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 I
like birds. They dress up even the most boring landscape with
their brilliant colors and graceful aerobatics. And their songs
are a welcome sign of approaching spring. But sometimes a bird
gets a notion in its pea-sized (literally) brain and won't let
it go. We've had nests in the garage year after year, even
though the young hatchlings usually get eaten by the dog as they
roll out of the nest. A couple of years ago, a bird kept trying
to fly through the study window to get in the house. I figured
it would eventually learn, but it kept pounding its head into
the glass every few minutes, over and over, all day long for
many weeks. It must have been a hard headed bird.
This past weekend, I started hearing a thumping sound, and I
figured it was a flying squirrel in the attic, like we've had
before. I finally got all of their ways in and out of the attic
sealed up a few years ago though, so I was waiting for more
evidence. It was by chance that I walked out in the front yard
and saw a big woodpecker sitting there on the sill of a second
story clerestory window, with splinters of cedar on the roof
where it had pecked away.
I tried shooing the bird away, which worked - for a few minutes.
About the time I would get back in the house and sit down, the
thumping would start again. Time to find something to throw. I
found a wiffle ball in a box of old toys, and on just my second
attempt, I scored a direct hit. Of course, the point in using a
wiffle ball was that it wouldn't break the glass. If birds could
laugh, it probably would have. All I did was annoy it, and it
flew off for a bit longer. Next time I saw it, it was
sitting on the deck out back, and the cat was stalking it. Her
luck was no better though, and it flew back up to start pecking
on the sill again.
On Sunday morning, having exhausted my options and my patience,
I climbed up on the roof in the rain and nailed strips of
plywood over the window sills as sacrificial guards. I suspect
the siege isn't over yet though. |
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I've been following the story of the brain damaged woman in
Florida for a while, not so much because I have a strong opinion
on the outcome as I am interested in the motivations of all the
people who have felt compelled to join the circus. That
this case made such headlines at all is something of a puzzle,
as similar events occur every day and go unnoticed.
First of all, we have the woman whose cerebral cortex has no
activity. Competent, experienced medical experts agree that a
brain melt-down like this one can't be reversed with any
procedure in their current bag of tricks. This means that the
body that once housed a human conscience is now equivalent to a
plant. Even if consciousness could somehow be restored by
regenerating dead brain cells twenty years from now in a medical
miracle, the brain would be as empty as a newborn's.
On the one side, we have the parents, who like most parents
never want to give up, and on the other, we have the husband who
proclaims his wife would not have wanted to live as a plant.
These people have a real stake in the outcome. There is
suspicion that one or the other was originally after the money
from the malpractice settlement, and perhaps they were, but they
can't admit that now. The money has all gone to pay lawyers, as
it often does when they smell the green. But it is also possible
that the two viewpoints are heartfelt.
If indeed the body at the center of the controversy is incapable
of any thought, then it cannot care whether it lives or dies,
any more than a rose cares whether it is plucked to be put in a
bouquet. If you are of this viewpoint, then there would seem to
be no harm in allowing the plant to be watered and kept alive,
as long as those who wish to do so pay the cost. The rest of us,
however, should have no obligation to pay the cost, directly or
through governmental subsidy.
It would be different if there was any indication of pain and
cognitive recognition of it. Then the argument could be made
that the ordeal should be ended. The phrase used with lower
animals, to "put it out of its misery", does have some
application in such cases.
All the others who have climbed on board this train wreck seem
to be most interested in grandstanding for political advantage.
After all, it is making headlines, and all publicity is good
publicity.
The people screaming the loudest about keeping this body alive
are the same ones who scream about stem cell research, or any
form of abortion. If they were consistent in always valuing all
lives, or all potential lives, then they would have my respect,
whether I agreed with them or not. But they are anything but
consistent.
You see, this is the same group that gloats when criminals
are punished by state sanctioned killing, and cries out for more
death sentences. How does one reconcile a belief in the sanctity
of all life with a belief in capital punishment?
In no small measure, I suspect these people really covet the
power to decide life and death. They want to make the rules.
They want to play god. |
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After more than a month of less than spectacular winter
weekends, we finally hit the jackpot with sunshine and
temperatures in the eighties. The yard was dry enough to rake
the leaves finally, and the garden was just right for breaking
up the soil with tractor and disc. I've decided that growing
vegetables won't work with only weekend trips to tend them, so
this will be a much needed year for the soil to lie fallow. I
sowed wildflower seeds on the freshly turned soil so that we can
enjoy their beauty until the native grasses overwhelm everything
as they always do. The critters who normally feast on our
produce will have to look elsewhere this year.
On Sunday afternoon, we drove out to the lake and had a couple
of beers while enjoying the sun on the deck. A fair number of
other people had similar ideas, venturing out in their boats and
motoring by as if it weren't still winter after all. I'm anxious
to get out on the water myself, but the flora will be much more
prolific in just a few weeks, and the fauna will be returning (aves)
or waking (reptilia), according to their taxonomic class. There
are parts of the lake that are best for viewing in early spring,
before they become so inundated with vegetation that they are
almost surreal, as if from another world. The little flat bottom
boat is ready to go if we can afford a tank of gas. |
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When I read that the resident theater company here in the city
would be performing Arthur Miller's The Crucible, I
quickly bought a pair of tickets. M and I went to a
matinee performance yesterday at the Alley Theatre downtown.
Although we have enjoyed seeing musicals like Les Miserables
in London, and Miss Saigon in Dallas, I really like good
old fashioned dramas, which don't have to put everything into
song. The cast received a standing ovation when the 2 1/2
hour performance ended.
The Crucible is a fictionalized version which
closely follows the real events of the
Salem Witch Trials of 1692, perhaps the most notorious
American example of what happens when religious superstition is
mixed with the legal system. In the end, a gang of teen-aged
girls, prodded on by a zealot who served as a judge and
ministers who saw "the devil" in everything, caused 19 innocent
people to be hanged as witches, based solely on their
accusations. Estimates are that somewhere between one and two
hundred people were jailed as the hysteria spread, and at least
four died in chains in prison. One eighty year old man, who
refused to appear at trial when he was accused, was pressed to
death under the weight of stones piled on top of him by his
executioners. The play ends as a man who has consistently voiced
his opposition to the proceedings and denounced the accusers as
frauds is in turn convicted and is led to the gallows.
Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the events of 1692 is the
aftermath. With so much blood on their hands, some later
admitted the errors they had made, but the head judge and the
zealous village minister refused to admit fault. The fire
and brimstone minister was eventually replaced by someone who
sought to heal rather than purge the town. The chief judge, who
was the most culpable, complained loudly that the current
Governor, who called for an end to the trials, should have let him
complete his important work of ridding the territory of witches.
He was elected as the next governor of Massachusetts colony.
These colonists were good Christian Puritans, after all. Remind
you of any current events?
There are so many morals to the story that they are hard to
count. In fact, it was the McCarthy hearings of the early 1950s
which prompted Miller to write the play. Although there were no
hangings, there were many lives ruined by the mere accusation of
being a communist. The same old witch hunt methods that have
always been favored by the ignorant but powerful were used by
McCarthy. The accused could only escape the severest punishment
by confessing and naming others.
When we hear of a zealot of any stripe being nominated to become
a judge, we should take pause. Any time reason and physical
evidence are subordinated to superstition and religious belief,
justice is not likely to be served. It seems ironic that
we can find many in this country who see Muslim fundamentalism
as a dangerous and oppressive basis for government, yet they
cannot see that Christian fundamentalism has exactly the same
potential and likely outcome. It is fundamentalism of any sort,
belief in the absence of physical evidence, that has been
causing evil deeds to be wrought for millennia. Will we
never learn?
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