Pheasants, Corn, Cops, Torture, and Souls

I had some experience working with pheasants on Orin Bolin's game farm near Kankakee, Illinois, and I thought I had a better way to do it. The thing about pheasants is that they tend to pick on each other if they're the last bit crowded. Most growers solve this by clipping their beaks or putting blinders on them. That's fine if you're raising them to butcher but, if you plan on releasing them to the wild, it may inhibit their ability to survive. It's a tough world out there, and a bird needs all its parts and skills intact. My idea was to free range them like the old fashioned way of keeping chickens. You turn them loose in the morning and, when it starts to get dark, they congregate back in their coop where they will be safe for the night.

Well, it worked fine with the chickens that we kept for over three years. We lost a few early on, but most of them soon adapted to the routine and prospered. Pheasants, on the other hand, are more spooky than chickens. They can fly at two weeks, but that doesn't mean they know where they are going or how to get back. For some reason, they seemed to want to fly directly into the dog pen, which proved to be a one way trip. I tried it again after my last dog died but, without the dogs nearby to scare off predators, a fox soon learned that it could trap the birds in their coop before I closed the door for the night. What I need to do is build a sturdy pen, big enough so that the birds won't feel the least bit crowded. I think I can release them at six weeks, but not leave the gate open so they and the predators can come and go at will. The birds need to be either inside or outside but not both. Like I said, though, I haven't had the time or energy to build such a pen, and I'm not getting any younger.

The thing about the corn is that I want it to be there over the winter when the wildlife needs it most, but they won't let it last that long. That's why I like the rye, it's green for deer season, and again in the spring when the deer are hungry, but it's no good in the winter when it's covered by a couple feet of snow. Corn, if left standing, might stick out above the snow, if the deer let it live that long, but they won't.

Cops: Police work is dangerous, which is why they carry guns. Supposedly they are trained about when it's appropriate to shoot somebody and when it's not. Every time there is a police shooting, an investigation is launched, and the cop is taken off the street until it's completed. Generally, a cop is allowed to use deadly force if he believes that his, or somebody else's, life is in danger. I imagine that's a tough call to make in the heat of the moment. Be that as it may, the same rules and standards should be applied no matter what the race of the cop or the suspect. What some people seem to be saying is that a cop can shoot a White suspect but not a Black one. Every time one of these incidents occurs, it is assumed that the White guy was in the wrong and the Black guy was in the right, evidence not withstanding. Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?

Torture, let me say this about that: It sucks on all levels. Not only is it un-American and inhumane, it's generally ineffective. Torture a person long enough and he will tell you anything you want to hear, whether it's true or not. What good is false intelligence? I don't know how much truth there is to the allegations of torture during the Bush-Cheney years, but anybody who can be proven to have done, ordered it, or allowed it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The fact that this wasn't done leads me to suspect that at least some of the allegations were groundless. Like most stories, there probably is some truth in it. The question is, "How much?" Somebody should investigate that.

Big news from the Vatican! I saw on the news this evening that the Pope has recently decreed that animals have souls and can go to Heaven. I am not making this up! Presumably he just meant Catholic animals, although the news didn't say that. They did interview a few other theologians who gave it mixed reviews. One guy pointed out that there is nothing in the Bible saying that animals do not have souls. He may be right about that, but I don't think it says that they do have souls either. I seem to remember you saying that, while you don't believe in God or Heaven, you do believe that you have a soul. So, what about your cats, do they have souls too?

arguments should be well-formed and logical

If your aren’t going to harvest the corn what do you care if the deer and the raccoons take it before it is ripe? I don’t remember the pheasant story, why don’t you run that one by me again?

I know you don’t watch Fox news, and the fact is I don’t watch it much anymore either. It’s just the same thing over and over again. It’s not even fun to rebut their arguments. But then I guess their stuff goes back and forth between the politicians and the columnists and whatever, so that it is all the same thing. The left does that too, somebody thinks up some argument or phrase that they think is pretty cool, and then they are all saying it.

Actually what Bill O’Reilly and that ex-mayor of New York were saying was something like well what about all the black on crime? Which was a little different from what you were saying, but it sounded close to me. But that argument doesn’t make any sense. What does black on black crime have to do with blacks getting shot by white policemen? Does it mean that as long as so many blacks are killed by other blacks, it’s okay for white cops to pick off a few? Should we wait until there was less black on black crime before we became upset by white cops shooting black people?

I suppose buried in there is some kind of argument that they shouldn’t be demonstrating, when they could be spending their time fighting black on black crime (and that is a whole bogus argument used in politics all the time, why are we talking about this problem when there is a whole other problem that is even bigger, like people can’t do more than one thing at a time.). Also that is like the argument about why doesn’t Pedro stay in Mexico and fix their corrupt government instead of jumping the border. Like Pedro can do anything about the government. Why don’t we white people do something about all those hedge fund and banker thieves?

But on the narrow issue of demonstrations, I keep thinking why aren’t they going door to door and registering their people to vote, and getting out that vote on election day? But the thing is, demonstrating is kind of fun, and it only takes up a few nights and you feel so good about yourself for having spoken those brave words. But registering people is slow work and not much fun at all.

It is a mystery to me why Ferguson became such a big deal. Stuff like that happens here every couple of months. The cops say one thing, the witnesses say another and actually maybe there are some demonstrations, but they are strictly local and don’t last more than a day or two. It may be something like boiling water where the tension just builds and builds and then it comes to a boil.

I was going to say something about those torture reports, but I am almost out of time. Okay then a couple short sentences. Remember how they told us in school how the United States of America does not torture and we don’t lock up people indefinitely without giving them a trial, and it gave us a little pride, we were a little better than other countries. And now that is all out the window, now we do both, and it doesn’t bother us a bit.

I Miss the Corn and the Pheasants

When I first moved here, I said this area only needs two things to make it perfect, corn and pheasants. It's true that there is some corn raised here, but nothing like what they have in Illinois. There are a few hunt clubs in the region that raise or buy pheasants, but it's pretty much put and take because they don't survive the winter. People say that it's too cold, but that can't be true because pheasants originated in Mongolia. The problem is that adult pheasants eat seeds and it's pretty hard to find seeds under two or three feet of snow. While Mongolia is at least as cold as Michigan, it's a lot drier and windier. Any snow that falls there gets quickly blown away, or so I am told.

I have considered planting some corn and not harvesting it, but my experience with sweet corn is that the deer and raccoons eat it all a day or two before it's ready to be picked, so there wouldn't be any left by winter, which is when it's needed. I tried to raise pheasants a few times over the years. My plan was to release them when they grew up, but keep putting out feed, hoping that they would hang around through the winter and reproduce in the spring. I think I have told you how that turned out. I still think I could find a way to make it work, but I don't seem to have the time or energy for any more projects right now. It's getting so that I barely have time to get my firewood put up before I have to start burning it.

You keep accusing me of getting my ideas from Fox News, but I don't even watch Fox News! I was just wondering why there is suddenly all this fuss about cops shooting Black people. Are they shooting them more often now than they ever have? Of course that doesn't make it right, I'm just trying to put it into some kind of perspective. At some point the media will tire of this subject and move on to something else. When they do, that won't necessarily mean that the problem is solved, just that the public will be too excited about the next big thing to worry about it any longer.

dumber than a Texan?

Trees are nice. Some years ago there was a woman in the watercolor class and when I learned that she had once lived in Marina City, I was puzzled by how anybody who once lived here would ever want to move out. “Well,” she sighed, “I just wanted to see some trees.”

I don’t remember Atlas Shrugged saying anything about soybeans, but I think there was something subversive about them, probably because they were from China. Now there are probably as much soybeans as there is corn, though a field of soybeans is nowhere near as dramatic as corn.

In Texas they had, as the song goes, miles and miles of miles and miles, and mostly they raised cattle on it. I just read an article on bronco busters in Texas and how the broncs are getting bigger and meaner and the riders are getting killed younger and younger. Oh wait, not broncos, bulls. Well I have to admit I had to google that one to find out exactly what a bronco is, but then it was all about the Denver broncos. You can never find out anything about anything if there is a sports team or a rock band with the same name. Anyway Texans are nuts.

But wait, now that I think about it the article was about Oklahomans. Well Oklahomans are just like Texans only dumber and poorer.

I thought you were taking a side on Ferguson, because all the Foxies were saying something like well how come nobody says anything about black on black crime, as if somehow people should be talking about that instead. But the fact is that everybody is talking about black on black crime all the time, and why does not talking about one preclude talking about the other?

It’s hard to say if the media is blowing it out of proportion. The thing is when something like this happens every politician and pundit wants to get their word in, and the media has to cover that because that is what the news is. But then there is the cable news, and the cable news loves a riot, or a storm, or anything where they can get their reporters standing somewhere with a microphone while all around them is light and noise.

I have to admit I tuned in to it a little bit because what the hell else was on the stupid tube? And at one point I was watching some group of young hotheads in New York I think it was, and they were trying to kick in a cyclone fence so that they could get down to the expressway to block it, and there was the guy with the microphone beside them and all the lights from the cameras, and I have to tell you, for a bunch of hotheads they weren’t making much progress on the fence. One guy would rush up and give it a good kick, and then the next guy, and then the next guy, and I finally asked myself, why am I watching this, and I went to bed.

You know my side of the generation like to think that our protests ended the Vietnam war, but in the mellowness of time I’m not so sure. I think it was more the coffins and the treasure squandered and the way it went on and on without victory and nobody was even sure what victory means. I imagine these protests alienate as many people as it energizes. People marching peacefully may help, but Burn This Bitch down doesn’t.

Trees Are Cool

Whatsamatter, you don't like trees? I thought that everybody liked trees! All kidding aside, you're right that corn is the priority crop on any land that will grow it on a commercial scale, although soybeans have become equally important in our lifetimes. Remember in "Atlas Shrugged" when the introduction of soybeans was supposed to be a commie plot to destroy the wheat growers of America? Well, that book was written way back in the 50s, and I guess some people believed that in those days. Since then soybeans have become as American as apple pie and they are commonly grown in rotation with corn. Of course, not all land and climates are suitable for crops like corn and soybeans. It's a good thing too, because we also need the other stuff like wheat, hay, and pasture. Trees are important too, but they are usually grown on land that's not suitable for food and fodder crops. Trees do things, it just takes them longer, that's all.

We have bobcats in Michigan, but they are reclusive and seldom seen by humans. If we have any lynxes, I'm sure they are confined to the U.P and not plentiful enough to hunt or trap. Of course, that's what they used to say about wolves until recently, so you never know. Rumors of cougar sightings around here were not taken seriously until a few years ago when, not far from here, somebody found some cougar poop and had it confirmed by DNA analysis. I think that all cats pee on stuff to mark it as theirs, at least the males do anyway. If this habit hurts their ability to hunt, I have never heard of it.

I was not trying to take sides in this killer cop controversy, I just wondered if the news media wasn't blowing it out of proportion. As I have said before, I believe that each case should be judged according to the facts and not people's social and political agendas. As for the protests, I think that America got all protested out during the 60s. Nowadays a protest is at least as likely to make people hostile to a cause as it is to make them sympathetic to it. Of course the actual riots don't do anybody any good.

how many white hunters kill deer with a taped up weapon while searching for the top quark?

I still retain that central Illinois philosophy that, except for houses and stuff, land not being used for growing corn is land wasted. When I went to Pittsburgh I was shocked at the tree carpeted mountains along the side of the road. They just sat there doing nothing. Well I suppose it would be hard to grow corn on a mountainside, unless you were a moonshiner, I hear they do that all the time.

Any cats up there? Lately it appears there are more cougars than anybody thought there were, and they are so sneaky that if you can’t see them, that just proves they are there. What about lynxes, aren’t those cats of the frozen waste? And bobcats, surely there are bobcats. I saw one at a rescue station some years ago, and even before you got to his little area it stank to high heaven. People there said that they peed all over to protect their territory, but wouldn’t that make it hard for them to sneak up on prey?

I was being lazy when I said that about the Higgs bosun. I knew that they had found it a year or two ago, but I was just searching for an example and I thought how the hell would Beagles, way up there, and only catching what little news comes on during the market report, and probably not subscribing to Scientific American, know about that? Oh what a world we live in.

I was probably thinking of the top quark, another one of those elusive particles, that if they couldn’t find it, then they would have to toss the whole of modern physics into the dustbin and start over, but then I wikied it and discovered: the two groups jointly reported the discovery of the top with a certainty of 99.9998%

So I guess that’s good enough for me. Maybe now we have found everything.

The last half of your last paragraph refers to several events of late that I guess could be generally considered Ferguson. This thing about how many black cops kill white people etc, is just a Fox canard. What difference does that make? If more or less, say, black cops kill white people, does that make it okay or less okay?

And anyway, just thinking about it, it’s pretty clear that there would be more white cops killing black people since most cops are white and blacks, due to their lower income, are disproportionately in the criminal class. The problem is do they do it too much, or just the right amount, or too little.

At the bottom is should they have shot that guy in Ferguson (my own opinion, probably) or strangled that guy in Cleveland (my own opinion, probably not), that kid with the toy gun (my own opinion, probably not). There is the individual case. But then in more general terms is the issue of whether the local police are too brutal or racist. But then above that is the more general issue of are police in general brutal or racist. But then above that is the more general issue of whether black people are treated right or not. And then there are all these side issues like, even so, do these protests do any good, or should the police be driving tanks?

Flat is Boring

Michigan is pretty flat, although not as flat as Illinois and Indiana. We don't have any real mountains, just enough hills to break up the monotony. Well, there are the Porcupine Mountains in the U.P. I have never seen them, but I'm sure they don't hold a candle to the Rockies or even the Appalachians. I think most of our hills were formed by the glaciers when they gouged out the Great Lakes because they are mostly sand. In the hilly areas, most of the farming is done on the bottom lands and the sandy hills have been allowed to revert to forest. In the flatter areas, it is the high ground that gets farmed because the lower land is generally too wet for that.

Beaglesonia is about half swamp and half "uplands", the difference in elevation being only a foot or two. You can't dig a hole anywhere on the property more than three feet deep without hitting water. We had to haul in sand and raise the grade three feet to build our house, otherwise the crawl space would have flooded and the septic system would not have worked.

They grow some corn in Michigan, mostly in the southern part, but not on the scale that Illinois and Indiana does. There are a few dairy farms around here that raise corn to feed their own cows, but they don't even try to combine it, they just chop it for silage, stalks and all. Our growing season is usually too short to allow the corn to dry out sufficiently for combining.

Those little weasels thrive in the forest, but I think they do just as well in the farm country. I think badgers prefer open fields to woods. I have only seen one since I moved up here, and I was surprised to see that one. Minks, which are also weasels, live on the shores of lakes and streams. I see them frequently when I'm fishing on the Cheboygan River right in town. Wolverines are rare anyplace, but they are usually found in remote mountain areas like the Rockies. I believe there is one known to be living wild in the U.P. There used to be a different one, but it was found dead shortly before this second one appeared on the scene. They both probably drifted down from Canada, as did the timber wolves, which have proliferated to the point where limited hunting of them is allowed. The antis fought it for years after the feds took the wolves off the endangered list and turned them over to the states, but the will of the people eventually prevailed, at least for now.

You mentioned the other day that the Higgs-Boson was still theoretical, but I seem to remember hearing or reading that somebody had recently isolated one. Maybe it turned out to be fraudulent, like the occasional claim that cold fusion has been worked out. It never ceases to amaze me how something can be all over the news for a few days or weeks and then you don't hear any more about it. Lately it's been all about White cops shooting Black people. I wonder how the stats compare with Black cops shooting Black people, or Black cops shooting White people, or White cops shooting White people.