Mockingbird Arias for Autumn

It's a warm, sunny morning here on Alligator Creek and just this moment a mockingbird, perched on a frond in Frida Kahlo's pineapple palm, is singing her wild heart out. She's doing it all, from "Pretty Bird" to never-to-be-written Arias, one replacing the other with equal speed. Today is the Autumn Equinox, that brief moment when light and dark are equal. Now the days grow shorter and the night long.

Snoring bird

A bird is snoring somewhere out along Alligator Creek tonight. It's a soft chittering sound. Maybe birds don't snore. I don't know. I don't care. In my mind's eye I see a bird napping in the mangroves, head resting on its chest, beak nestled in its feathers, snoring away under the remnant of this year's Harvest Moon. Even two nights later, it was about the biggest, orangest moonrise I've ever seen. I wonder if birds dream about the moon.

Voices in the night

Tin can voice bug is quiet tonight for the first time in a couple of months. I miss him. However the frogs are chatting away about the nearly full moon and the wet cool night. They don't croak like other frogs I've heard. Still their rubbery-voiced, wet bellows conversation in squeaks, trills and purrs is delightful. This is the second to the last Wednesday before we leave so, starting tomorrow, everyday for the next week will be our last.

The Scarecrow

There's something interesting going on with Chipotle. They are blending business and bio-ethics. Not a first but a good video. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out.

Back to forward

Now the family has come and gone and it feels pretty empty around here. Even the light feels empty, as it does when the sun is in sidereal Leo. But the bug or frog or whoever it is who croaks like a stick drumming on a tin can is singing in the mangroves tonight and in just over a week we drive back to Nevada and, shortly after that, leave for China. These are the good old days but I never want to forget how it used to be staring out the window at a dead end world.

Life at the beach

Holy cow! I'm so in the rears with this thing. Life is streaming by. Something must be said of the days past. They were good. We walked on the beach early the other morning and came upon the Turtle Patrol checking on a loggerhead nest. In this particular nest most of the babies had already hatched but this morning three were struggling to the surface.

The sun was fully risen. The birds were out. A very dangerous time. Thea, Kristiana and I joined a small group of beach goers helping the volunteers protect the hatch-lings on their long journey to the nearby sea. Two of the babies were still a bit misshapen from their time in the egg. One had a lagging flipper, the other a slight hourglass shape to its shell. We, the human shield, guarded them as they struggled over clumps of sea grass left by the night's high tide. They labored up, down and across valleys of footprints in the sand. The first one sprinted across the wet shore and disappeared under the waves accompanied by cheers and camera flashes. The seagulls were far down the beach but, as just to be safe, one of the men in our group followed it into the water to ward off any possible death from above. It didn't matter. Baby One swam out and, as if from a secret fold in the universe, seagulls appeared and snatched it up and away in spite of our mad waving and shouting.

Just then Baby Two reached the sea and swam out into the waves. This time we were ready and determined to ward off the ravenous gulls. We waved and shouted at the sky. The guy in the water jumped and splashed. Baby Two was snatched up anyway. An aerial battle ensued, seagull on seagull, dive bombing, screeching, dipping, twisting. Baby Two dropped back into the water to more cheers and sudden hopes. It didn't matter. A seagull swooped down and claimed our darling and the battle resumed, rolling down the beach like a storm.

Baby Three continued its perilous journey toward the waves. Generally loggerhead hatchlings emerge from their nests in the sand at night when it's cool and the birds are asleep so, at this point, the Turtle Patrol intervened. They scooped it up into protective custody with a promise to all they'd return in the dark and release it to its fate in the sea.

Police fury

Congratulations to the DOJ for their recent decision to allow the states to create a regime that would regulate and implement the ballot initiatives that legalized the use of marijuana for adults. Predictably, police organizations are up in arms. Guess what boys. Prohibition doesn't work. Never has. Never will. We know it and so do you.

I, for one, don't want the police state this "war" has created. The United States has less than 5 % of the world's population but has almost 25% of the world's prisoners and keeps them incarcerated longer than than other nations.  

Just as the unlimited cold hard cash  from alcohol prohibition gave rise to the mafia, the richer-than-God profits generated by this cash cow "drug war" gave rise to the cartels and funds the quasi-military police state that is developing in the country. The UN estimates that the drug market in America alone is worth 60 billion dollars. At this point police have grown very fond of the gobs of dirty money they keep for themselves. Time to gut the profit all around. Money, power and prestige corrupts everything it touches on both sides of the law.

Source: Police Groups Furiously Protest Eric Holder's Marijuana Policy Announcement