I get a particular kick out of seeing a baptism). I always attend the Vigils when I can as I was myself received into the Church in a vigil Mass.
Then tomorrow I’ll go with the family to attend Mass on Easter morning.
The parish where my husband and I joined the Catholic Church - St. Francis of Assisi, San Antonio, TX - in 1993 did the full Easter Vigil liturgy, with seven Old Testament readings and seven Psalms. After the Gospel, there would be an intermission, followed by the rest of the Mass. Then party on the church doorstep until dawn, with an occasional visit from police, "Y'all are still here?" "Have some wine, Officer!"
I was thinking about that today, and I'm going to talk to some of my people and see if they'd like to have a "reading party" next year. We could meet at the park, have a potluck lunch, and read the full liturgy, since the parish does only the minimum.
St. Francis did it every year I was there, from maybe 1990 to 1994. I was in choir before I was actually in the Church. Our oldest daughter was baptized there before we joined the Church. Things were a bit loosey-goosey in those times ;-).
I haven’t tried to figure out what to conclude on this or tried to tease it apart, but I heard Jonah reference it by mentioning even Andy McCarthy and Ed Whelan were at a loss to play devil’s advocate on the matter.
I’ve also seen reference to the administration taking deep-faked images to justify their position. So they clearly aren’t interested in concepts like “truth” or “justice” or “basic human rights.”
We’ll see where this goes. At this point, I look for them to find creative ways to suspend mid-term elections and/or randomly jail opposition candidates to stack the deck. Trump is playing straight from the dictator’s handbook authored by Putin and the like. Lots of stories about high and mid-level bureaucrats getting fired for suspicion that they would side with the Constitution and their oaths rather than just doing whatever Trump tells them to. We’re going to find out whether Trump has ambitions merely to be America’s Orban or Erdogan, or America’s caudillo a la Juan Peron or flat-out dictator like Putin.
Given that mid-term elections (actually, all elections) are conducted by the states, Trump could not stop them, short of perhaps a state of emergency and calling out the military. I don’t think Trump’s that crazy — at least not yet. That would start a civil war.
My biggest worry right now is that when his ICE thugs grab someone who is a green card holder, or worse, an American citizen, and deport them into the Salvadoran gulag, Trump will refuse to correct that “administrative mistake” but announce he was taking Yet Another Dangerous Gang Member off the streets.
Yes, we have to hope that the states, whether Red or Blue, stick to election schedules—even if the natural instincts in Red ones is to do Trump’s bidding *in spite of* better judgment.
My biggest worry is that anti-Trump protests get out of hand, and I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of someone in the administration (or an administration-adjacent foreign power) inserts agents provocateurs to attempt to start riots and similar excuses for Trump to declare martial law and ask the military to point loaded guns at civilians. Just about all the Kremlin-friendly, post-Soviet regimes have used such methods.
Reports of that sort of stuff have been out there going back to the Dubya administration—and they should have coordinated even with an opposing Congress to combat it in earnest. There can be no room for people trying to intimidate or threaten anyone in our society as a general rule, but for elected and hired public officials all the more so.
Honestly. They should have made a couple perps famous by letting them do perp walks in orange jumpsuits before hauling them off into custody, charged with serious crimes.
Not dealing with it with public drama and spectacle has only worked in favor of Trump and the strongman-fawning elements of his MAGA base.
I assume it’s gone on longer than that. Only, prior to the widespread use of the internet, accompanied by the death of distance in telecommunications, people couldn’t so easily hide behind anonymity to issue death threats. The federal government would pursue weirdos abusing the mails for such purposes.
Immediate, virtually free communications via voice and email from anywhere in the world changed the landscape. But law enforcement didn’t try hard enough to keep up, I’m guessing, or they assumed they couldn’t.
It’s a similar development as has led to the nonstop phone and internet scamming against normal citizens as described in the recommended Economist podcast series on “pig butchering”, Scam Inc.
So we have lots of diverse low level character deficiency rather than infrequent but high level evil. Terrifying, uncoordinated, unlikely but not to be ignored.
I’ve collected several replies across multiple Substacks by some woman whose handle refers to a horse’s reproductive organ. How does one get out of porn trolling on Substack?
There is probably a support mechanism at Substack you could use, although it may be ineffectual to someone who uses different handles (and possibly different IP addresses using a VPN).
If you don’t have any paid subscriptions, I’d consider even going so far as to delete your account and create a new one… but with paid subscriptions, that’s probably not realistic, all things considered.
Good morning, friends. 70Fs with a high of 84 today. We have the second shift of choir practice this morning, for those who couldn't make it last night, and then my husband wants to go to the botanical garden. We'll see. Sciatica is bugging me: makes my whole right leg hurt.
Terrible. I have only had mild intermittent issues with that. I did find simple sun salutations maybe once in morning and then before bed really make a difference. But even knowing that I have very poor adherence. Best wishes...
If it was bad enough to call for sympathy in any serious way, I'd care enough to do my exercises. Although I may be getting there. My right foot gets all tingly.
Morning! Mid-50s under cloudy skies and the promise of low-80s. I have to go out and spend a few hours cutting things. Tomorrow I have to cut more things, and potentially dig things, too.
Sciatic...can also be the piriformis, which cramps and mashes the sciatic nerve up against the hip bone, which is connected to the thigh bone, and when you shake it all about, you do the hokie pokie and you turn it all around....and that's what it's all about.
(I had to edit this to have it conform with accepted medical practice. I had "turn it all around" BEFORE the hokie pokie, which can lead to future problems requiring a hospital stay.)
Happy Easter to all celebrating.
The good news: I got my whole family to church!
The bad news: the sermon was so long and rambly it left everyone irritated and my daughter informed me she was not going back until the hired a permant pastor.
The really irritating: target practice over the empty field nearby on Easter Sunday afternoon. And knowing with reasonable certainty that the sermon and the target practice are driven by the same things, if not the same perspective.
We got our entire family to church as well! Although my oldest was 10 mintues late (he needed coffee).
The sermon was weak. It rambled too! Our pastor is a proud progressive, but cannot construct a sermon to save his life. He likes to mix in eastern buddhist mysticism, but like the majority of white Americans who embrace Buddhism, his knowledge of it is superficial. Calling came up in his sermon (did I mention it rambled? It rambled), and he compared it to slavery, God taking away our choices. He prefers "invitation". I'm sure he does, but theologically, his argument is weak.
We went to Bob and Janet's for lunch (Pam's family). We had enough to feed the 5,000. Katie convinced me a dozen devilled eggs were enough for 16 (one an infant). We left 5 egg halves for Janet, she was very pleased. We brought a crock pot of green beans, the devilled eggs, a container of sliced peppers, a container of peanut butter balls, a container of spinach roll-ups, fudge, and cashews. I forget what else. Jenni brought 4 dozen cupcakes, three pies, and I forget the other goodies. You get the idea.
Sadly, Pam's middle sister was absent, as was her BF. She had to work today, but couldn't come by after work since her daughter has a birthday party (to which none of us were invited). When your child is 10, you mostly have it on their birthday, but at age 27, not so much. The relationship conflict is getting worse.
I fell asleep (sugar coma, I think). Overall it was a good day. Bob and Janet loved seeing our oldest.
You mean by not having any consideration for other people?
I think the pastor has a bee in her bonnet - mostly legitimate - about the politically induced disconnect between caring for the poor and salvation. I think she's tone deaf but don't know how to say it.
But lack of consideration, along with opposite polarity tone deafness works for the neighbors.
"I think she's tone deaf but don't know how to say it."
Doesn't know how to make a point effectively? Wanders about but doesn't arrive at a destination?
While I sympathize with what you think is the point, maybe Easter Sunday is the time to stick with the rock bottom basics in your sermon. Father Redacted seems to have been told not to be a total disaster, so his sermons recently have been mainly restatements of what it said in the lectionary, in case you weren't paying attention. Along with the sort of, "And what was I saying?" that you get from people with dementia.
It's common for people to lose their second language when they get daffy, so he's forgetting how to speak Spanish. Meanwhile, one of my Puerto Rican friends in his 70s is losing his English vocabulary.
Watching friends lose things like that is hard.
No, sorry, I want to tell her she's tone deaf. Language connotations have changed over the past eight years. She preached passionately on the value of diversity a week after the first wave of anti-DEI action from the White House, as if we are closer to 1965 Atlanta and the word still carried late 20th century connotations. This in a very red county and in a church that lost a large portion of the membership, left to start a new PCA congregation.
Yes, I agree that Easter Sunday is the time to stick to the basics. Sigh. People might come back after a pithy, meaningful sermon, less likely after today's.
I think age has something to do with it, too, but physical challenges rather than mental.
There is a chance for wise leadership to make a difference here, to build a bridge. It is very frustrating.
There are certain Sundays where you play the classics, and you don't try to launch meaningful insights. Easter? Don't try to write new revelations or relate Jesus to some wonder movement, talk about Easter! 🤦♂️ At Christmas, talk about the birth of Jesus! It's.not.rocket.science.
Mother's day is a good day to praise mothers, but not a good day to talk about a guy with a prison ministry (it happened last Mother's day, and it wasn't great). 20 years ago I brought the Mother's day message, borrowing material I wrote for my Mom's eulogy. Our pastor heard the eulogy and asked me to share it. People liked it. BTW I did praise my mom in the eulogy and in the sermon.
Good morning. Happy Easter!
52 first thing this morning, partly sunny and predicted high in the 70s this afternoon. We missed the rains yesterday.
The Free Beacon publishes reviews of two Christian books this Sunday.
“Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy” by Jonathan Rauch, reviewed by Tal Fortgang.
https://freebeacon.com/culture/onward-christian-americans/
“Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church” by Philip Shenon, reviewed by George Weigel.
https://freebeacon.com/culture/bad-faith-arguments/
Interesting articles. Tal Fortgang's review confirms the impression I got from Jonathan Rauch's appearance on The Remnant: that while he seems to be a nice man, his thesis is fundamentally incoherent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YWocV1G7Ng
Happy Easter from the Living Desert!
Happy Easter, Cynthia!
We have not put out any hard-boiled eggs for the wild haggis this year.
And I bet, not for the jackalopes either.
Nope.
Placido Domingo, everyone! It's a happy bird morning here, and I'll go out for the dog and cat duties when it's just a little lighter.
The youth all groaned when invited to come to the Botanical Garden after lunch, but my husband and I had a nice time.
https://danielstoweconservancy.org/about-us/
They've just rebranded with a bigger mission than the original Botanical Garden, and we, having been members over 20 years except when they stopped everything for Covid, because bonkers, were very pleased with the new vision. Attendance was very good today. They were having some Easter-themed children's activities, which did not interfere with people who wanted to sit on a bench and think about trees and maybe fall asleep, I'm not sure.
That looks lovely. Great cause to patronize.
I’m sure the website isn’t exhaustive. One item that sprung to my mind regarding the blurb on the Piedmont Prairie landscape was whether or not they tried to account for the pre-Columbian landscape and flora. Just about all of Eastern North America is believed to have been a human-cultivated landscape, where indigenous populations used traditional farming as well as fire management over many generations.
Of course, a lot of the details of that prehistory are forever lost. But some mention and speculation about it would seem worthwhile, time and budgets permitting.
The fire management of the pre-European residents is a big topic these days. Whether they will burn to keep the prairie open, or just use a mower, I don't know. One main difference from the old days is that the site is on a reservoir, which used to just be a river before they built the hydroelectric dams.
They've done significant forest thinning, which will make a big difference to the woodland in five or ten years. I'm going to see if we can get a field trip there for the Envirothon teams next year.
I saw or heard via Merlin bird app, 28 different birdies this am. That's the most number of types I've recorded since I began about 2 years ago. Of note, the Calliope and Costa hummingbirds. Ladderback and Gila woodpeckers. Northern Cardinal, and a Carinalis Sinuatis (a cousin Pyyrhuloxia). Hooded Oriole. Good spring for birdies.
We have some stale crackers, chips... I toss em out buy Gumbi's (dogggie) resting place.. he love birds. The numbers have been increasing.
Ms. Pinki was picked up back from a delightful time with my brother and his wife around 1130pm.
62F now.
My neighbor in the back, about a 1/2 mile and closer to more of the US Forest had their property insurance not renewed. Farmers for 25 years. No claims. Reason - wildfire.
Climate change is here. Like the famous "Winter is coming...GOT"
Afternoon, Doug! I'm pleased to hear that things are well in your habitat. That's a lot of bird diversity.
Our ruby-throated hummingbirds have returned, coincidentally with the first blooms on purple salvia in the front flowerbed, just out the window from where I sit for my prayers in my Official Short Person Chair that nobody else is allowed to sit in. It will bloom until October at least.
Is there anything your neighbor can do to remediate his wildfire risk?
Well, yes he does and we do create fire breaks around structures. Per Foresty service and Wildland Fire guidelines.
But apparently it doesn't mean a thing to corporate desk bound actuarial underwriting nobs.
I would not be surprised to eventually see the collapse of private insurance companys property fire insurance businesses. And then state and federal will have to take over. Or let the risk go to both mortgage issuers and home owners.
I know from my writing about Pam that she comes off as a saint, but she really had a mischievous side to her. She just didn't brag about it, so you had to witness it to know that side of her.
The TSAF reminds me of a Pam story. Pam's baby sister is 9 years younger than Pam. When Jenni was 2-3 years old, they were out in the yard playing, when Pam told her the Vultures overhead (they lived in 10 acres of woods, they had vultures) only ate dead animals, so as long as Jenni kept moving, she'd be safe. 😏
Jenni ran for 2 hours before collapsing, sobbing how she was about to be eaten. Pam got a spanking for it. I heard the story from her Mom when Pam and I were dating; When alone, Pam winked, telling me it was "totally worth it". 😉
No, despite marrying me she did not technically qualify for sainthood, but she was doggone close!
Good morning. I get the Irn-Bru joke, because I am a fan of the 44 Scotland Street series by Alexander McCall Smith, in which we learn that it is a popular regional soft drink in Scotland, especially favored by the young boys who are among the characters in those stories. The video is a very good example of the mock-nature-documentary genre, and also seems to illustrate how far afield from reality one can get AI to go.
In other bird news, Imani the piping plover showed up at Montrose Beach yesterday. He is a son of the late Monty and Rose, and the father of the one surviving chick from last year, Nagamo. Now we're waiting to see if that chick, and maybe his mother, Sea Rocket, return. The two young males who arrived at Montrose Beach last week were probably just making a stopover en route to some other Great Lakes beach.
Thank you for explaining the Irn-Bru joke, which I didn't even realize was a joke.
The Haggis Wildlife Foundation has a whole series of videos.
I was a mite suspicious, and sure enough, Wikipedia relegates this animal to the same catgory as the legendary jackalope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_haggis
As I was watching “The Last of Us” last night I scrolled the news during what I knew was going to be a scary part. I saw a headline to the effect rare brain disease kills two and is suspected in a third case. CJD (I can’t spell it.) All three cases were in an Oregon county of 24,000. This is concerning, at least to me anyway.
CJD is scary! Personally, I would suspect contaminated venison around here, where I’m aware of at least one case some ten years ago. The deer herd here has had signs of “chronic wasting disease”, the deer version of CJD, quite often in the past.
Also, beef cattle are typically fairly young, and I’d assumed thus less likely to have developed or contracted BSE…afaik, which isn’t saying much…
I refuse to eat venison (deer jerky) anymore. Nope, no way. Southern WI has a lot of CWD. People say I had my deer tested. It doesn’t matter when there are untested deer being processed at the same facility. “They” say CWD hasn’t been known to pass to humans but how would we know when it can remain dormant for years?
Yeah, once they’ve stated the caveats, how is it possible for claims of a source to be much more than wild guessing?
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD, related to mad cow disease.
https://kobi5.com/news/three-rare-brain-disease-cases-in-hood-river-county-two-deaths-reported-271999/
My son has two current obsessive thoughts…rabies (tormenting him now) and prion disease. I hope he doesn’t see that news.
Oh, dear. I'm very sorry about that. If you're not near Oregon, maybe he won't.
Watching vultures dismember a carcass is actually interesting. For all their reputation of being gentle and laid back, they go at it when they are tearing apart a carcass. They won't attack you, but they will try to scare you. And they're pretty good at that. But if they think they've lost they leave.
I do not interrupt them as they are doing their thing, unless I am driving down a road and they are eating in the middle of it. I'll slow down and drive well to the side. Although on some country roads, there isn't much room to do so. When I drive near them they hiss as they waddle off. They've evolved enough to know cars are a predator for them! 😡
I hear Katie moving about the kitchen. Yesterday she made blueberry muffins. The issue is hers have a greenish tint to them (which doesn't affect flavor), but my youngest is afraid of eating mold, so I get more muffins! 😀 I told her last night we should eat out tonight. She feels she should cook, but I told her the kids won't mind, and they understand. She's off today and tomorrow, then works 7 of the next 8 days. 🤢 They asked her to work the 8th day, she declined.
Vultures roost in the pines close to my house. Sometimes there are 20+. They are quiet birds.
IIRC, our vultures (turkey vultures and black vultures) are all New World vultures, and are completely unrelated to the vultures found in Eurasia and Africa, which are more closely related to hawks or eagles, but I can’t recall which. The New World vultures don’t have any ability to vocalize or squawk at all. The best they can do is hiss.
They also love to soar together in large flocks in the winter months, after which they frequently roost together. They’re pretty mean with each other fighting over carrion, too.
I watch them soaring when I’m out in the golf club walking the dogs.
They perch on high points - like the cross on top of our church - to look for dead stuff.
Perhaps it was a previous TSAF, but they have a good sense of smell, and can smell some gas that comes off of dead animals.
Today is the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the firing of the shot heard round the world.
In a year and a half we will reach the 250th anniversary of American independence, a celebration that I am hearing absolutely nothing about.
Coming in the wake of Watergate, the Bicentennial in 1976 was considered understated at the time. But even so, there were events like the flotilla of tall sailing ships entering New York harbor. But compared to the "Semiquincentennial" (to give it its official name), the Bicentennial seems like a riotous party.
I didn't remember immediately. But the Bicentennial was also my grandmother's 80th birthday. We celebrated with a big reunion with our extended family in Oklahoma, where my mother's family was from.
I was working in the Boston Mayor's Office during the Bicentennial. The Queen and Prince Phillip, aboard the royal yacht, Britannia, visited. Various luminaries and the Mayor's staff were invited to a black tie gala. We actually were given lessons on how to greet the Queen and behave in her presence. I met her and the fact that I was not renditioned proves that I listened to the lessons.
I remember the Bicentennial. We lived in suburban Maryland. I was very much into Johnny Tremain and on April 19, 1975 I got up early and hammered rolls of caps in the driveway to celebrate.
July 4th was on a Sunday and that seemed to be an affirmation. People were into colonial crafts and clothes- many people (including me) wore 18th century clothing to church (no doubt embarrassing my brothers).
I remember the Tall Ships and would have loved to have seen that.
And here we are in 2025 and the NC Museum of History is closed for renovation, no date for re-opening listed.
"Hammered rolls of caps..." Damn, we hammered so many rolls of caps.
The Charlotte Museum of History is nice. I would buy you lunch!
That sounds like a plan! Let me get through the next month with estate stuff.
Thank you!
Good luck with estate stuff. I'm fortunate that mine is so easy: just occasionally answer a question or fill out a form for my sister-in-law.
I remember the bicentennial. We lived at NAS Corpus Christi then. I don't remember whether my father was at sea during July, but I feel like he wasn't.
I could read "Johnny Tremain" again.
:-) :-) :-)
"On Rocky Island gulls woke. Silently they floated in on the town, but when their icy eyes spotted the first dead something something among the ships and wharves they began to scream and quarrel."
Oh, yes, I was a history nerd.
I read a piece on that...I think it was Heather What's Her Name Stack.
Heather Cox Richardson.
Yeah, her.
Largest following and subscribers on Substack. Most $$$ as well.
She writes some great historical pieces. Excellent. When she gets into her political rants, though, she's just awful. If she's top dawg on Substack, she's banking some very serious dough.
I don't disagree, though I'm inclined to lean into her rants more than you are. She reportedly makes more than $1mm/year on Substack, which leads one to question why she still teaches at Boston College. Interestingly, before she was at BC she was a history professor (THE history professor?) at MIT.
“Obviously, none of these bird species has been evaluated by IUCN”
I thought “Extinct” was a status on the scale used by the IUCN?
I do not think Joe Biden's speechmaking career post 2024 has been evaluated by the IUCN either...
They would be the only ones.
*snicker*
It is, but they generally use that label for animals that were extant within living memory.
Good morning. it reached into the 80s yesterday, This morning, temp is 66 with highs in the 70s and rain later today.
This is no Morning Dispatch this morning of course, but there is an explainer on the controversial, and worrisome, case of Kilmer Abrego Garcia, an illegally present immigrant Nader a deportation order, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in contravention of another court order specifically barring deportation to El Salvador. This was discussed here earlier this week.
What is of greatest concern is that, while the Trump administration is not yet in the position of openly defying a court order, it is refusing to fix its mistake, gleefully thumbing its nose at the rule of law in the process and cozying up to Yet Another Strongman. We all know that if Trump wanted to have Garcia brought back, he would make it happen, using pressure tactics on El Salvador he has used on other countries to get the to accept his deportees.
I enjoyed every minute (90 of them) of the Good Friday service yesterday. I must be getting old. Tomorrow we will celebrate Easter mass at my “family” church in Iowa. My husband asked me why I called it the “family” church. Because my grandparents and parents were married there, all four grandparents’ funeral masses were held there and I was baptized there. I love that church.
Those seem like pretty good reasons to call it your "family" church.
“Enjoy” is not a word I would use for Good Friday, but I too had a blessed Good Friday service, also about 90 minutes.
Tonight I will attend Easter vigil, where 2 catechumens will be received into the Church. One will be baptized. (I get a particular kick out of seeing a baptism). I always attend the Vigils when I can as I was myself received into the Church in a vigil Mass.
Then tomorrow I’ll go with the family to attend Mass on Easter morning.
The parish where my husband and I joined the Catholic Church - St. Francis of Assisi, San Antonio, TX - in 1993 did the full Easter Vigil liturgy, with seven Old Testament readings and seven Psalms. After the Gospel, there would be an intermission, followed by the rest of the Mass. Then party on the church doorstep until dawn, with an occasional visit from police, "Y'all are still here?" "Have some wine, Officer!"
I was thinking about that today, and I'm going to talk to some of my people and see if they'd like to have a "reading party" next year. We could meet at the park, have a potluck lunch, and read the full liturgy, since the parish does only the minimum.
Sounds like you had a grand party! it should b a joyous occasion! How nice that you and your hubby entered the Church together!
I entered on Easter Vigil 1984, at Holy Family Parish, the military Catholic parish for the Army community in Augsburg, Germany.
I think I've seen all 7 OT readings done, maybe once.
St. Francis did it every year I was there, from maybe 1990 to 1994. I was in choir before I was actually in the Church. Our oldest daughter was baptized there before we joined the Church. Things were a bit loosey-goosey in those times ;-).
Ours was also about that long. Hurt my sciatica.
I haven’t tried to figure out what to conclude on this or tried to tease it apart, but I heard Jonah reference it by mentioning even Andy McCarthy and Ed Whelan were at a loss to play devil’s advocate on the matter.
I’ve also seen reference to the administration taking deep-faked images to justify their position. So they clearly aren’t interested in concepts like “truth” or “justice” or “basic human rights.”
We’ll see where this goes. At this point, I look for them to find creative ways to suspend mid-term elections and/or randomly jail opposition candidates to stack the deck. Trump is playing straight from the dictator’s handbook authored by Putin and the like. Lots of stories about high and mid-level bureaucrats getting fired for suspicion that they would side with the Constitution and their oaths rather than just doing whatever Trump tells them to. We’re going to find out whether Trump has ambitions merely to be America’s Orban or Erdogan, or America’s caudillo a la Juan Peron or flat-out dictator like Putin.
Distinctions without a difference. Judges such as Willkinson seem to have formed an opinion.
Given that mid-term elections (actually, all elections) are conducted by the states, Trump could not stop them, short of perhaps a state of emergency and calling out the military. I don’t think Trump’s that crazy — at least not yet. That would start a civil war.
My biggest worry right now is that when his ICE thugs grab someone who is a green card holder, or worse, an American citizen, and deport them into the Salvadoran gulag, Trump will refuse to correct that “administrative mistake” but announce he was taking Yet Another Dangerous Gang Member off the streets.
Yes, we have to hope that the states, whether Red or Blue, stick to election schedules—even if the natural instincts in Red ones is to do Trump’s bidding *in spite of* better judgment.
My biggest worry is that anti-Trump protests get out of hand, and I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of someone in the administration (or an administration-adjacent foreign power) inserts agents provocateurs to attempt to start riots and similar excuses for Trump to declare martial law and ask the military to point loaded guns at civilians. Just about all the Kremlin-friendly, post-Soviet regimes have used such methods.
It's through the looking glass, for sure. I think he's actually going for it. He's that nuts.
Sen Murkowski's comments about intimidation the other day were concerning. Has anyone reported on the nature of the intimidation?
Reports of that sort of stuff have been out there going back to the Dubya administration—and they should have coordinated even with an opposing Congress to combat it in earnest. There can be no room for people trying to intimidate or threaten anyone in our society as a general rule, but for elected and hired public officials all the more so.
Honestly. They should have made a couple perps famous by letting them do perp walks in orange jumpsuits before hauling them off into custody, charged with serious crimes.
Not dealing with it with public drama and spectacle has only worked in favor of Trump and the strongman-fawning elements of his MAGA base.
I did not know that about George W.
I assume it’s gone on longer than that. Only, prior to the widespread use of the internet, accompanied by the death of distance in telecommunications, people couldn’t so easily hide behind anonymity to issue death threats. The federal government would pursue weirdos abusing the mails for such purposes.
Immediate, virtually free communications via voice and email from anywhere in the world changed the landscape. But law enforcement didn’t try hard enough to keep up, I’m guessing, or they assumed they couldn’t.
It’s a similar development as has led to the nonstop phone and internet scamming against normal citizens as described in the recommended Economist podcast series on “pig butchering”, Scam Inc.
No "official" reports other than a lot of anonymous threatening phone calls and emails...that sort of thing. It's awful to a degree that stuns me.
What are they being threatened with, besides being primary-ed?
Death, for one.
I read somewhere about the anonymous threats against them and family, but nothing official. Essentially, they're as big a weasels as Trump.
So we have lots of diverse low level character deficiency rather than infrequent but high level evil. Terrifying, uncoordinated, unlikely but not to be ignored.
Well, that is something of a relief. I think.
I’ve collected several replies across multiple Substacks by some woman whose handle refers to a horse’s reproductive organ. How does one get out of porn trolling on Substack?
EEEWWW!
I have gotten a couple of those as well, related to our our conversation on the trades. Icky.
There is probably a support mechanism at Substack you could use, although it may be ineffectual to someone who uses different handles (and possibly different IP addresses using a VPN).
Right. If it keeps up, I’ll have to do something. “She’s” followed me thru several stacks and it’s annoying.
Unrelated but I just zoomed in on your profile picture. That’s funny.
It's kinda who I am, but in a non-confrontational sort of way.
If you don’t have any paid subscriptions, I’d consider even going so far as to delete your account and create a new one… but with paid subscriptions, that’s probably not realistic, all things considered.
I got a couple paid. I'll wait and see. My hope is they just go away.
Maybe there’s some way to turn off the “follow” feature for a while and see if that fixes it. If it’s a feature you don’t use much, that is.
I’ll try it.
You can block the person, I think, but they change handles.
Yeah. I’ll see if it continues.
I don't know. Maybe MarqueG could research it on the Substack terms of use.
And how does one avoid it in the first place.
You really can't, as it's most likely a bot. I have a few who follow me on X, and after awhile they get bored and unfollow me.
I have no idea where this thing came from or why it’s targeted me.
Random chance mostly. Half of people online are men, half of those are young, and some subset are decent targets. Odds pretty good.
Good morning, friends. 70Fs with a high of 84 today. We have the second shift of choir practice this morning, for those who couldn't make it last night, and then my husband wants to go to the botanical garden. We'll see. Sciatica is bugging me: makes my whole right leg hurt.
I'm sorry to hear that about the sciatica. I have a few walkers at the Y who have that, and it ruins their day when it is especially bad.
It comes and goes. I keep saying I'll start doing my physical therapy exercises again, but I haven't done it.
Terrible. I have only had mild intermittent issues with that. I did find simple sun salutations maybe once in morning and then before bed really make a difference. But even knowing that I have very poor adherence. Best wishes...
If it was bad enough to call for sympathy in any serious way, I'd care enough to do my exercises. Although I may be getting there. My right foot gets all tingly.
I've had it bad, and the whole time it was the piriformus that was the issue. When it would cramp up, I would literally collapse to the floor in pain.
Morning! Mid-50s under cloudy skies and the promise of low-80s. I have to go out and spend a few hours cutting things. Tomorrow I have to cut more things, and potentially dig things, too.
Hope your sciatica relents.
Good morning, and thank you for another interesting TSAF. Wishing you an Easter filled with joy, love and renewal.
Thank you, John M., and the same to you. We have many good things this year.
We surely do.
Yes, Easter. Renewal in Springtime.
Sciatic...can also be the piriformis, which cramps and mashes the sciatic nerve up against the hip bone, which is connected to the thigh bone, and when you shake it all about, you do the hokie pokie and you turn it all around....and that's what it's all about.
(I had to edit this to have it conform with accepted medical practice. I had "turn it all around" BEFORE the hokie pokie, which can lead to future problems requiring a hospital stay.)
Clearly I’ve been doing this wrong all my life.
I am implementing a 12 step program for people suffering from the affliction.
12 “steps”. Good one, Kurt.
What if the hokey pokey really *is* what it's all about? That would explain a lot.
There are studies indicating that the hokie pokie might be a Chinese cybersecurity issue.