Heatwave
Since I moved to Minnesota, Grumpy Old Men has taken on a deeper resonance. According to the weatherman, the next heatwave (translate: temperatures above freezing) won't be until December 10, when we might see the 40s. Following the ads on T.V. suggesting that I not hibernate this winter, I'm trying to peek my head out once in a while. The lakes look different fresh-frozen, before they haul all the fishing houses out on them.
Birds
Watching the news this week, there have been a lot of turkeys. I felt sorry for the pair of them pardoned by Bush who were taken from their native Minnesota to live as an attraction at Disneyworld in Florida. I see heatstroke in their future.
I’ve never been particularly fond of bald eagles, and always found it rather poignant that our national symbol would be an endangered predator. But the really interesting bit I heard today on a History Channel program about thanksgiving was this:
From the start, the eagle was a controversial choice. Franklin scowled at it. “For my part,” he declared, “I wish the eagle had not been chosen as the representative of this country. He is a bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched in some dead tree where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing hawk and, when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish and is bearing it to his nest for his young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes the fish. With all this injustice, he is never in good case.”
Some people have since questioned whether the eagle would have been chosen to adorn the seal had the nation not been at war. A year after the Treaty of Paris ended the conflict with Great Britain, Franklin argued that the turkey would have been a more appropriate symbol. “A much more respectable bird and a true native of America,” he pointed out. Franklin conceded that the turkey was “a little vain and silly,” but maintained that it was nevertheless a “bird of courage” that “would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.” Congress was not convinced, however. The eagle remained our national symbol. (here)
There’s also the matter of the bird being bred so fat and awkward that it can’t really move—the turkey exists as a painstakingly engineered foodstuff. Neither alternative really seems attractive as a “national symbol.”
Quirk
QB's new subheading thingy sent me rummaging through my LPs.
The Prairie
Bimbling
My schedule this year has really caused me to back-off from blogging. Unlike my last round of being an absentee landlord this summer, this time I actually do miss it. Sometimes I wonder if I will lose my ability to write in an entertaining manner if I continue with this “serious scholarship” stuff. I hope not—especially since I freakishly find “serious scholarship” immensely entertaining when it is done right.
I think what I miss most is bimbling. The odd thing is that as I become more focused in my research, the evidence of that research on my blog does appear to be random and aimless. That’s why I miss blogging so much this time, I guess. It’s the one part of my writing environment that doesn’t necessarily have to make sense—one can bimble instead.
There was a young Lady named Sairey
Wished a photograph (good) of the dairy,
She was told that, for views,
The best box to use
Was Anthony’s new one called “Fairy.”
She then told her friend how she guessed
That in a new lens she’d invest,
So she bought a Dallmeyer
And though it cost higher
Than poor ones she found it the best.
For dry plates she then made a dash,
But she found that so many were trash,
She believed they all lied,
Until Eastman’s she tried,
When she found them to be just the (hash)!
MORAL.
If experience from this you would gain,
The road to success was quite plain.
Come out of the woods,
Get first quality goods,
Avoiding both trouble and pain.
Anonymous limerick from Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin, vol. 16. no. 1 (January 10, 1885)
