Poetry Sunday: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

When my kids were little, I read to them every night after putting them to bed. It's a ritual well-known to many parents of course. We had our favorites that we returned to time and time again. This was one of them.

The Giving Tree

by Shel Silverstein

Once there was a tree....

and she loved a little boy.

And everyday the boy would come

and he would gather her leaves
and make them into crowns
and play king of the forest.
He would climb up her trunk
and swing from her branches
and eat apples.
And they would play hide-and-go-seek.
And when he was tired,
he would sleep in her shade.
And the boy loved the tree....
very much.
And the tree was happy.
But time went by.
And the boy grew older.
And the tree was often alone.
Then one day the boy came to the tree
and the tree said, 'Come, Boy, come and
climb up my trunk and swing from my
branches and eat apples and play in my
shade and be happy.'
'I am too big to climb and play' said
the boy.
'I want to buy things and have fun.
I want some money?'
'I'm sorry,' said the tree, 'but I
have no money.
I have only leaves and apples.
Take my apples, Boy, and sell them in
the city. Then you will have money and
you will be happy.'
And so the boy climbed up the
tree and gathered her apples
and carried them away.
And the tree was happy.
But the boy stayed away for a long time....
and the tree was sad.
And then one day the boy came back
and the tree shook with joy
and she said, 'Come, Boy, climb up my trunk
and swing from my branches and be happy.'
'I am too busy to climb trees,' said the boy.
'I want a house to keep me warm,' he said.
'I want a wife and I want children,
and so I need a house.
Can you give me a house ?'
' I have no house,' said the tree.
'The forest is my house,
but you may cut off
my branches and build a
house. Then you will be happy.'

And so the boy cut off her branches
and carried them away
to build his house.
And the tree was happy.
But the boy stayed away for a long time.
And when he came back,
the tree was so happy
she could hardly speak.
'Come, Boy,' she whispered,
'come and play.'
'I am too old and sad to play,'
said the boy.
'I want a boat that will
take me far away from here.
Can you give me a boat?'
'Cut down my trunk
and make a boat,' said the tree.
'Then you can sail away...
and be happy.'
And so the boy cut down her trunk
and made a boat and sailed away.
And the tree was happy
... but not really.

And after a long time
the boy came back again.
'I am sorry, Boy,'
said the tree,' but I have nothing
left to give you -
My apples are gone.'
'My teeth are too weak
for apples,' said the boy.
'My branches are gone,'
said the tree. ' You
cannot swing on them - '
'I am too old to swing
on branches,' said the boy.
'My trunk is gone, ' said the tree.
'You cannot climb - '
'I am too tired to climb' said the boy.
'I am sorry,' sighed the tree.
'I wish that I could give you something....
but I have nothing left.
I am just an old stump.
I am sorry....'
'I don't need very much now,' said the boy.
'just a quiet place to sit and rest.
I am very tired.'
'Well,' said the tree, straightening
herself up as much as she could,
'well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting
Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.'
And the boy did.
And the tree was happy.

Swing Time by Zadie Smith: A review

Two young girls growing up in poverty in North London in the '80s and '90s meet at a Saturday dance class. One of them has natural talent as a dancer. Both of them love music and rhythm. 

They become friends and remain close, with only occasional adolescent fallings-out, through all the years of growing up, sharing a love of old musicals and of dancers like Fred Astaire and Bojangles. They watch those movies over and over again, learning and copying the moves of the dancers.

Swing Time is the story of those two girls as they make the passage through adolescence and into young adulthood and increased responsibilities. The girls grow apart, but their friendship will always be the major influence and touchstone of their lives.

The talented young dancer is Tracey, friend of the narrator of this book. The narrator is never given a name. Both girls are biracial; Tracey has a white mother and black (Jamaican) father and the narrator has a black (Jamaican) mother and a white father. 

The narrator's family is intact, both parents present and caring. Her father is the primary caretaker of the home while her mother pursues her education and supports the causes about which she is passionate.

Tracey's family is a mess. Her father is not present in the household, at least not on a regular basis. He makes occasional visits and Tracey adores him and constructs an entire fantasy life for him as a back-up dancer for Michael Jackson. In her story, his being on constant tour with Michael is the reason he's never home. In truth, he is in and out of prison, plus he has a whole other family in another part of town. Her mother dotes on Tracey and is particularly proud of her dance talent. She sees it as the girl's ticket out of poverty.

Eventually, Tracey does get some professional dancing jobs, while the narrator goes on to college at her parents' insistence. In her early twenties, she goes to work for a company that seems modeled on MTV and there she comes to the attention of rock superstar Aimee.

Aimee hires her as a personal assistant and she spends the next nine years in Aimee's orbit, flying around the world on tour with her and easing her passage through life. When Aimee becomes obsessed with West Africa and wants to establish a school for girls there, the narrator spends a lot of time there with the villagers. She comes to admire them, but never really seems to understand them.

Much of this story, on its surface, seems torn from Entertainment Weekly headlines; the superstar superficially obsessed with Africa, building schools, adopting African children, etc. But Zadie Smith is only using that superstructure as a broad outline. She is interested in what lies beneath.

Smith writes brilliantly about modern culture and about female friendship, identity, and family. All of this medley is sifted through timeless themes of power and powerlessness, misunderstanding and crass manipulation of others, and the dichotomies between third world values and values of what we are pleased to call the "developed" world. It is a heady mix that makes for a huge and powerful novel.

Although she raises many issues in her narrative, Smith does not necessarily provide us with the answers. In the end, her narrator, not a particularly likable person, has to acknowledge, as the mother she has battled with lies dying, that even though she is in her early thirties she has not grown into a fully realized and admirable human being. Cut loose from her ties to Aimee, she is adrift in the world with little idea of where to find a mooring.  

I loved this book. The story has such energy and is so deeply human. It reminds us once again that we can never truly grow away from our roots. Of course it helps that Zadie Smith is such a brilliant writer.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars 

My favorite books of 2016

It is the solemn duty of every blogger who writes about books to compile a year-end list of the best books read that year. Since I am nothing if not a dutiful blogger, I have been agonizing for days over my list.

As of today, I have read 88 books this year and the majority of them were terrific reads. Those who follow the blog know that I rate my books on a scale of one to five stars, using the Goodreads definitions; one-star meaning "not good" and five-stars meaning "exceptional." I had a few one- and two-star reads this year, but most of them were three stars or higher.

In compiling my list, I narrowed the 88 books down to four- and five-star reads, because often there's very little daylight between four and five stars. But that list proved much too unwieldy. I couldn't give you a list with more than forty books on it! So, in the end I selected just the five-star reads. Even that list had nineteen books on it, but I simply couldn't choose among them, so here they all are - my favorite books read in 2016 with links to my reviews of the books.

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante: This was the second in Ferrante's highly (and justifiably) praised Neapolitan Quartet series. In my opinion, it was even better than the first book.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald: Macdonald wrote this memoir of her lifelong obsession with birds, particularly with raptors, and with her work in attempting to train a Goshawk, supposedly one of the most difficult raptors to tame and train. 

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante: This was the fourth and final book in Ferrante's Neapolitan series. I was sorry to see it end.

The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin: This was the first in Le Guin's fantasy Earthsea Cycle books. It was a wonderful beginning. 

The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes: I am a big fan of Julian Barnes and I always look forward to his books. In this one, he takes the bare facts of Dimitri Shostakovich's life and gives us Shostakovich's interior dialogues, his explanation and justification of his life.

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley: A blockbuster summer read that was much more than just a thrilling page-turner. Hawley ruminates on the role of the media in modern life and presciently touches on the issue of fake news.

LaRose by Louise Erdrich: Nobody does it better than Louise Erdrich, in my opinion, and this story of a conflicted man who tries to make amends for accidentally killing a child by offering the grieving family his own child as a replacement is one of her best.

Emma: A Modern Retelling by Alexander McCall Smith: Smith caught the personality of Jane Austen's delightful Emma and translated her smoothly into a modern setting. This was one of several retellings of Austen or Shakespeare classics that I enjoyed this year.  

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler: Another retelling, this one of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, and it's by the wonderful Anne Tyler, another personal favorite. How could I not love it?

Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope: And, yes, still another reinterpretation of an Austen classic makes my list. This was actually the first book published in The Austen Project and it set a high standard for all those retellings that followed. 

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow: Chernow's book, published twelve years ago, has had a revival of interest because of the hit Broadway musical which is based on it. It had languished on my bookshelf for twelve long years and I finally got around to reading it this year. Wonderful book! It reads almost like a Dickens novel.

Nutshell by Ian McEwan: Ian McEwan is a writer of perfect little gems of books in which not a single word can be extracted or changed without altering the meaning. This was another one, an imaginative retelling of Hamlet with Hamlet being represented as a fetus!

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman: This was an under-the-radar Swedish novel that unexpectedly became an international bestseller. It featured an irascible curmudgeon as its main character, Ove, and the reader would have to have a heart of stone to end the book without loving him.

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood: This was another one in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, a retelling of The Tempest, that I had been impatiently waiting for all year. It was worth the wait!

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett: Many of my favorite writers had new books out this year, which is one of the reasons it was such a terrific year of reading for me. One of those favorites is Ann Patchett and her story of the Keating and Cousins families and their intermingling lives was wonderful and gave the reader a lot to think about.

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout: Strout's ability to delineate and explore the motivations in the lives of conflicted women is well known. Like her wonderful Olive Kitteridge, this one drew me in and I didn't want to leave Lucy Barton.

Moonglow by Michael Chabon: If you held my feet to the fire and forced me to name my favorite of all the wonderful books that I've read this year, this would be it. Chabon's fictionalized memoir of his own family's experiences has everything that one could wish for in a book, and like Ian McEwan's books, one would not want to extract or change a single word of it.

Here I am by Jonathan Safran Foer: Foer's tale of the unlovable and unraveling Bloch family of Washington, D.C., juxtaposed with upheaval and catastrophe in the Middle East and the possible destruction of Israel is a tour de force of imaginative storytelling.

Swing Time by Zadie Smith: And of my favorites, this one would be a very close second. Smith's portrayal of the lives of two young girls raised in poverty but in very different personal circumstances rang true for me in every aspect. Smith just gets better and better as a writer.

And there you have it, my creme de la creme of 2016. I can unreservedly recommend any one of them to lovers of good writing, and there were so many others that just barely missed making the list. One can only hope for another such fascinating year of words in 2017.  

Gardening as metaphor

Laser eye surgery last week put a real crimp in my reading schedule. As it happened, the book I was reading at the time was not exactly scintillating so I didn't feel the loss as much as I might have. 

I did resent the fact that I wasn't able to work in the garden for a couple of days, because before I was interrupted I had been on a roll, completing some of my fall chores such as weeding, adding compost to beds, cutting back perennials, moving plants, adding new plants, and doing general clean-up. 

Even on the days when I wasn't able to actually work though, I spent a lot of time in the garden, mostly contemplating life and the garden and changes that I wanted to make in both, and being aided in my meditations by my two eager garden helpers, Oliver and Perkins (aka Purrkins).  

Oliver

Perkins

They are six-month-old novices but eager to learn and especially good at helping me dig holes and at chasing fallen leaves.

Once I was able to get back in the swing of gardening, I had a lot of herb plants on hand that I had ordered from Grower's Exchange and bulbs from Southern Bulb Company, a company that specializes in bulbs that will actually grow in our area. So, I got busy planting.

Now, planting bulbs, in particular, is an act of faith for me.  My record with the finicky tubers is spotty to say the least. Often, I've lovingly placed bulbs in their planting holes and they've never been heard from again. Sometimes they'll show up and bloom for the first year, but then, after that, I only get foliage, and sometimes I only ever get foliage. But gardeners are by nature eternal optimists so I keep making the attempt.

This time around I've tried to be careful to only choose bulbs that I have at least had some success with in the past; bulbs like Narcissus tarzetta 'Grand Primo' and Leucojum aestivum 'Snowflakes.' These both bloom in the spring. 

I've also added red and yellow spider lilies to the mix. It'll be almost a year before I know whether those plantings were successful, because they don't bloom until the fall.

Now all I can do is wait and hope. Each bulb is tucked into its little planting hole along with a dollop of the food that it needs to grow. It will be a few months or even a year before I see any results from all my labor.

That is the essence of hope, isn't it? We plant seeds - or bulbs - and try to nourish and encourage them, but often we see no results at first, and that's when it is easy to become discouraged or even to despair. At some point, when we've done everything we can, we just have to have patience and faith that what we've done will take root and grow and some day flower or bear fruit.

There is that famous saying by the much-quoted Anonymous in regard to gardeners: "Who plants a seed beneath the sod, and waits to see, believes in God." Or, if not God, then at least Nature. But perhaps it is the same thing.

All of my sitting and contemplating over the last several days has persuaded me that there is hope for my garden and that gardening really is a metaphor for life.

This week in birds - #119

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

Hummingbird traffic is picking up as the fall migration of the little birds gets into full swing.  I'm seeing multiple birds around my yard every day now, including several males like this Ruby-throat enjoying a visit at my Hamelia shrub.  There may be Rufous hummers among the visitors as well, but I can't absolutely confirm that.

*~*~*~*

The makers of the rodenticide d-Con have agreed to pull their super-toxic products from retail shelves by early next year. This is a victory for conservation groups that have been campaigning for years to get this accomplished. The problem is that the product kills rodents very effectively, but often as those rodents are dying or dead, they are picked up and devoured by raptors or other predators and the poisons then kill them as well.

*~*~*~*

And we know that poisons can persist in the environment for a very long time. DDT was banned in the United States more than forty years ago and yet it is still killing birds in Michigan. Presence of the poison is attributed to a chemical-plant-turned-Superfund site in the area.

*~*~*~*

It was hoped that rains generated by El Nino this year might help to break the long and severe drought being suffered by California, but those hopes have pretty much been dashed. If the rains were coming, they should have arrived by now, but there is no rain in sight and the drought continues unabated.

*~*~*~*

Artificial lighting in cities can create "light pollution" which can have a detrimental effect on the love life of songbirds. It upsets their circadian rhythms which tell them when it is time to mate.

*~*~*~*

The Philippines have an incredible diversity of species, but that diversity is being severely imperiled by rampant illegal logging. The government has established a tree-planting program to try to stem the damage being caused.

*~*~*~*

The estuaries of Northern Ireland have long been a haven for over-wintering shorebirds, but recently, populations of nearly all these species are declining precipitously.

*~*~*~*

Migrant women and their children in Baltimore have a fellow-feeling for the migratory birds that pass through the area. They are volunteering their time to plant shrubs and flowers that feed and shelter the birds in Baltimore's Patterson Park as a part of the Audubon Center's Bird Ambassadors program.

*~*~*~*

A bee hobbyist in North Texas writes in "The Bee Pasture" about providing habitat for butterflies - specifically for the Hackberry Emperor.

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There are many myths in various cultures throughout the world about gigantic, and usually angry, birds, some of them so big they could carry away elephants. No proof of the existence of any such bird has ever been found. They seem to be entirely inventions of our vivid imaginations.

*~*~*~*

On the other side of that myth equation is the story about the extinction of dinosaurs. Of course they are not extinct! They are all around us. We are hardly ever out of sight of one when we are outdoors. They are called "birds" and they are descendants of the theropod dinosaurs which included such predators as Tyrannosaurs and Velociraptors. The theropods' strategy for survival was to get smaller and smaller and it was a very successful strategy. Yes, that Ruby-throated Hummingbird at the top of the page is just a tiny theropod descendant!

*~*~*~*

The elusive Black-capped Petrel spends most of its life over the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Now, scientists are learning more about the bird's travels through the first-ever project to track them. This is a joint project of the U.S. Geological Survey, the South Carolina Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Clemson University, Grupo Jaragua in the Dominican Republic, and the American Bird Conservancy.

*~*~*~*

The water levels in the Colorado River Basin have dropped by alarming amounts in recent years. Most of the loss has been attributed to the severe drought gripping the West, but a new study indicates that at least part of the reason for the drop is a loss of groundwater.

                                                                          

Ten years later

Ten years ago today, the United States initiated a war against a nation which had not attacked it and which posed no viable threat to it. It invaded the sovereign country of Iraq, based on the lies promulgated by the Bush Administration pursuing its wet dream of remaking the Arab world in some ill-conceived Wild West image of rough justice and democracy.

And the American media and the American people let them do it. Only a few brave voices were raised in protest and those people were called traitors.

We were told that the war would be a cakewalk. It would only last a few weeks. American troops would be greeted as liberators. Iraqi oil (the real reason for the invasion) would pay for the costs of the war; American taxpayers wouldn't be out a dime.

Eight years, thousands of dead and injured Americans and Iraqis, and billions of dollars later, in 2011, it would be left for another president to finally extricate us from this war which his predecessor had chosen.

Certain politicians love to go on and on about "accountability." People need to be held accountable where their actions. Who has been held accountable for all those lives unnecessarily lost or irrevocably ruined? Certainly not any of the politicians who ginned up the war, nor any of the journalists who were their cheerleaders. They're all still in business. You can see them on television most any day of the week.

Three years after the beginning of the war, on March 15, 2006, the organization FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) had a report that detailed the early assessment of the majority of pundits and reporters regarding the war. It's worth reading again today to remind ourselves of just how deluded these people were and to bear that in mind the next time we hear them pontificating on some subject.

Weeks after the invasion of Iraq began, Fox News Channel host Brit Hume delivered a scathing speech critiquing the media's supposedly pessimistic assessment of the Iraq War."The majority of the American media who were in a position to comment upon the progress of the war in the early going, and even after that, got it wrong," Hume complained in the April 2003 speech (Richmond Times Dispatch, 4/25/04). "They didn't get it just a little wrong. They got it completely wrong."

Hume was perhaps correct--but almost entirely in the opposite sense. Days or weeks into the war, commentators and reporters made premature declarations of victory, offered predictions about lasting political effects and called on the critics of the war to apologize. Three years later, the Iraq War grinds on at the cost of at least tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Around the same time as Hume's speech, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas declared (4/16/03): "All of the printed and voiced prophecies should be saved in an archive. When these false prophets again appear, they can be reminded of the error of their previous ways and at least be offered an opportunity to recant and repent. Otherwise, they will return to us in another situation where their expertise will be acknowledged, or taken for granted, but their credibility will be lacking."

Gathered here are some of the most notable media comments from the early days of the Iraq War.

Declaring Victory"Iraq Is All but Won; Now What?"(Los Angeles Times headline, 4/10/03)

"Now that the combat phase of the war in Iraq is officially over, what begins is a debate throughout the entire U.S. government over America's unrivaled power and how best to use it."(CBS reporter Joie Chen, 5/4/03)

"Congress returns to Washington this week to a world very different from the one members left two weeks ago. The war in Iraq is essentially over and domestic issues are regaining attention."(NPR's Bob Edwards, 4/28/03)

"Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have demonstrated the old axiom that boldness on the battlefield produces swift and relatively bloodless victory. The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered skeptics' complaints."(Fox News Channel's Tony Snow, 4/13/03)

"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals, and a few people here in Washington."(Charles Krauthammer, Inside Washington, WUSA-TV, 4/19/03)

"We had controversial wars that divided the country. This war united the country and brought the military back."(Newsweek's Howard Fineman--MSNBC, 5/7/03)

"We're all neo-cons now."(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)

"The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war."(Fox News Channel's Fred Barnes, 4/10/03)

"Oh, it was breathtaking. I mean I was almost starting to think that we had become inured to everything that we'd seen of this war over the past three weeks; all this sort of saturation. And finally, when we saw that it was such a just true, genuine expression. It was reminiscent, I think, of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And just sort of that pure emotional expression, not choreographed, not stage-managed, the way so many things these days seem to be. Really breathtaking."(Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly, appearing on Fox News Channel on 4/9/03, discussing the pulling down of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad, an event later revealed to have been a U.S. military PSYOPS operation--Los Angeles Times, 7/3/04)

Mission Accomplished?"The war winds down, politics heats up.... Picture perfect. Part Spider-Man, part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan. The president seizes the moment on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific."(PBS's Gwen Ifill, 5/2/03, on George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech) 

"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits."(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 5/1/03)

"He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, movie star, and one of the guys."(CNN's Lou Dobbs, on Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' speech, 5/1/03)Neutralizing the Opposition

"Why don't the damn Democrats give the president his day? He won today. He did well today."(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)

"What's he going to talk about a year from now, the fact that the war went too well and it's over? I mean, don't these things sort of lose their--Isn't there a fresh date on some of these debate points?"(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, speaking about Howard Dean--4/9/03)

"If image is everything, how can the Democratic presidential hopefuls compete with a president fresh from a war victory?"(CNN's Judy Woodruff, 5/5/03)

"It is amazing how thorough the victory in Iraq really was in the broadest context..... And the silence, I think, is that it's clear that nobody can do anything about it. There isn't anybody who can stop him. The Democrats can't oppose--cannot oppose him politically."(Washington Post reporter Jeff Birnbaum-- Fox News Channel, 5/2/03)

Nagging the "Naysayers""Now that the war in Iraq is all but over, should the people in Hollywood who opposed the president admit they were wrong?"(Fox News Channel's Alan Colmes, 4/25/03)

"I doubt that the journalists at the New York Times and NPR or at ABC or at CNN are going to ever admit just how wrong their negative pronouncements were over the past four weeks."(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 4/9/03)

"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types.... I just wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: 'Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong'? Maybe the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war....

"Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief U.N. weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein? Well, Mr. Ritter actually told a French radio network that -- quote, 'The United States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between its legs, defeated.' Sorry, Scott. I think you've been chasing the wrong tail, again.

"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing."(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 4/10/03)

"Over the next couple of weeks when we find the chemical weapons this guy was amassing, the fact that this war was attacked by the left and so the right was so vindicated, I think, really means that the left is going to have to hang its head for three or four more years."(Fox News Channel's Dick Morris, 4/9/03)

"This has been a tough war for commentators on the American left. To hope for defeat meant cheering for Saddam Hussein. To hope for victory meant cheering for President Bush. The toppling of Mr. Hussein, or at least a statue of him, has made their arguments even harder to defend. Liberal writers for ideologically driven magazines like The Nation and for less overtly political ones like The New Yorker did not predict a defeat, but the terrible consequences many warned of have not happened. Now liberal commentators must address the victory at hand and confront an ascendant conservative juggernaut that asserts United States might can set the world right."(New York Times reporter David Carr, 4/16/03)

"Well, the hot story of the week is victory.... The Tommy Franks-Don Rumsfeld battle plan, war plan, worked brilliantly, a three-week war with mercifully few American deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths.... There is a lot of work yet to do, but all the naysayers have been humiliated so far.... The final word on this is, hooray."(Fox News Channel's Morton Kondracke, 4/12/03)

"Some journalists, in my judgment, just can't stand success, especially a few liberal columnists and newspapers and a few Arab reporters."(CNN's Lou Dobbs, 4/14/03)

"Sean Penn is at it again. The Hollywood star takes out a full-page ad out in theNew York Times bashing George Bush. Apparently he still hasn't figured out we won the war."(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 5/30/03)

Cakewalk?"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention.... The president will give an order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling.... It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on."(Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate-- cited in the Observer, 3/30/03)

"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?"(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03)

"It won't take weeks. You know that, professor. Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there's no question that it will."(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03)

"There's no way. There's absolutely no way. They may bomb for a matter of weeks, try to soften them up as they did in Afghanistan. But once the United States and Britain unleash, it's maybe hours. They're going to fold like that."(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03)

"He [Saddam Hussein] actually thought that he could stop us and win the debate worldwide. But he didn't--he didn't bargain on a two- or three week war. I actually thought it would be less than two weeks."(NBC reporter Fred Francis, Chris Matthews Show, 4/13/03)

Weapons of Mass DestructionNPR's Mara Liasson: Where there was a debate about whether or not Iraq had these weapons of mass destruction and whether we can find it...Brit Hume: No, there wasn't. Nobody seriously argued that he didn't have them beforehand. Nobody.(Fox News Channel, April 6, 2003)

"Speaking to the U.N. Security Council last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell made so strong a case that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is in material breach of U.N. resolutions that only the duped, the dumb and the desperate could ignore it."(Cal Thomas, syndicated column, 2/12/03)

"Saddam could decide to take Baghdad with him. One Arab intelligence officer interviewed by Newsweek spoke of 'the green mushroom' over Baghdad--the modern-day caliph bidding a grotesque bio-chem farewell to the land of the living alongside thousands of his subjects as well as his enemies. Saddam wants to be remembered. He has the means and the demonic imagination. It is up to U.S. armed forces to stop him before he can achieve notoriety for all time."(Newsweek, 3/17/03)

"Chris, more than anything else, real vindication for the administration. One, credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Two, you know what? There were a lot of terrorists here, really bad guys. I saw them."(MSNBC reporter Bob Arnot, 4/9/03)

"Even in the flush of triumph, doubts will be raised. Where are the supplies of germs and poison gas and plans for nukes to justify pre-emption? (Freed scientists will lead us to caches no inspectors could find.) What about remaining danger from Baathist torturers and war criminals forming pockets of resistance and plotting vengeance? (Their death wish is our command.)"(New York Times' William Safire, 4/10/03)

And those were the prevailing opinions in 2003. Anyone who disagreed was shouted down. This is a very good argument for remembering Mark Twain's observation that "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

This tenth anniversary of an unnecessary war seems an appropriate time to pause and reflect and to remember the lives lost and blighted because someone wanted glory - a good time to pledge that we will be more skeptical next time someone tries to push or lead us into a war.

UPDATE: And Joe Scarborough hasn't learned a damned thing! Moreover, he's just as dishonest and self-serving as ever.

This week in birds - #112

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

Black Skimmers gather at water's edge in the late afternoon.

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The long-awaited plan to cut carbon emissions from power plants by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 was finally announced by the EPA this week, with thoroughly predictable results. The deniers screamed loudly, saying that the rules would kill industry and really they are not necessary anyway since global warming doesn't exist. The most rabid environmentalists screamed their disappointment that the rules were not stringent enough. If both sides are dissatisfied, maybe that means that the agency is on the right track.

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The beautiful, rare, and endangered ocelot is making what is probably its last stand in a section of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. As if the little wild cat did not have enough troubles already, in recent years, the building of fences along the border between Texas and Mexico has interfered with its ability to wander freely and establish breeding territories. There are believed to be only 50 of the animals left in Texas.

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Do you ever worry about bed bugs when you travel and stay in hotels? Have you perhaps encountered the little bloodsuckers in your travels? Well, "Charismatic Minifauna" has detailed instructions about how to search your hotel room for bed bugs. Timely advice since we will be on the road in a few days.

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The Nene, or Hawaiian Goose, had not nested and raised a family on the island of Oahu since the 1700s, until this year. A pair have nested there and have successfully hatched three goslings. May they continue to thrive!  

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So far in the United States, climate change has brought warmer temperatures fastest to the northeastern and southwestern states. But every state is experiencing rising temperatures.  

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And speaking of climate change, it is creating a disaster for the Atlantic Puffins in the Gulf of Maine. The warming waters are hostile to the kinds of fish which the puffin chicks need to survive. Food which they can use is scarce with the result that many are starving to death. 

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Two Black Vultures have been roosting on K Street in Washington, D.C. Seems appropriate somehow since this is the street where so many high-powered lobbyists have their offices. Maybe that thing about birds of a feather flocking together is true!

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The California Brown Pelican has had a disastrous breeding season. Many nests have failed to fledge chicks. It may be an indication that El Nino has arrived earlier than expected.

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It is expected that El Nino will be in full swing by summer and that could prove to be a catastrophe for the world's coral reefs.

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A new Guatemalan wildlife reserve will afford protection to several threatened bird species, as well as endangered frogs, and a blue viper.

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I often encounter scarab beetles around my yard as I go about my gardening activities. They can be very colorful and they are certainly interesting insects. "Bug Eric" has some information about them on his blog this week.

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Around the backyard:

The backyard continues to be a very busy place, full of avian activities. We continue to see lots of juvenile birds of several kinds coming to the feeders. The bluebirds are brooding four more eggs in their snug box in the vegetable garden. And almost every day sees a new young family spreading their wings for the first time. It's an exciting time to be a backyard birder.

Also, this week, a new spring migrant was heard in the neighborhood. I suspect the Great Crested Flycatcher has been around for a while, but I had not heard it before this week. I still haven't actually seen one in my yard, but I hear them all around the neighborhood now. I love the sound of their loud and distinctive Wheeep! Lovely bird.

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny: A review

 

Louise Penny's latest mystery set in the little Quebec village of Three Pines takes place at a time in the future when the present pandemic has been officially declared over. Things are beginning to get back to normal, but the effects of the pandemic and its consequences are still very much on the minds of the residents. 

All of those Three Pines residents that we have come to know over the course of this series, characters who feel like our friends that we enjoy spending time with, are present and accounted for and Inspector Gamache is still on the job.

Gamache is marked by a horrendous experience he had during the pandemic. He was called to a nursing home where he discovered that the inmates had been abandoned. They were dead or dying. He feels shame, not that he himself had abandoned these people but that his society had abandoned them and that, as a senior police officer, he had not realized earlier that something like that could happen. 

Now it is late December and the holiday season is in full swing. At the height of it all, Gamache is called upon to provide security for a speaking event at a nearby college. When he learns who the speaker is, he is appalled.

The speaker will be Abigail Robinson, a controversial statistician who has been hired by the Canadian government to analyze the country's pandemic-related data. Her conclusion is that the sick and elderly used too many of the country's resources during the pandemic. They were going to die soon anyway but caring for them put a strain on the country's finances, medical supplies, and personnel. She proselytizes for a kind of eugenics and for rationing care for those who are least able to benefit from it. Disgusted by her conclusions and proposed solutions, Gamache asks the college chancellor to consider canceling the event. For his efforts, he is accused of stifling free speech.

The speech goes on and predictable chaos ensues and in the midst of it all, someone tries to shoot Robinson. Gamache pushes her down and the shot misses, but it is a near thing. However, soon after, Robinson's manager who is her close friend is killed while walking on a trail at night during a snowstorm. Could this have been a case of mistaken identity? Did the killer mistake her for Robinson? Gamache must answer those questions and determine a motive for the killing in order to figure out who did it.

Louise Penny's mysteries have always been firmly rooted in the social fabric and in the love of family and friends but she has never shied away from addressing difficult issues. The Madness of Crowds continues that tradition. She remarks upon the fact that crowds of people can lose social inhibitions and act with a disregard for law and norms of behavior. They can even perpetrate cruelty that they would not normally consider. They can, in fact, succumb to a form of insanity or madness. 

Gamache is concerned that if Robinson continues spreading her ideas that such madness may overtake his own society. This is very personal for him because his youngest grandchild, his daughter's baby has Down Syndrome. She would be one of those vulnerable people who Robinson believes it is a waste to spend resources on.

This is the darkest Penny mystery that I can recall, but as always, it is lightened by the beauty of Three Pines and all its quirky but lovable residents. It's always a pleasure to visit them again.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 

Poetry Sunday: Double Dutch

I admit I was not familiar with poet Gregory Pardlo's work before it was announced last week that he had won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, Digest. Apparently, that was a common reaction to the announcement. He is not well-known, but, based on what I've read over the last few days, perhaps he deserves to be.

His poems - at least the ones that I've now read - seem very descriptive. He paints vivid pictures with his words, and many of the poems seem firmly based on childhood experiences or childhood scenes observed. Such is the case with his poem "Double Dutch" which paints a picture of girls jumping rope and of a jumper who "stair-steps into mid-air as if she's jumping rope in low-gravity." Can't you just see it?

Double Dutch

BY GREGORY PARDLO

The girls turning double-dutch

bob & weave like boxers pulling

punches, shadowing each other,

sparring across the slack cord

casting parabolas in the air. They

whip quick as an infant’s pulse

and the jumper, before she

enters the winking, nods in time

as if she has a notion to share,

waiting her chance to speak. But she’s

anticipating the upbeat

like a bandleader counting off

the tune they are about to swing into.

The jumper stair-steps into mid-air

as if she’s jumping rope in low-gravity,

training for a lunar mission. Airborne a moment

long enough to fit a second thought in,

she looks caught in the mouth bones of a fish

as she flutter-floats into motion

like a figure in a stack of time-lapse photos

thumbed alive. Once inside,

the bells tied to her shoestrings rouse the gods

who’ve lain in the dust since the Dutch

acquired Manhattan. How she dances

patterns like a dust-heavy bee retracing

its travels in scale before the hive. How

the whole stunning contraption of girl and rope

slaps and scoops like a paddle boat.

Her misted skin arranges the light

with each adjustment and flex. Now heather-

hued, now sheen, light listing on the fulcrum

of a wrist and the bare jutted joints of elbow

and knee, and the faceted surfaces of muscle,

surfaces fracturing and reforming

like a sun-tickled sleeve of running water.

She makes jewelry of herself and garlands

the ground with shadows.