mother nature

I don’t know how well scientists can tell bodies of different ‘races’ apart. I think there is still some controversies about where some ancient Americans come from, and like you said more and more of us are getting mixed, so it will be even harder in the future and just be generally less used as we progress into the future.

Aren’t coyotes loners like cats, except for lions? Are wolf packs like elephants with the pack consisting of females and kids and the males wandering off in their lone cowboy way?

Coyotes are somewhat common in Chicago. There was one that wandered into a downtown convenience store a few years ago, although that did create quite a stir. Since we assume that they are eating rats as well as garbage, people are generally favorable to them. What was shocking was when a full grown cougar showed up in a northside neighborhood not unlike our Gage Park neighborhood, but more dense, a couple years ago. Unfortunately they had to kill it. Damn, it looked so noble lying in that alley.

Ah, the noble lions, I used to watch them on the nature channels. My cats got mad at me because I was always rooting for the wildebeests to get away.

I have had some critter killing cats in my day. Back in my hippie days my first cat must’ve learned hunting from her mom. We all lived in this big house and she kept her first litter of kittens in my room, and one day we were all sitting there smoking dope, and in comes Mama with a bird in her mouth. Well she immediately got into that catch, let free, catch, let free torture thing and encouraged her kittens to join in.

We just stared. The joint must have burnt somebody’s fingers. Do we do the humanitarian thing and free the bird? Do we let nature take its course and watch the bird die an agonizing death? It was all too heavy Man, we just walked out without a word and reformed our circle in another room, and didn’t speak of it.

The cat before these two, Annie, caught a few birds on the balcony. I was able to rescue all but one, and that one I buried in one of my pots and surely its body went into the tomatoes, so you see even up here where people live stacked on top of each other and there is hardly a tree to be seen, the great spirit still rules.

Mother nature is probably our white peoples’ version of the great spirit. You generally see her wandering through flowery grasses with cartoon birdies buzzing around her, and all the bigger animals watching her adoringly. And look here she is fiddling with the legs of the deer so that they can run faster, and all the deer smile until they look over and see that she is also sharpening the teeth of the wolves, and maybe buying Beagles a better rifle.

I did watch a Great Barrier Reef show lately. You have to admit the sea is full of colorful incredible animals and here they are popping in and out of their holes to the tune of comical music and you are thinking, my isn’t this delightful, but then you realize everybody is eating everybody else, and then when just a few of the bigger and stronger critters are left, here come the sharks. Holy shit. Life on land is the same battle, but a lower slower, a little more genteel. If it were WW II, the battle on land would be the western front, and the battle in the sea would be the eastern front.

You know we humans have our faults, greed, cruelty for the hell of it, mass murder, hypocrisy, deceit, etc etc. But when it comes to sheer 24/7 unending barbarity, you can’t beat mother nature.