Squirrels and Squirrly People

Everything I have read and heard about the subject over the years recommends against keeping wild animals as pets.  They're cute when they're little, but they do grow up and can get quite cranky during breeding season.  In Michigan it's actually illegal to take animals alive from the wild without a special permit.  There are some licensed wildlife rehabilitators who are allowed to keep injured or abandoned critters, nurse them back to health, and release them back into the wild.  If the nature of the injury is such that the critter will never be able to make it on its own, it might end up in a zoo, or be put down.   

I didn't know there were black squirrels in Chicago.  I don't think the grays phase black like that, so they must be fox squirrels.  Some people do not distinguish grays from fox squirrels but, like I said, you can tell by the color of their underparts.  Don't try this with a live one, but if you ever come across a dead black squirrel, pet the fur the wrong way and you can often see traces of the gray back and red belly underneath the outer black coat.  It's a random genetic thing, so it might skip a generation or two, which would explain why you don't see them some years.  

I have heard about and seen pictures of those red squirrels in the UK.  They have tufted ears, and  North American reds don't, but they otherwise seem to resemble our red squirrels.  Our reds certainly don't get along with our other squirrel species.  They are smaller but quicker, and legend has it that they bite the nuts off of a larger squirrel during a fight.  When I first moved to Michigan back in 1967 there was some talk about reintroducing pine martens because they are an effective predator of red squirrels and porcupines, which are not protected in our state because we have way too many of them.  Pine martens are weasel like critters that can climb trees like squirrels.  I don't know if the marten project ever got off the ground, I have never seen one in the woods, but I have seen some tracks in the snow that might have been made by them.  I doubt that the red foxes they have in the UK could make much of a dent in any squirrel population because they don't climb trees.  Gray foxes do climb trees, but I don't think they have them in the UK.  

It boggles my mind that people would vote for Obama or Sanders and then turn around and vote for Trump.  I'm not doubting Uncle Ken's word, I just don't understand what those people were thinking.  Sure all three candidates promised to change things, but not in the same direction.  It's like those cheerleaders used to say back in our high school days,  "Swing to the left. Swing to the right. Stand up. Sit down. Fight! Fight! Fight!" 

Crossing the line

There is also a black squirrel, but it is just a color variation of the fox squirrel.

I don't know my squirrels so the fact that black squirrels are a variation of rural fox squirrels is news to me, as I've seen plenty of black squirrels over the years on the North Side.  Some years I'd see them all over the place and then they'd disappear for a while, not showing up for a few years.

I've never seen any red squirrels out in the wild but they are a big deal in England where they are much loved.  Trouble is, they are being driven out by an invasive species, the larger and more aggressive North American gray squirrel.  I don't know when they started being a problem or how they landed on English shores but the gray squirrels are hated with a passion but it isn't like they can shoot them and whip up a nice stew.  If they stopped hunting foxes maybe the gray squirrel problem will solve itself.

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...I wish the dems would just put all the names in a big bag and pull one out and that would be our candidate...

I remember Uncle Ken proposing that idea; it was a stupid idea then and it's a stupid idea now unless you believe that there is no difference between the candidates.  Give the process some time; bloody infighting is not necessary because many of those candidates are delusional and will drop out in due time.  There might even be a dark horse or two still waiting in the wings.

Personally, I don't like Joe Biden and haven't since the 80s when his star began to rise.  I think he came clean about some plagiarism accusations but he lost me when he got his hair plugs.  Vanity in elected public officials does not sit well with me but that's just a personal opinion.  And I didn't know that having asthma as a teenager could keep you out of the draft.  Not as shady as bone spurs, but still...he probably could have enlisted if he tried but that's water over the dam and of little consequence.

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I'm still avoiding as much political news as possible but some things just jump out at you, like Trump walking into North Korea.  Did I get that right?  If you think that Nixon's trip to China set some unfortunate precedents you ain't seen nothin' yet.

how Biden can get ahead

Oh come now Beagles, haven't you seen those water skiing squirrels?  I think you can take any animal when it is a baby and make it into a pet.  The human becomes the mother and the animal never grows up.  There are pet mice and rabbits and raccoons, but not that much, after all dogs and cats are right there at hand, and I think after all these years the less wild among them have prospered, and they have become pretty tame.  It's no big thrill to have a dog or a cat eat out of your hand.

But that squirrel in the backyard, even though it is far from forest or field, and most everything it eats comes out of a birdfeeder, is still a denizen of the wild, which we, silly humans, with our smartphones and arts and philosophies, are far from that world.  When the squirrel plucks that pecan from our outstretched hand it is like that painting where God is touching the finger of Adam, sparks fly and the sky blazes and seventy six trombones blare out.  I guess that is worth risking a bit finger, but maybe not having to get all those shots in your stomach to cure your rabies.


I think Beagles is wrong that nobody had heard of all the rep candidates in 2012 and 2016, they were a colorful group of wackos and you never knew what one of them was going to say.  The dems by contrast are pretty drab.  As I've said before, likely in these annals (but who listens to me?) I wish the dems would just put all the names in a big bag and pull one out and that would be our candidate and we would all be for them 100%, and there would be no bloody infighting.  I loved the rep debates, but I barely watched the dem debates because. let's face it both parties put out a lot of bullshit, and I'd rather laugh at the other party doing it, than squirm uncomfortably watching my party do it.

My intent Wednesday night was to watch the Cub game, but at eight o'clock there was a rain delay (and the Cubs were behind), so I took a peek at Channel five.  It wasn't so bad, there was a lot of grandstanding, but issues were discussed more or less rationally.  There was entertainment and enlightenment to be taken from it.  So I came back Thursday night, and that wasn't so good, the dems were squabbling and talking over each other like a bunch of republicans.


It is not so surprising that a lot of people who voted for Bernie, later voted for Trump.  Remember a lot of people who voted for Obama voted for Trump.  They were basically discontents looking for any old kind of change and certainly they were against the establishment,  Now Trump has established a black hole of anti-establishment, you can't get more anti-establishment than him.

You know a lot of people are surprised that Joe Biden is so high in the polls because he has those frequent gaffes.  I wonder if the gaffes aren't part of his appeal, make him look less like a politician,  In part I think that's what Trump's gaffes do for him.  I wonder if Biden, when under attack by his primary opponents, instead of trying to make some reasonable response, just called his accuser a lying sack of shit and a traitor, if that would make him rise in the polls.

Taming the Beast

"Pigeons and squirrels they have been with us for centuries and yet they don't readily eat out of our hands. You would think that the ones that did, the ones who had fewer of the genes that make them afraid of people, would get more food and have more offspring than their aloof neighbors, and those offspring would be even less afraid of humans and get even more food and so on and so on until they were all tame.." - Uncle Ken

That's kind of what happened with dogs and all other domestic species, kind of, but not exactly.  Somebody asked me once, "If humans came from apes, why are there still apes?"  The answer, of course, is that only some of the prehistoric ape species evolved into humans while others evolved into the ape species that we have today.  There are still wild dog species out there, but we call them wolves or coyotes, although there is an African wild dog species that is called a "hunting dog", not to be confused with the domestic dogs that are used to assist human hunters.  All the dog and cat species, both wild and domestic, can interbreed, so they're not that far apart, they're kind of the same only different.

Pigeons have been domesticated for centuries, but quickly go feral if they have the chance.   I don't know if you can call the pigeons and that live in the cities "wild" exactly, but they're not exactly tame either.  There are no pigeons in the swamps of Beaglesonia, but they do hang around nearby farms, so it seems that pigeons have become dependent on humans to some degree

  I've never heard of squirrels being kept as pets, yet they certainly have no problem living around humans, well, some of them that is.  The squirrels you see in Chicago are gray squirrels, you can tell because their underbellies are white.  Fox squirrels are usually found in rural woodlands.  They are larger than the grays and their underparts are usually rusty brown.  There is also a black squirrel, but it is just a color variation of the fox squirrel.  Then there's the red squirrels, which are smaller than the grays and have rusty red backs and white underparts.  The reds frequent swamps and conifer forests. Although their ranges overlap with the fox squirrels, the two breeds do not get along at all.  The reds are pretty wild, but they will move into your attic if you let them.  I don't think the three squirrel breeds interbreed, but I don't know if it's because they can't or because they just don't want to.

How 'bout them Democrats!  I think they have more presidential candidates than even the Republicans did last time, and I think that was a record.  Of course most people had never heard of most of those Republican candidates, except for Trump.  Everybody knew who Trump was, which might be why he won.  I read somewhere the other day that a lot of the people who voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary voted for Trump in the general election.  Assuming it's true, why would anybody do that?  Was this part of the "stick it to the man" syndrome?  So now who will get to stick it to the man who stuck it to the man?

eating out of our hands

Boy I hate this, up at five and ready to start the day and no newspaper and no posting.  What am I to do while the coffee is going down?  Get your motor running and then there is no highway.

So why do I want the lunchtime birds to eat out of my hand?  I guess I like to think that that means they like me  What an odd thing.  Why would I care if they liked me?  Do I expect them to do me some favor someday?  I feed the finches because I like to have their song and dance on the railing, this kind of makes sense.  It's a little like buying a ticket to get into the theater.  People do that all the time and nobody wonders why they do that.  But then you see people, okay mostly children, trying to get animals to eat out of their hands and nobody gets out the butterfly net and takes them to the nuthouse.

Pigeons and squirrels they have been with us for centuries and yet they don't readily eat out of our hands. You would think that the ones that did, the ones who had fewer of the genes that make them afraid of people, would get more food and have more offspring than their aloof neighbors, and those offspring would be even less afraid of humans and get even more food and so on and so on until they were all tame..

But the consequences of that are not as good as I would think.  Who would want to leave their houses in the morning and be besieged by birds and squirrels begging for a handout, like beggars in some third world country?   Not pleasant.


5:30 still no newspaper.  I think I'll take my second cup of coffee out on the balcony.  If I am real quiet and still perhaps I will see a finch alight and walk down the railing to the flax sock.

feeding squirrels and birds

Back when I was a lad one of my uncles used to send us a big box of pecans every Christmas.  It seems like maybe there were too many to eat, or maybe it was so much fun, that had us kids feeding the nuts to the squirrels.  Why did we do it?  I think all kids like animals.  Why is that?  I don't know, kids are just naturally interested in everything, and animals are more interesting than rocks.  And kids like other kids, and animals are sort of like kids. 

But maybe another reason is we want to get close to animals.  At first we just tossed the pecans at them, but gradually we threw them closer to us.  It was a nervous zone for the squirrels.  They'd skitter up near the pecan, skitter back a bit, then closer, all the time keeping their big squirrel eyes on us, then pounce on the nut and run back to a safe distance.  But then the next nut was closer to us, and the next nut closer still.  The ultimate goal was to get them eating out of our hands, which in retrospect was a pretty stupid thing considering how closely fingertips resemble nuts, and that rabies thing.  

Considering how much my mother hated squirrels I'm surprised that she allowed us kids to do that, but I'm guessing this was before they ever broke into our garage.  Many years later when I would visit her in her retirement home, I would bring a packet of peanuts and we would go out to the garden and, though a big sign explicitly forbade it, feed the squirrels and this brought a smile to her face.

Maybe five years back I had good success with my sunflowers and come early fall, when the sunflowers, that only a month ago were standing tall and proud, straining to get nearer the sun to thee, had dropped their heads in utter despair and began to weep seeds, the finches came around to eat the tears.  How delightful to hear their song and watch them dance on the railings.  When the sunflower seeds were gone I bought flax socks to hang, and they come and they go.  I expect they have a better deal on some other balcony, but maybe that other person forgets to put out seed sometimes, or maybe they have a taste for something different, and they're hear and then they are not, and then they are here again.  When they go I say, Y'all come back now, hear?

In the summer my sister and I like to have lunch at some outdoor restaurant after she finishes her yoga on Friday.  I generally have a sandwich of some kind and so there is bread, and there are birds.  My sister points out that it is explicitly against the law, but the birds get my crumbs.  The same thing with the squirrels, closer and closer, and sometimes I am able to get them to eat out of my hand.

The finches I bribe because I like their song and dance.  The lunchtime birds are already there, but apparently that is not enough.  I want them to eat out of my hand.  Why is that?

Improv and Other Types of Wild Life

Thanks to Uncle Ken for explaining those improv videos.  I understand it better now, but it still doesn't sound like anything I would want to do.  Of course, that could be said about a lot of activities.

The great outdoors is great, as long as it stays outdoors but, when the outdoors comes indoors, it can be problematic.  Funny how wild animals will move in on you if you let them.  I don't think that the birds who get stuck in a building or vehicle come in on purpose, but mammals and snakes certainly do.  They usually don't try to share human occupied living quarters, but they will claim any kind of crawl space or crack in the wall as their homestead.  That's one reason we don't feed wildlife near the house.  Another reason is that food put out for birds or other pretty creatures often end up attracting some other creatures that are not so pretty.  Then there's the concern that birds will become dependent on human assistance, and/or congregate in unnaturally large numbers, which is not good for them.

Videos of wildlife rescues are quite popular on TV and social media, but I don't think I've ever seen a video of an unsuccessful rescue attempt. Those things must happen, but I suppose nobody wants to share an experience like that, or watch it either for that matter.  Deer in particular must be difficult to rescue successfully.  They don't tolerate a lot of handling or other stress well.  I have seen videos where a deer settles down and goes limp after thrashing around for awhile, making life easier for their rescuers.  While the rescue appears to be successful, they don't show you what kind of shape the deer is in a few hours later.  I suspect that many of them crawl off and die somewhere off camera.  That said, I would probably try to help a deer that was in trouble.  It's just human nature to aid the weak and helpless.  I might get a kick in the nuts for my trouble but, as the old saying goes, "No good deed goes unpunished."

nature stories

Meteor Shower meets at the library on the third Tuesday of the month, but every other Tuesday, except for like a holiday, we meet at the Cultural Center (for Beagles that is the old downtown library).  As I said I preferred Silver Hamsters as a name but it took forever to decide on that, time that could be spent trodding the boards, so I don't see any name changes in the future. 

The middle video, of Ron, our leader, was at some other place where he does improv.  The first and third are us doing skits.  Skits is a misnomer because it implies we have a script, which we do not, but what else are you going to call it?  In the first video we are doing a parody of The Dating Game and the third is Clap and Repeat where we have three groups of two, one of which is performing and when they see a chance to break in they clap and take the foreground using the last phrase the first group said and work that into their narrative.  It is all kind of silly because people are making it up on the spot.  The audiences we get are mostly friends of the players and they are there for a good time, and they are easy on us.


One nice thing about the 21st floor is no flies and no mosquitoes.  I've seen a few dragonflies and butterflies, and lots of those tiny nameless bugs that hang around my tomato plants.  There are lots of spiders, it's not unusual to have spider webs on my balcony.  Apparently air currents take bugs right up the tower where they land in the webs. 


When I was living with my parents, having come back from Texas 30 years ago dead broke I stepped out to the front yard one morning and there was a squirrel munching on a mushroom in that cute way they have standing on their hind legs and grasping it with their little paws.  "Awww,"  I said.  "I wish it was a poison mushroom," my mother said.  "Me too," her neighbor chimed in.  What they chiefly hated was the squirrels would build nests in their garages.  What bothers people like my Champaign friends is that they eat their plants.  Tomato gardeners really hate squirrels because they take one bite out of the tomato and discover they don't like it, but then instead of moving on, they try the next tomato to see if that one tastes any better, and the next and the next.


I hadn't seen  those photos before, thanks Beagles.  It reminded me of one time a pigeon got into the State of Illinois building and all kind of efforts were made to get him out (I think they were ultimately successful but I don't remember how).  One day our secretary (who I did not like much at all) suggested why don't we just poison it.  We looked a little horrified and she said, "Well there's plenty of them out there," and I replied, "There's plenty of people out there too, why don't we poison you?"

A Hummer in the Garage

I don't remember if I showed you guys these pictures last year, but a certain amount of memory loss is normal at my age.  Funny how birds can find their way into a building easier than they can find their way out.  This guy came in through the big garage door but, for some reason, it was determined to get out through this window, which was closed and had a screen on it.  I tried to gently steer it towards the door with a broom, but it was having none of that.  When it finally exhausted itself I tried unsuccessfully to pick it up and carry it out.  As soon as my hand made contact, though, the bird bolted out the big door just like it knew it was there all along.

I don't know why some people who feed the birds don't want to feed the squirrels as well.  I have seen designs for squirrel proof bird feeders, but I understand that the squirrels figure most of them out sooner or later.  We don't feed anything around the house because there are problems associated with the practice.  We see plenty of wildlife through our windows anyway.  I had a trail camera set out last summer, but I haven't put it out yet this year.  I've got pictures of deer, birds, racoons, opossums, rabbits, and kitties, if anybody's interested.  I'm pretty sure that I posted pictures of the young eagle that got stuck in our dog pen but, if not, just say the word.

I thought that I knew what improv was, but now I'm not so sure.  I saw those brief videos that Uncle Ken posted on Face Book, but they just confused me.  Were they of the skit itself or the discussion that went into planning the skit beforehand?  Either way, I got the impression that those people were just fooling around and acting silly, but what do I know.

Making it up

She knew it was futile but she just hates them, hates them so much.

Am I to believe that we can put a man on the moon but can't come up with a squirrel-proof bird feeder?  That's hard to believe; right off the top of my head I can think of a couple of ways to keep the squirrels at bay.  I kind of like the little fellas myself since they're a relatively benign form of urban wildlife and it's amusing the way they'll approach you if you can mimic the proper squirrel vocalizations.

When I lived on the third floor of my mother's building I used to enjoy watching the squirrels run along the tree tops; the living room windows providing an excellent view.  The front of the building was covered with ivy and the squirrels used to carefully choose leaves and build little nests. Not every leaf was suitable and I was surprised at how choosy they were.  One time a young squirrel built a nest right on the window ledge where I got a good view of the process as long as I sat real still.  It took him about an hour to complete the task, finishing just before sundown.  He must not have liked the location as he only used it a few days and then abandoned it.  Maybe the tree branches were more to his liking.

It's too bad that so many birds are killed by flying into windows but I don't think much can be done about it.  From the bird's point of view they are looking at the sky and can't tell it's only a reflection.  That's the explanation I read about long ago but it makes sense to me.

A week or so back I read about this big cloud system that showed up on weather  radar but turned out to be a huge aggregation of insects, mayflies, I think, and I've been meaning to ask Uncle Ken about what kinds of flying insects he finds invading the lofty heights of the ivory towers.  Are fruit flies or house flies much of an annoyance as he lounges on the balcony?  I know that spiders have no fear of heights and are found living hundreds of feet in the air.  What they are eating, I don't know.

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The Meteor Shower improv group sounds interesting but according to the library website they only meet once a month for two hours and I was wondering what they can actually accomplish in such a short length of time.  I agree that the name of the group is kind of dumb but if they changed it to Media Shower they might have something.

I like the idea of improv since much of life is making it up as you go along.  All the world's a stage, don'cha know.

birds cats and squirrels.

I've had a few birds slam into my balcony windows.  Thunk.  What the hell was that?  And then there is a bird lying on the floor of the balcony.   They look dead, but then they begin stirring and in maybe half an hour they have flown away.  Once I had my door propped open and a bird flew into my house.  I knew I had a killer inside so I rushed to get the bird out before she noticed, so I tried to not to rouse her, but you know birds, even though the door and freedom are right there, they fly everywhere but out and eventually the ruckus roused Annie and she plucked him right away, but fortunately I was able to get him out of her mouth before she delivered the fatal blow.  There is no other feeling quite so inspiring as walking out onto the balcony with a bird cradled in your hands and opening your grip and watching the bird fly off into the sky.  Born free.

She sometimes caught a bird on the balcony and I was usually able to rescue it.  Except for one time and that bird is buried in one of my pots.   

Way back in my hippie days we were smoking dope in my room when in came Mother cat with a bird in her mouth.  She was bringing it into my room because her brood of kittens were there and she wanted to display proper cat behavior for them and they seemed quite eager to learn.  My first instinct was of course to rescue the bird, but important life lessons were going on and who were we humans to interfere with that?  We took our joint outside into the back yard and finished it there, while she and her brood finished the bird.

My killer cat, Annie, had obviously learned her lesson from her mommie, but my current cats have not apparently gotten the lesson, because although they show great interest in the feathered friends who visitthe balcony, they stop short of pouncing.

Birders don't like cats, and gardeners whose gardens are not safely on the 21st floor, don't like squirrels, or rabbits either.  When I was in Champaign this weekend I stayed with a friend who has a very large garden and a nice screened in porch, but every so often our discussion was interrupted by her running outside to chase away the squirrels who were attempting to filch from her birdfeeders.  She knew it was futile but she just hates them, hates them so much.

Glass is Hard on Birds

I saw this article in our local paper yesterday and tracked it down on the internet because I thought it might be of interest to my esteemed colleagues.

http://greatlakesecho.org/2019/05/13/chicago-a-confusing-death-trap-of-glass-and-light-for-birds/

Birds occasionally bounce off of our windows here as well, but they usually survive, at least long enough to fly away.  My parents in Palos Park used to have a problem with that, but they solved it by putting cardboard cutout pictures of hawks on some of their windows.  It happens so rarely here that we have never seen the necessity of doing anything like that.  I do have a home made camper rig that used to claim a partridge (ruffed grouse) or two a year until I turned it around so the windows faced into the brush instead of towards the open.  I would have done that sooner, but I didn't know about it.  My old dog Splash used to bring a dead partridge home once in awhile, but I didn't know where he was finding them until I saw one by the camper before Splash had gotten to it.

The ruffed grouse is probably the dumbest bird we have around here when it comes to crashing into things.  They get goofy in the spring when they're horny, and in the fall when they get drunk on fermented berries.  I used to think the part about the berries was a myth until a grouse killed himself by crashing into the one wall on our house that doesn't even have any windows.  When I opened it up, its crop was full of those little red berries that resemble currents.  I had seen those berries around here before, so I looked them up and found out that they are called "autumn berries".   They stay on the bush after the leaves have fallen off, and they do ferment to the point that they contain enough alcohol to intoxicate birds that eat them.

Just the other day a partridge challenged my tractor in our driveway, although it had enough sense to back down as I drew closer.  I could tell he was challenging me because he had the feathers on his neck all ruffed up, which is why they are called "ruffed grouse".   I have also seen them fan their tailfeathers out like a turkey, which I believe they do to impress the lady partridges.  I once watched one do that for a half hour or so from my deer blind in November.  There were several ladies present, but they were not impressed, probably because they normally breed in the spring.  This guy didn't seem to understand why the ladies were rejecting his advances.  Maybe he had eaten too many autumn berries that day.

the twitterverse

I just looked at the Meteor Shower Improv Group  fb page (We had a big kerfuffle over choosing a name a couple years ago.  I championed The Silver Hamsters (Silver because of our hair, Hansters because we are a bunch of hams.  Clever no?  But when the vote was  taken Meteor Shower carried the day, even though what does that mean?) and about half the people in the group are members of the page.  Of the half who aren't on the page most have emails, but I don't think they read them very often. 

As I said the reason I started the page was so that we could have discussions there and not waste time during the class, but that has not worked out so well. Well anyway I had an idea of what I thought would be a pretty cool skit, but I knew that if I tried to explain it in class it would like take forever, there would be questions and objections and so on and so on.  So I explained it on the page.  This gave me an opportunity to have my say without interruption.  I didn't get the feedback I had hoped for, but when I went to class four or five of the members had read it, and they liked it, and we tried it out. 

Here would be the point where I would say that the fb followers had more power than the rest of the group because they were aware of what the skit was and the others weren't.  But right away I see that this is a bad example.  I was thinking more of political parties. where most everybody is vying for power.  That's not the case with Meteor Shower, most people just like to show up and do whatever they are told which is fine.  I'm getting into the whole thing of leaders and followers which is an interesting topic, but not what I am thinking about.

I guess what I was thinking about is what they call the twitterverse.  You know they get excited and start tweeting about something, and most of them are pretty important people.  If you are an important person you have to be on twitter so maybe the people on twitter are more important then Joe Sixpack, and the regular media pick up on that and report it and the implication is that this is what's going on.  But it's only going on in the twitterverse.  I am thinking that the more progressive dems are the ones more likely to be on twitter, and that's why we hear so much more about the more progressive candidates, but when the polls are taken it is the more moderate candidates who are ahead.  And those boring outrages about somebody saying something politically incorrect are chiefly in the twitterverse while most people are not that upset.

I have kind of rambled on, but now I see a path forward.  I have spoken a lot about the twitterverse, but I have never been there.  I am going to have to go there so I can report to the learned fellows of The Institute.

That friend of mine, Steve, who I was writing about a month or two ago is having a remembrance down in Champaign this weekend and I will be leaving Friday morning so I won't be posting then, and maybe not Monday.

Signs of the End

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965

Immigration quotas have been around for a long time, but they have been amended or changed a number of times over the years.  I don't know what kind of quotas they had when our ancestors came here, but I'm pretty sure there were some kind of restrictions.  That's why they made all the European immigrants funnel through Ellis Island, so they could control who got in and who didn't.  They must have had something similar on the West Coast for the Asian immigrants, but I'm not familiar with that.  An interesting thing about the act of 1965 was that it limited immigrants from Latin America for the first time, which had the following effect:

The elimination of the National Origins Formula and the introduction of numeric limits on immigration from the Western Hemisphere, along with the strong demand for immigrant workers by U.S. employers, led to rising numbers of illegal immigrants in the U.S. in the decades after 1965, especially in the Southwest.^[25] Policies in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 that were designed to curtail migration across the Mexican-U.S. border led many unauthorized workers to settle permanently in the U.S.^[26] These demographic trends became a central part of anti-immigrant activism from the 1980s leading to greater border militarization, rising apprehension of migrants by the Border Patrol, and a focus in the media on the criminality of immigrants.^[27]

I'm surprised to hear that there are still people in our age group who are not plugged into the internet.  I thought I was the last holdout who finally came over in 2001.  I used to joke that, since we were well into the 21st Century, it was about time that I caught up with the 20th.

Speaking of jokes, that was what my reference to Biblical prophecy was the other day.  The Mark of the Beast (666)  is mentioned in the Book of Revelation.  I'm not sure what it means exactly, but the number 666 is commonly associated with the Evil Empire that will dominate the world during the End Times.  Jesus said that "There will be wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes in various places" before the End comes, but you will be sure that the End is near when you see "the abomination that makes desolate" set up in the holy place.  Well, this country was an Obama Nation before the Lord for eight years.  Get it?   (I knew some people on the internet who actually believed that back in the day.  It took some research, but I managed to track down the original meaning for them, for which I was rewarded by being removed from their contact list.)  The part about the Trump was a bit of a stretch.  Actually it's supposed to be Gabriel's trumpet, which will be sounded to raise he dead on Judgement Day.  I seem to remember hearing it referred to as "The Trump", probably in a hymn, where it was likely necessary to make it fit into the meter of the line.  The reference to climate change was about some of us going to a very warm place after the Judgement.  I won't mention their names, they know who they are.

a new subject

I've read the sort of articles that Beagles has been citing and I have agreed that there is a problem at the border, but I think it is just a problem among many others and not so dire as oh, the national debt or global warming.  And anyway Beagles is only using the issue to talk about what he is really concerned about, that there are too many Hispanics coming into the country.  I don't see where that is a problem, what dire results are we seeing?  It wasn't that long ago that many good Americans thought that there were too damn many eastern Europeans coming into this country, and if they had made their quotas law some years earlier Beagles would not be ruling his little piece of swamp from which he can decamp at any time for Moravian meadows so that real Americans can enjoy the purple mountain majesties without having to worry about Pilsner beer replacing their Budweiser.

I was looking for something Beagles said maybe a week ago about how soon we wouldn't have to worry about global warning, because, well it wasn't clear to me what, but I think it was because we would soon be at war with North Korea, or Iran, or maybe both.  Certainly drummer boy Bolton is beating the drums of war while Trump dithers and his gang of idiots are well, idiots, and even if they weren't they would act like idiots to please their boss as they lead our ship of state through perilous straits.

I couldn't find that exact statement, but looking for it I came across a subject I wanted to broach before we entered the immigration morass and that is social media.  I'm not sure exactly what I want to say, so let me just ramble, as I so often do, before I hit on it.

I've been doing improv for about five years.  We have a leader, but there is a lot of input from the group also.  The problem is that this takes up an awful lot of time.  You know how it is when one person says something pertinent but that is followed by someone who says something less pertinent and the conversation wanders into the swamp, and some people are blowhards, and some people are nice enough folks but when they talk they go on and on forever.  And meanwhile the boards that we all came to trod remain untrodden.

So I created this facebook page for us.  My reasoning was that this would be a place where we could present our ideas at length without worrying about being interrupted, and people could respond to it.  It is my opinion that when one is writing something one has to consider the idea more than when one is just talking and word follows word without you having to think much about it, but you are likely to rattle on and get way off the point.  If our discussions took place on fb then we could read them at our leisure and we wouldn't have to spend so much time waiting for somebody to finish talking and could spend more time trodding the boards, which is why we come there in the first place.

Now I am the first to admit that in the eyes of finger popping youth I am hopelessly backward, but it is a senior citizens improv group and among them I am a tech maven.  Some of them don't even have email and some of those who do never read theirs and less than half of them are on fb.  The fb page has never taken off as a forum, but I wonder if it had, would this lead to the fbers become a more dominant force than the non fbers.  Does the more technically adept population have a power edge over the less adept?  This is what I want to discuss.  But that will be tomorrow.

A Grain of Salt

The American Immigration Council sounds like a pro-immigration advocacy group to me, so I take everything they say with a grain of salt.  Nevertheless, I will accept their numbers for the purposes of this discussion.  Truth be known, anti-immigration groups and our own government are just as capable of lying, so we should take everything they say with a gain of salt as well.  Here's one number of theirs that jumped out at me: "From 2012 to 2017, over 1.25 million new cases were filed in immigration court,"  If the present rate continues, there will be at least as many new cases filed this year as there were from from 2012 to 2017.  I have said all along that I have nothing against Hipanics except that there are way too many of them pouring into the country.  I would be just as concerned if any other ethnic group were doing that.
"What stuff does Beagles think I don't know that is in his links?  Everything he says I have already
heard."  If Uncle Ken knows what is in my links, then he must just not believe it.  People generally tend to believe what they want to believe, and trying to convince them otherwise is often an exercise in frustration.  I used to be the same way myself, but I like to think that the wisdom of old age has opened my mind a bit.  Please pass the grain of salt, but hold the salsa.

I don't know why everything in this post is double spaced, I didn't do it on purpose.  With any kind of luck it will go away by itself.....Wait, I think it just did.  Go figure!

Speaking of numbers, I heard on the TV news yesterday that, in the year 2017, more people in Michigan were killed by drug overdoses than by guns and automobiles combined.  They didn't provide the actual numbers, that's just what they said.  It was part of a piece that announced a grant or something that is dedicated to treating drug addiction.  I knew that more people are killed by cars than by guns, but I find it hard to believe that drugs kill more people than both of them combined.  Somebody should do a study about that.

the border part last

I knew I didn't want to get into this discussion because I know it never goes anywhere and it just goes on and on, and it gets complicated and there is a lot of confusion as to what exactly we are talking about, but Beagles rather patiently abided while I went through my six parter about my battle with the condominium board so I thought I would respond to him about the border, thinking, well I don't know what, not that it would go on for oh a week now.

It seems to me that Beagles is always conflating several different groups who are trying to cross the border which makes discussion difficult because what applies to one doesn't  apply to the other.  Actually what I think Beagles is concerned about is not so much what is going on at the border as he is about a whole lot of our neighbors to the south getting into this country and prying his ketchup out of his hands and making him eat salsa, so all these border arguments are just kind of a cover.

First there are the legal immigrants who do the paperwork and are waiting in line in their country for their opportunity to get here.  There is a quota on them and the anti immigrant forces are trying to cut it.

Then there are the regular illegal immigrants who have been coming here for maybe a hundred years, mostly Mexicans who want to make more money here than they can in Mexico.  They want to sneak across the border unseen by the border patrol and bus the tables as far north as Cheboygan.  As I said they have been doing this for a hundred years and for a hundred years there has been a hue and cry over this, but so far it doesn't seem to have toppled our Anglo government.

The new kids on the block are the asylum seekers. The asylum seekers are of course also illegal immigrants because they have to cross the border in order to claim asylum, but they are a very different subset then then the set of all illegal immigrants, and to lump them together makes no sense unless your real concern is to save your ketchup and the fuss at the border is just an excuse, like arguing states rights when your real concern is not having black kids go to your kids' school.

I think I pointed out and cited a reference in these very annals that most asylum seekers do show up for their hearings http://immigrationimpact.com/2019/01/30/asylum-seekers-show-up-for-court/#.XQjFgPlKiM8 so why would they do that if they just want to melt into the country?  I'm sure that some of them are gaming the system, but Beagles seems to be saying that they all are.  Where are his facts on this?  See here is a place where a link would be useful.  He could say:  Most asylum seekers are gaming the system and here is where I get that info: "www.asylum_seekers_gaming_system, and hopefully the article will have some actual facts rather than being just some Trumpist blowing his mouth off.

What stuff does Beagles think I don't know that is in his links?  Everything he says I have already heard.

Another morning wasted.  Well I had intended to return to the subject of sin, which I know both dawgs hate, the subject, and the deed also I assume, so maybe it is just as well.

Assimilaion Good - Extermination Bad

I didn't mean to imply that assimilation is a bad thing.  Indeed, I think it's the only thing that can restore peace and harmony after two cultures clash together.  All seven definitions of assimilation involve taking something in.  When you take something in, it becomes a part of yourself, even if it is not recognizable as it's original form.  The alternative would be extermination, which would be about the only way you could totally extinguish a culture.  I suppose that two cultures could co-exist side by side, but there would have to be some sort of boundary between them. It might be a physical barrier, but it wouldn't have to be, as long as both cultures respected each other's space.  Earlier I spoke of a period of conflict that can only be resolved by assimilation.  After Uncle Ken correctly pointed out that "conflict" was a poor choice of words, I changed it to "upheaval" but, the more I think about it, the word I was looking for is "animosity".  Animosity can certainly lead to conflict but, even if it doesn't, it's no fun to live with.  I seem to remember that my original assertion was that the current influx of Hispanics, both legal and illegal, is happening too fast for us to effectively assimilate them, and I still think I'm right about that.  I agree that I shouldn't have said the part about "in some circles".  Truth be known, I have no knowledge of such circles.  Maybe it's just me, but that's all I need anyway.

Not always, but in the current context, all asylum seekers are immigrants, but not all immigrants are asylum seekers.  The people waiting in line on the Mexican side are mostly asylum seekers who are seeking their asylum in a legal fashion.  Trump has claimed the idea of making them wait on the Mexican side as his own, but I seem to remember advancing that concept on this forum before Trump announced his intention of implementing it.  He was prevented by a court order at first, but that order was subsequently vacated by an appeal to a higher court.  I suppose the appeal is being appealed as well but, last I heard, Trumps directive still stands.  The asylum seekers who are turning themselves in after crossing the border illegally are illegal immigrants, pure and simple.  They are employing the asylum tactic in order to remain in the country while their cases are being adjugated, which could take years.  If they manage to produce a child while here, the child will be a natural born citizen, and the parents will not be deported because the courts have ruled that families may not be separated.  These people are gaming the system, but I don't blame them, I blame our government for maintaining a system that can so easily be gamed.

If Uncle Ken has been reading the same news articles to which I have been posting links, I'm surprised that he does not already know this stuff.  I suspect that he has actually been reading different articles than I have.  No other explanation makes sense.

going through the transom stuff on Monday morning

Claiming he did not collude, but that there is nothing wrong with it, and that if he had the opportunity to do it he would, is what I was referring to.  If his plan was to give the reps a bad name the fact that only two or three reps came out to disagree with him on this makes it seem like they are colluding with Trump to give the party that name.

I have kind of toyed with using whites only as a way of making the other side look bad, but pushing it further would take me a little closer to crackpot, which I fear I am already too close to.


I am wondering where Old Dog found our rules and regs,  I think that would be easier to read than my bulky unsearchable hard copy rules and regs along with their addenda.

Actually they want all lights up only on Christmas, and to be turned off by midnight.  I think those are already the rules, but of course they have never been enforced.  There is also some curious rule that your lights should not be visible from the street, I mean WTF.  That's why I would like to be part of making the survey, but apparently I am not.  I'm not pushing it right now because I don't think it would do any good and I get kind of crazy when I am pushing this war.  I'll make some kind of fuss at the next board meeting which I think is this Thursday/

I wonder if Old Dog's current baking mania is an offshoot of this work with 3d printers, cam machines and research into Asian cockroaches.  From gentleman scientist to gentleman baker.


As far as one culture crowding in on another, actually I think it is a process of both sides picking up things they like from each other, I think it is something that has always been going on and always will be and being against it is something like being against winter.

I think it is one thing for Argentina to default on its debt and another thing for the world's largest economy to do so.

This argument that good behavior (waiting in line) is being punished and bad behavior (jumping the fence) is being rewarded is specious.  The latter might be true, but the former isn't because the immigration quotas are not effected by illegal immigration.

I didn't catch why we don't have to worry about global warming because of this 666 thing.  Is it because we are going to blow up the world, or maybe Beagles is speaking of the second coming, yes I see biblical prophesy in Beagles' words.

Is This It?

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/12/trump-fbi-foreign-information-1362788?fbclid=IwAR15hYkrSZ3b15Gs-1OC-4rwfD2FhV-lbTeSf8k-QmSyu1tNQoO7kB20hh8

Saw this on Face Book tonight, sounds like what Uncle Ken was talking about on Friday.  What a dork!  (Trump, not Uncle Ken)  I'm still not convinced that his main purpose in running for president wasn't to give the Republicans a bad name.

Since I'm here, I got an idea the other day for a tactic Uncle Ken might try to get his Christmas lights back.  My hypothetical wife says it's a stupid idea, but she says that about a lot of the things that I come up with.  I still think it might be worth a try if all else fails.  Tell them that the multicolored lights represent the diversity of which you guys are all so proud.  Restricting the lights to white only smacks of racism and homophobia.  Uncle Ken might want to practice in front of a mirror, because it will be necessary to deliver these lines with a straight face.

A saucy time

Uncle Ken's efforts in dealing with his condo board are to be commended.  I didn't realize what a daunting task he was facing until I read some of the rules and by-laws that are available online.  You can feel the unseen hand of real estate bigshots influencing the rules, phrased in a way that it takes a law degree to figure out what's really being said.  One thing I noticed, though, is that although a lot of things are forbidden it looks like you can get away with a lot if you ask the board nicely and they grant you permission.  It's a giant loophole available to those who petition on bended knee.

I didn't examine all the rules very closely but it appears the only pets that are permitted are cats, service dogs, and small birds.  I wonder what the condo board has against tropical fish.

Regarding the lights, I have the impression that the white lights are permitted all year long.  How about asking for a "winter holiday exemption" that would allow colored lights from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day?  It sounds reasonable to me.

-----

I see that salsa has made a return appearance and I'm curious as to what Uncle Ken means when he mentions salsa, which simply means sauce in Spanish.  The Mexican salsa that I get is very similar in texture to Tabasco or Louisiana Hot Sauce but a little thicker.  The green stuff I have, salsa verde, is different in both color and texture.  It's kind of chunky but I haven't read the label to see what's in it; I just toss it on the food as needed.  And where does pico de gallo fit into all of this?  Is it salsa or something else?

Hold the phone!  All questions about salsa can be answered here; should have checked earlier.  And Uncle Ken's favorite, Salsa Casera, is just home made sauce.  Whether red, green, fresh, raw, or piquant, I don't know.  An argumentative person could make a good case that ketchup is salsa but it won't be me.

Apparently I've started a new trend with my sister's family.  It started when I baked a cake for my niece's birthday, and continued with blueberry muffins for my sister's birthday.  And tomorrow is the 30th birthday of the twins, Rachel and Scott, and I'm on the hook to bake some pumpkin squares from one of my mother's recipes.  I was never crazy about them but what are you going to do?  My test batch was okay, but I thought a little bland so I kicked up the spices a little.  Maybe they'll like them, maybe they won't but they smelled great as they were baking.

Discovered a funny quirk with my stove which I didn't notice until I used a big pan for the pumpkin squares: the oven racks aren't level.  The burners on the range are fine, fried eggs don't slide to one end of the skillet but I can have the range level, the oven racks level, but not both at the same time.  Maybe there's a hidden adjustment somewhere but I doubt it.  It's a cheap small oven but since I don't have to pay for cooking gas I'm not complaining.

The End is Near!

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/assimilate

"assimilate (third-person singular simple present assimilates, present participle assimilating, simple past and past participle assimilated)

1. (transitive) To incorporate nutrients into the body, especially after digestion. quotations ▼

   Food is assimilated and converted into organic tissue.

2. (transitive) To incorporate or absorb (knowledge) into the mind. quotations ▼

   The teacher paused in her lecture to allow the students to assimilate what she had said.

3. (transitive) To absorb (a person or people) into a community or culture.

   The aliens in the science-fiction film wanted to assimilate human beings into their own race.

4. (transitive) To compare to something similar. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
5. (transitive) To bring to a likeness or to conformity; to cause a resemblance between. quotations ▼

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Sir M. Hale to this entry?)

6. (intransitive) To become similar.
7. (intransitive) To be incorporated or absorbed into something."

As is often the case when people argue about definitions, Uncle Ken and I are both correct.  I am using definition 3, and I think that Uncle Ken is using definition 7.  As it happens, my assertion that assimilation is a two way street works for both of them.  Whether Culture A assimilates Culture B, or Culture B assimilates into Culture A, the result is the same.  Culture B is diminished but not extinguished, it is incorporated into Culture A, and Culture A will never be quite the same again.
I agree that words like "conflict" and "survivors" are not appropriate here because we are dealing with refugees rather than invaders.  Nevertheless, when one culture crowds in on another culture, there is usually a period of upheaval that ends, maybe centuries later, when the two cultures assimilate each other.  It's not the end of the world, but it can be downright inconvenient for those who are experiencing it.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

The following is copied from the link that Uncle Ken provided in his last post:

"A more recent example is Argentina, which defaulted on its debt in late 2001 on $132 billion in loans. The amount represented one-seventh of all the money borrowed by the third world at the time. After a period of uncertainty, the country opted to devalue its currency and was eventually able to recover with GDP growth of around 90% over the nine-year since."

This seems to confirm what I said about Argentina doing fine.  Or course, they weren't doing fine right after they defaulted, but they're doing okay now.  I thought the rest of the article tended to confirm what I said about sovereign default, except for the "restructuring" part, which is not germane to my argument.  My point is that, while it's not much fun, sovereign default is not the end of the world.  According to the article, lots of countries have defaulted in the past, some of them multiple times, and they're still functioning today.  In the case of the US, and I believe most of the countries of the modern world, the national debt is an important tool for managing the ups and downs of the economic cycle.  When they think the economy needs a boost, they buy government debt from private brokers with money that they create out of nothing.  When they think the economy is running too hot, they take money out of circulation by selling government debt.  The total debt will never be payed off, it is periodically refinanced by issuing more bonds.  I know it shouldn't work, but it does, as long as there are plenty of buyers for those new bonds.

The reason the asylum seekers turn themselves in after crossing the border illegally is that they know they will be fed and cared for, and then released on the US side.  Legal immigrants, on the other hand, have to wait on the Mexican side at their own expense for their applications to be processed.  Good behavior is being punished and bad behavior is being rewarded.  Anybody who has trained a dog or a kid will tell you that's not the way to do it.

"So how about if a guy is on trial for a bank robbery he says he didn't commit says he doesn't think bank robbing is illegal and if the chance came to rob one came up he might very well do it?  I think you all know who I am referring to." - I think that you are probably referring to Trump, but I am unfamiliar with the particular case in point.  If you want me to comment on it, you will have to give me more information than that.

Speaking of the end of the world, there are signs that it might indeed be upon us.  A little over thirteen years ago, the date was "6-6-6", which is the Sign of the Beast.  Since then, there have been wars and rumors of wars.  Now the Obama Nation has come and gone, and the Trump is sounding loudly throughout the land.  Coincidence? I think not!  The good news is that we don't have to worry about the climate heating up anymore.  Well, at least some of us don't.

If the prez doesn't think it's illegal then it must be legal

As I said most of Beagles's recent posts have been garden variety news types of stuff I have already read in the papers, magazines, internet, radio, tv, so I am already aware of the information.  If it is something that is unusual or has some direct bearing on what Beagles is talking about, I will read it, otherwise I won't. 

An asylum seeker is somebody who wants to leave his country so therefore they are all immigrants.  But there are also immigrants who are trying to sneak into the country, whereas asylum seekers give themselves up the minute they cross the border.  They are two different groups and mixing them up clouds the issue.

Assimilation is a one way street.  If you mean something else you have to use another word.

There is concern in some circles that Hispanic lumps are currently being added faster than the pot can melt them

This sounds like Trump saying many people have said or very smart lawyers have told me,  .Myself I am not that concerned,  Beagles is not worried about global warming because he lives in the swamp where it does not effect him.  So far salsa has not made an appearance in the relatively cosmopolitan Cheboygan, so I don't see why he is worried about trouble at the border. 

Some progress was made on global warming under Obama.  Much of that has been reversed by Trump, we are now headed the other way.

I have to admit that I was shocked to hear that Argentina defaulted, but apparently this sort of thing happens all the time,  It doesn't however mean that the nation rids itself of its debt, it just restructures its debt, generally by lowering the payments and extending the length of the payments as this link explains,  https://www.thebalance.com/what-happens-when-a-country-defaults-1978981  I also don't think Argentina is doing fine,  Is Beagles implying that we shouldn't worry about the debt because we can just refuse to pay it and everything will be fine?


So how about if a guy is on trial for a bank robbery he says he didn't commit says he doesn't think bank robbing is illegal and if the chance came to rob one came up he might very well do it?  I think you all know who I am referring to.

Words and Numbers

When I post a link to an article with little or no explanation it's usually because it pertains to a subject that we have been discussing lately.  My purpose is not to back up a particular statement that I have made, it's to shed some light on the subject in general.  We can discuss the article, pros and cons, if all three of us has read it, but we can't reasonably discuss something that one or more of us has not read.  A lot of guys might selectively quote brief statements out of context that support their position, but I don't usually do that.  Okay, sometimes I do that with old sayings, but that's not what I'm doing when I post a link to a complete article.

Immigration is when people travel from one country to another with no intention of ever going back.   Technically, you have to emigrate from one country before you can immigrate to another, but people who do that are commonly just called immigrants.  Asylum can either be a temporary or a permanent thing, but most of the asylum seekers these days are really immigrants who are just using the asylum law as a way to get into the country.  There is an annual quota for regular immigrants, but asylum seekers are not counted in that quota.  There may be a separate quota for them, but I'm not sure about that.

Assimilation is a two way street, but the larger group is usually thought of as assimilating the smaller group.  Remember the Borg on Star Trek?  They always said "You will be assimilated", not "You will assimilate us,"  Technically, both groups were assimilating each other, but the Borg, believing themselves to be the dominant group, didn't look at it that way.  I think that's why they have annual immigration quotas, to insure that we assimilate the immigrants instead of the other way around.  The term "melting pot" implies that diverse people mutually assimilate each other, resulting in an alloy that is hopefully stronger than any of its single elements.  New populations that are not yet assimilated are referred to as "lumps in the meting pot".

There is concern in some circles that Hispanic lumps are currently being added faster than the pot can melt them, which will make for a poor alloy that is not properly blended.  The numbers lately have been running in excess of a hundred thousand a month, but those are just the illegals that are being apprehend and subsequently released on our side of the border.  There are also around ten thousand legal asylum seekers who are waiting on the Mexican side for their cases to come up.  Add that to the untold millions of Hispanics, both legal and illegal, who are already here, and you can see why some people are concerned.

I wouldn't say that nothing is being done about climate change.  Windmills and solar panels have been sprouting up all over the country like mushrooms for years.  I understand that Europe is ahead of us in that effort, but I think that Asia and Africa are way behind, waiting for us to give them the money to do it.  Last I heard, the carbon tax was languishing in committee, which is a good place for it.  Truth be known, it wouldn't hurt me a bit.  With 88 acres of prime swamp land and a population of two, Beaglesonia is surely sucking more carbon out of the air than it is putting in, so they should be paying us.  Lots of luck on that one!

The National Debt we will always have with us. It's the way they try to control the economy but, of course, the economy often has a mind of its own.  The worst thing that can happen would be if people quit loaning the government money, in which case, they would go into default and start all over again.  Argentina did that a few years ago and, last I heard, they were doing fine.