WAITING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE?

 

 

I know there is a difference between weather and climate.  Maine has been in a freak weather pattern for the month of June.   We have had only seven days this month without rain – seven dry days. 

 

This is unprecedented, and only the future will be able to determine if this is a changing weather pattern due to climate change. 

 

However, being a long-time resident of Maine I can declare through my observations that I am witnessing the result of climate change by the encroachment of invasive species.

 

Ticks are now an epidemic in Maine, causing serious illnesses to people.  Moose and deer are covered with ticks.  Domestic and commercial animals are plagued with ticks.   There were no ticks in Maine before 1990.  I was a survival instructor and avid hunter and fisherman between the years 1960 and 1985.  I regularly slept on the ground and sat on the ground, as did all of my students in survival training, and never once witnessed a tick. 

47,000 ticks on a moose ( New York Times)

 

Tagged moose

The water in the Gulf of Maine is warming and now becoming infested with green crabs that feed on young lobster and shellfish, affecting the future of fisheries on the coast.   Fisheries are now moving farther offshore because of the warming. 

 

The brown-tail moth is now showing up in the coastal regions of Maine killing trees and carrying poisonous spines that can cause serious rashes similar to poison ivy.

 

I spent eight years in Alaska and witnessed the melting of glaciers, and shore ice in the far north. 

Herbert Glacier Juneau, Alaska

Bears hunted seals on the frozen ice, now they have become a danger to the villages.

The indications are here but only visible to people old enough to have witnessed the changes.    To young people, of course, the now is the norm.  

 

Observations from an Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just read Stacy Abrams’ book While Justice Sleeps. 

If you are looking for summer reading material, this is a thriller about the Supreme Court; it strikes relevant in today’s legal turmoil.

You might remember Stacy Abrams as the voting rights advocate from Georgia.   

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

LOCK HIM UP – IT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN

 

 

There are three reasons that former President Trump will never wear an orange jumpsuit.

 

First: The Presidential Protection Act of 2012 gives Secret Service Protection to all former Presidents for life, and there is no exception for incarceration.   This would create an impossible situation for any jail or penitentiary.  

 

Second: No judge will want to go down in history as the person who ruled to incarcerate an ex-President.   The violent factions of the MAGA extreme would place a target on the judge and his or her family, their lives would be in danger and they would require protection for the rest of their lives.  No judge is going to accept this personal consequence.

 

Third: The liberal-biased Supreme Court will never allow Trump to be incarcerated regardless of his crimes. 

 

The most we might see is Trump being placed under house arrest with an ankle bracelet for two or three years. 

 

Trump must be publicly charged with the crimes he has committed, but rest assured, Trump will skate while others go to jail. 

 

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

 

    

THE FIRST U.S. PRESIDENT TO BE ARRESTED

 

 

In 1872 William West was posted on the corner of 13^th and M Street in Washington D.C.   West was one of only two black policemen on the Washington Police Force.  West had joined the force after serving in the 13^th U.S. Colored Infantry under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant

Drivers often sped down 13^th Street, the three-mile straight stretch that ran between the city and Brightwood Trotting Park.  Earlier that morning a woman and her six-year-old child had been injured by a hit-and-run carriage speeding toward the park. 

West, seeing a carriage speeding toward him, stood in the road with his hand up.    When the carriage stopped the driver was President Grant.  West explained that an injury had occurred earlier as the result of speeding and Grant assured West he would be more conscious of his speed in the future.   Grant complimented the officer for his diligence.   

The next day West stopped another carriage barreling down 13^th Streed only to discover it was again President Grant.

West informed the President that he had to place him under arrest and the President offered to drive them both to the police station.

General Grant was arraigned and released on twenty dollars bail (the equivalent of $460) which was the standard fine charged for speeding. 

Grant did not show up for trial the next day and his bail was forfeited which satisfied the fine requirement. 

This is not making a comparison with Donald Trump, because Donald Trump is an ex-President and the crimes he committed occurred, and are occurring while he is not in office, and Trump is charged with sedition and espionage and multiple other lesser charges.

If a sitting President could be charged with a crime in 1872 there should be no question of precedence for holding an ex-President accountable for his crimes in 2023.

I’m not a lawyer

I’m

the Ol’Buzzard

A MARCH TOWARD FASCISM?

 

 

During the Trump reign, I often made reference to the dystopian world of 1984, but I was in error.

1984 was a world where the government indoctrinated its citizens and governed through fear.  A world where Dear Leader is watching you and your every action.  This is North Korea and not the cult created by Donald Trump.

 

Trump is a con man on the national stage.    We have seen this before and there is a name for it: Fascism.

 

 P.T. Barnum said you don’t have to be smart to con people, you just have to be smarter than the people you are conning.

 

A minority of gullible people have been aroused to anger by a charismatic leader preaching bigotry, white supremacy, and the demonization of people or ideas or religions ‘not like us.’

 

Hitler roused an angry vocal minority and the majority just fell in line.

 

This is what has happened to the Republican Party; they have been usurped by an egocentric paranoid fascist leader who now controls power over a loyal minority of Republican voters, and the majority of the Republican Party has fallen in line.

 

If we let this angry minority control us or even modify our norms, we have fallen in line, and our country will no longer be a democracy governed by laws.

Even though the Republicans have jerrymandered the states to favor Republicans in the Electoral College, we must Vote Republicans out of office in the 2024 election.     

WHY HAVENT YOU WRITTEN A BOOK?

 If you are a frustrated wannabee writer but haven't checked out SluthSayers blog -

then you should.   It might be the motivation you need. 

Myself, I'm just too busy doing not much.

the Ol'Buzzard

AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE FOR OUR NATION

 

Bill Clinton discussing a soliloquy in Shakespeare's McBeth said:

the danger of blind ambition, the fleeting nature of fame, the ultimate emptiness of power disconnected from higher purpose…

This is out of context but seems to describe Donald Trump and the resulting situation we find ourselves in today.

 

This is a volatile time, but in my eighty-plus years, I have seen many volatile times.

I was alive during the Second world war.  Men were away fighting.  Star flags were in people’s windows to denote the number of loved ones at war; gold stars meant a father, a son, or a daughter had died in action.   Women were working in defense plants and basic goods were rationed.  People were planting Victory Gardens.

 

I was six years old when the world defeated fascism and the war ended.

  

I was eleven when the Korean War started. It was a brutal war, but for some reason was quickly forgotten.

 

I lived in the segregated South during my teen years and had just joined the Navy when the violent desegregation of the South began.

We thought the world was going to catch fire during the race riots in California during the 1960s.

 

And then the Vietnam War.

The twin towers.

Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

 Now after eighty years fascism again rears its head, but this time it is here in the United States led by an ex-President.

 

To me, this is the most dangerous time since the Second World War.

 

During the Second World War Europe, and consequentially our nation, was in danger from a foreign power.   The war was ‘over there’, yet people here were willing to sacrifice to save democracies.

   

This is different.  Our very democracy here in the United States is now in danger from within, under threats of anarchy and civil war, seeded and fed by a dangerous demagogue.

  

Our future history will be decided over the next six years.

 

 the Ol'Buzzard

 

GULLIBILITY

 

I am constantly appalled at the gullibility of the large percentage of American people.  These are not bad people and many are my neighbors.   But they are willing to accept almost any product or manipulated fact that a slick con man or con company will offer to them.

  

They buy things from QVC that they didn’t know they needed, they attend church regularly and pray away their problems, and they are suckers for Donald Trump and Fox News. 

The latest claim consuming the tv airways is Balance of Nature’s vegetable and fruit pills.  The company claims if you take three capsules of each product each day you will miraculously become a revitalized energetic healthy person.    There is no hard evidence to back up this claim. 

 

 

And for only $89.00 per month.

 

For Christ's sake drink a V-8 once a day or eat a carrot, eat an apple, or eat a prune – which will also keep you regular. 

 

 

It ain't that hard

the Ol'Buzzard

 

I'M BACK

 

I have been away from blogging for a few months because of medical concerns.  Understandably, when shadows of the grim reaper are glimpsed, the normal chaos and insanity of the human species seem trivial.

 

I had a pacemaker installed three weeks ago and am feeling fine.  Another week and I should be able to resume normal activity.

Medical technology is remarkable.   It was not many decades ago that the life expectancy of a man was sixty.   Through technology and medical advancements that has extended considerably. 

I can’t help but watch the news, it is like trying to avoid looking at a car wreck involving a busload of nudists.

I do marvel at the misdirection of the media in an attempt to remain ‘fair and balanced’.   Afraid to alienate viewers by calling out the group that is the epicenter of all our chaos. 

Attacks on LGBT+ citizens, fear of transgender, the repeal of Row v Wade, the stigmatizing of women’s sexuality, subjugating women to the control of men, and the banning of books all have one source:  Religion.

Harry Potter among the books burned. 

The Republican Party is just the handmaiden of the religious right; the source of the drive to legislate a Christian version of morality: the outcome to be Sharia laws enforced by a political version of the Christian Taliban.

   

Does this sound extreme?  There are already proposals to jail women who have abortions and execute abortion doctors.  Books are being banned and burned.  These are not cries from the fringe, they have already been discussed by politicians across the South.

The book 1984 got it wrong in one instant.   It is not Big Brother that is watching us, it is Big Jesus.

the Ol'Buzzard