While we await reports from the Thunder in the Tundra, at which Vlad the Impaler will punk The Goldbug at one of our own Air Force bases, we’re enjoying a colorful sunrise behind the Sandias and some spirited aerial combat over the backyard hummingbird feeder.
It’s a good thing rufous hummingbirds don’t weigh 300 pounds. They’d rule us all.
Actually, now that I think about it, it just might be an improvement over what we have now.
Is it time to replace the bald eagle as a symbol of what used to be the United States of America?
Not with the turkey, which Benjamin Franklin considered “a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.”
Rather, with the oozlum bird.
The oozlum, clearly a cousin of Ed Abbey’s fabled Malaysian Concentric Bird (see “The Monkey Wrench Gang”), flies backwards. This is either so it may admire its own lovely tail feathers, or because while it has no idea where it’s going, it likes to know where it’s been.
And when startled, it will fly in ever-tightening circles until it vanishes up its own asshole.
Though the oozlum clearly has the chops to be our national symbol, it must be noted that the bald eagle remains a distressingly apt depiction of the modern American character. In criticizing the bird’s inclusion in the Great Seal back in 1784, Franklin actually made a strong case for it in 2025. In a letter written to his daughter, Sarah Bache, Franklin wrote:
For my own part I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labour of the fishing hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him. With all this injustice, he is never in good case, but like those among men who live by sharping and robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward: the little king bird not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America, who have driven all the king birds from our country, though exactly fit for that order of knights which the French call Chevaliers d’Industrie.
“Bad moral character … sharping and robbing … a rank coward.” Good ol’ Ben. Still giving us the bird after all these years.
Clouds we got, sometimes. Rain, snow? Not so much.
The mornings are chilly in these early days of the Year of Our Lard 2025, but once the sun finally creeps over the Sandias, shortly before 9, things warm up considerably. The weather wizards predict a high of 60° today.
Yes, I said 60°. Six-oh degrees Fahrenheit. In January.
Good for the healthful outdoor exercise, for those of us who take it. Unless we’re talking skiing. Also, not so much for the plants and wildlife and drinking water come summer. See John Fleck for more.
In the meantime, we need not bundle up like the Michelin Man for running and riding so far this winter. It’s been so unseasonably warm that my brother geezers, who ordinarily are traveling to ski or working out in the gym, have called a ride for today.
In the early afternoon, of course. No need to wear the hair shirt. We are not children, with their barely tested HVAC systems fresh from the factory.
Meanwhile, Miss Mia Sopaipilla gets to bird-watch at the patio door, where I scatter a little seed for the house finches and dark-eyed juncos who don’t feel like battling the bigger birds at our feeders.
There’s a little bit of Sylvester and Tweety Bird going on there in her little mind. Bad ol’ puddy tat. …
In other news, the cuckoos in the House of Reprehensibles nearly give their Squeaker the bird. Says NYT’s Carl Hulse: “House Republicans certainly relish their internal drama.” Dinner theater for the insane.
We’ve unwrapped a solstice present a wee bit early.
Herself recently stumbled across a chainsaw sculptor hawking his wares and he delivered this lovely fella to us yesterday. We’d long admired another owl sculpture in Sandia Heights and she thought, “Why not?”
I immediately named him Archimedes for the owl in T.H. White’s wonderful “The Once and Future King.”
But we dassn’t call him “Archie” for short. Remember your Merlyn, young Warts:
[O]wls are the most courteous, single-hearted and faithful creatures living. You must never be familiar, rude or vulgar with them, or make them look ridiculous. Their mother is Athene, the goddess of wisdom, and, although they are often ready to play the buffoon to amuse you, such conduct is the prerogative of the truly wise. No owl can possibly be called Archie.
Mad Blog Media 