Digging iron joys

I'm trying to believe that I have dug my last serious hole into the so-called soil and shale of my Fulks Run, VA property. I had thought that I was done after finishing the holes for the "corral" posts around the forsythia bushes (where the brown thrashers live and the deer threaten their habitat) but then I was inspired by the bats at Alpena, West Virginia. The folks who run the place have a wonderful bat box raised high above the berm of their pond dam. Friend John, on an evening walk observed about 150 bats exiting this box. Well, I had to have one of those! So I built the box and then I had to construct the pole (I wasn't going to go out and buy stuff), so things got a little complicated. It ended up being a marvelous example of a Hoffackered thingy mortised and tenoned out of three pieces of wood (one of which was a good portion of a red cedar tree). But the good news was (and unlike the rest of the story) will stay good news; was that it had rained almost an inch and a half during the night prior to my digging my last hole.

So the good news was that the first four inches were damp. The bad news was that the moisture stopped there. The good news was that I thought that I should put that substantial 6x6 post at least 30 inches deep into the ground; the bad news was that I immediately hit hard blue shale (I had thought that I'd be digging through the "unconsolidated" material of the berm soil packed in back in 1983...). The good news was that I no longer had to go 30 inches deep; 24 would be plenty.... The bad news was that in order to chip through each one inch of hard blue shale you have to thrust down forcefully about thirty times with the digging iron (producing sparks and acrid smelling dust and smoke) - and then (depending on how deep your are) either reach down into the hole with your hand or use the post hole digger about 25 times (a tool that retrieves about 10% of whatever it may be that you're hoping to remove from the hole [especially if you're dealing with loose dirt and rocks], all in diminishing returns down to 1% when you then revert to the hand method - [if you're smart]). The good news was that the bat house pole would be really really well set. The next good news was that I pierced through that layer and hit the original slope "soil". The bad news was that this material (having been scraped down to the subsoil and repeatedly mashed by the bulldozer) was very nearly as impenetrable as the compacted "soil" and blue shale (did I mention that this material had been excavated from the stream bottom where it had been deposited by massive floods in the 1930"s?). Anyway, more bad news was that I wasn't done yet and that I had to go a little deeper in order to determine what would be the best lower layer to secure the base of the pole...

Well, the good news was that I again hit good ole hard blue shale. The bad news was that I then had to chip a square 7X7 inch hole into this layer to hold the bottom of the pole. The good news is that at 32 inches down, the "chipping" of hard blue shale into a precise pocket is a joy for the ages. Then the sun came out and I quit. I came up here and drank an ice cold beer, took a shower and wrote this piece of crap.

The last of the quotes (but the most recently quoth...)

“Credulity is man’s weakness, but the child’s strength.
Charles Lamb (Elia in the cross word puzzles) 1775 - 1834

Nothing succeeds like success.
Alexander Dumas (elder) 1802 - 1870

To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine.
Max Beerbohn 1872 - 1956

The optimist declares that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears that it is true.
James Branch Cabell 1879 - 1958

Oh Boy! This is one of my all time favorites. How could it be improved on? There is a certain solipsism about the “best of all possible worlds” that has been applied correctly to refute the argument that the perfection of nature proves the existence of God. But this so sweetly turns it all on it’s head, and is cynical too! Are we seeing a pattern here? They are MY favorite quotes.

I get more cynical every day, but it’s never enough.
Lilly Tomlin

Now I am the wiser; for I know that there is not any memory with less satisfaction in it than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
James Branch Cabell

If we resisted, we regret the missed opportunity, if we satisfied the temptation, we may still regret that we did. Sometimes, you just can’t win. This next Cabell quote comes from Jurgen and the scene is a gentleman fondling the sweet young flesh of his mistress:

Worm’s meat! This is the destined food, do what you will, of small white worms. This by and by will be a struggling pale corruption, like seething milk.

Why do I like this? I don’t know. It’s an interesting seduction technique, similar to “we may all be dead tomorrow, so why not?” But mostly, I like the imagery. It has truth. I believe in the adage:

Mother Nature always bats last.

I recall a rabbit that the cat released in the house only to die behind the refrigerator.... You had to be there to appreciate it. So back to biology. I wish that there was a way to put some Larsen cartoons in here; he certainly made some profound observations. We’ll be content with an Aldo Leopold:

The land is one organism. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

This is the one that set my nose to the grindstone with respect to my experience with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and our illustrious Secretary of Natural Resources, Becky Dunlop. Becky was the James Watt (we don’t need to preserve nature, Jesus is coming at the millennium) protégé that George Allen found under a rock somewhere. Becky, was put in charge of the Natural Resources of Virginia. She didn’t believe in Evolution, much less a universe older thant 6600 years (or whatever) Ah! I just found it (among other interesting things) - And I enjoyed my research into the Scopes trial while looking for it. "I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.” - Franklin P. Adams) As calculated by some “Biblical Scholar”, the age of the Universe is calculated from October 23, 4004 BC. To her, coal was a “renewable resource” since God had “POOF” made it all on the third or fourth day or whatever. Now, I’ve got nothing against letting people believe whatever they want. But you don’t put the guy on the street shouting at God in charge of policy either. Oh, man it was hard those four years. Becky didn’t believe in acid precipitation (it interfered with God fearing Christian business people maximizing their profits, and those Capitalistic profits are as dear to the Christian heart as the Gospels... so Pat Robertson tells us). Stop me, the nightmare is over. There will always be what appear to be insurmountable obstacles and powerful forces to oppose.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

The rest of these quotes have been selected by me without the aide of Bartlett. They’ve been gleaned mostly from my own reading and it may not be possible to reference them as easily as those that have preceeded. I also have to drop most of the birth and death dates. Most of the authors are still living as of this writing but I don’t necessarily know which ones.

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot 1888 - 1965


The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
Paul Valery

Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst his books. For to you Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned by the flicking of a finger.
Gordon R. Dickson

Compared to what? From now on whenever anyone says something to me, that’s what I’m going to say. - Lucy
Charles Shultz

Let me make myself perfectly clear...
Richard Milhouse Nixon

You knew what was coming every time Dick said this. Later, at the funeral of Charles De Gaulle:

This is a great day for France!

You have to wonder how those “idiom sensitive” translators handled that. Then again, there is that “French language” thing. I used to have a copy of a letter sent to Jaques Chirac, President of France from the Prime Minister of New Zealand. It was a wonderful send up of the French neuroses about their culture and language. It was a hoot. I think I saw it in Harper's.

If Lincoln were alive today, he’d roll over in his grave.
Gerald Ford

Maybe we should not have humored them... When they asked to live on reservations. Maybe we should have said, “No come join us. Be citizens along with the rest of us."
Ronald Reagon [speaking of Native Americans]

That one takes my breath away. Just because he had Aldzhimers, doesn’t mean he wasn’t an idiot as well. More Reagonisms:

[Malapropism repeated nine times in one speech, early in his administration]
The United States has much to offer the third world war.

This kind of weapon [thermonuclear] can’t help but have an effect on the population as a whole.

There is today in the US as much forest as there was when Washington was at Valley Forge.

When you’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seen them all.

I don’t believe a tree is a tree and if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.

Which is it Ron? Man, this can get depressing, this was the president of the United States and he’s still revered as a Great Man.! Was it I who asked if we ever remember quotes we don’t like? I didn’t think to ask why we like them. Certainly, anything that makes those you don’t respect less powerful should be remembered and quoted. You can quote me.

America’s lands may be ravaged as a result of the actions of the environmentalists.
James Watt taught Becky Dunlop the appointee of George Allen as Secretary of Natural Resources of Virginia, my former boss, everything she knows:

[exposure to dioxin] is usually not disabling, but may be fatal.
Dow Chemical Spokesperson

On a lighter note, thank God we’ve got Yogi Berra:

A nickel ain’t worth a dime any more.
It’s like deja vu all over again.
Nobody goes there anymore it’s too crowded.
You got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.


The similarities between me and my father are different.
Dale Berra

That’s what you think, Dale.

I believe that we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy. But that could change.
Dan Quayle

John Stuart Mill would have noted:
Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people... it is true that most stupid people are conservative.

The two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
Harlan Ellison

Someone once told me that if you have to swallow a toad, it’s best not to look at it too long. If you have to swallow two toads, it’s best to swallow the biggest one first. If you have to swallow more than two, you need to reevaluate what you’re doing.
Charles Hawkins

Some quotes are worth repeating.
B. Keith Fowler (commenting on these quotes I put on the bulletin board.)

When a man falls into his anecdotage, it’s a sign for him to retire.
Disraeli again

It’s time for me to retire from quoting quotes, so I’ll list some of my own adages. They’re not likely to become part of our collective consciousness or mental short cuts, but they seemed appropriate when I coined them.

Forget truth and beauty; for most people happiness is having someone else to blame.
Everything takes two hands except for those things that take three.
Bureaucracy will make liars of us all.
When you’re really, really, mad at something, you beat the piss out of it with your binoculars.
A person’s self satisfaction is proportional to his ignorance.

I’ve lived my life so far with long periods of consummate self-satisfied smugness (You’ve figured this out from this essay), but it’s been punctuated with episodes of abject humility (when reality reared its ugly head). I’ve certainly learned more from my errors than my successes. So like Socrates, I accept the fact of my ignorance; I just try to forget it now and again. So ignorance of ignorance is bliss. It sure worked for George W. Bush.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages may be preserved by quotation.
Benjamin Disraeli



Compiled by R. W. Bolgiano, December, 2000
Edited; January, 2010

The big Fracking companies are coming.

Recent articles in the Daily News Record (I say Wrecker) about the proposed drilling and gas fracking in the Bergton, Virginia area have consistently used the term: "small" when referring to the chemicals used in the process. These amounts have been reported to be about one percent. One percent contamination is 10,000 parts per million. The taxpayers every where are presently paying their own Sewer Authorities to treat their waste down to the single digit parts per million range (a ten thousandth of a percent). Further, our own local "contaminants" are nitrates and various suspended solids, not benzene and the other hundreds of (and presumably proprietary) chemicals used in the fracking process. To call 10,000 parts per million of a carcinogenic chemical like benzene "small" is to engage in misinformation. Wouldn't it be nice if the next reference to fracking chemicals in the news would use the term "massive pollution"? Even the Fracking Company admits that something close to half of the contamination is not recovered for Treatment.

The contamination of surface and ground water by Big Fracking Gas Companies has been exempted from regulation by the EPA, the State of Virginia DEQ, and the Department Of Minerals and Mines by a Bill proposed by Dick (Haliburton) Chenney. The only entity that still has a voice in the process of permitting the drilling (the wells, NOT responsibility for the pollution and presumably redress by the citizenry) is local County Government; a group singularly unprepared to deal with the complexities of geology, waste treatment, and chemistry. The company (as is usual in a great free market) is buying up leases as fast as it can prior to local folks learning about what the leases are worth and what the problems might be (like water wells catching on fire - See the movie "Gasland" - http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-21-2010/josh-fox). The company (and the news paper) imply that the "bad stuff" is going to be way down there thousands of feet below your water well.

If we've learned anything from the drilling tragedy in the Gulf, it should be that fluids (gases and liquids) thousands of feet down in the earth don't really want to stay there. All that rock is heavy and it will squeeze that stuff back up here where we and our water wells live. Especially if you "frak" the rock strata. The only way to make this worse is to put the industrial waste lagoons in the flood plain. That's what they're planning to do.

The weather is better but people are still pretty dumb.

Some are weatherwise and some are otherwise.
Ben Franklin 1706 - 1790

Necessity never made a good bargain.
There never was a good war or a bad peace.

Genius is nothing but a greater aptitude for patience.
Georges Louis Leclerc De Buffon 1707 - 1788

A decent provision for the poor is the truest test of a civilization.
Samuel Johnson 1709 - 1784

Depend on it sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

I wonder if this could be employed as a study aide some how? And last from Samuel:

I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

This world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.
Horace Walpole 1717 - 1797

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke 1729 - 1777


When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
Thomas Paine 1743 - 1809

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Thomas Jefferson 1743 - 1829

Pretty good for a guy with the Sally Hemmings “problem”. I’ve said that context be damned; hypocracy is hypocracy and if you can't see it it’s probably because you’re a hypocrite.

To teach is to learn twice.
Ask the young: they know everything.
Joseph Joubert 1754 - 1824


Boy! If this little sarcasm isn’t one of the verities of life, I don’t know what is. Now, if it were only possible to realize the truth of this prior to middle age. But then of course it wouldn’t be true any more. It’s kind of like those puzzles about people on the island that always lie or always tell the truth. Reality flip flops because the a priori conditions affect the perceptions you need in order to solve the problem. A lot of time is spent trying to solve what we think is the right problem. But we often work on something only related to the problem.

RTP: Read The Problem.
Ralph Edmund Bolgiano

Good advice for me when I very impatiently jumped to all kinds of conclusions as to appropriate strategies. Hierarchical levels of organization are too much for most of us. We protest and resist the solution on one level because we like to jump a few levels and assail our debate opponent with, “Oh Yeah, but what about the price of eggs in China?” Many of the debates (arguements) I read in the news employ "Toddler Logic":

I didn't do it. It wasn't that bad. He did first.
Me

Life can be understood backward; but must be lived forwards.

Kierkegaard

The time travel paradox is an example of a “eudox”: I understand that if you could go back in time and kill yourself (or your father), you couldn’t go back into time and kill anybody. And as much as I appreciate the advantages of logical “thought experiments” as Einstein called them. I have a little trouble with a system of thought being the only thing to stop a physical action (Yeah yeah, I know the Theory of relativity holds that approaching the speed of light makes you infinitely short and infinitely massive - but it starts with the premise that you can’t exceed the speed of light so the “proofs” are tautologies). So I guess I’m not as rational as I’d like think I am. It rankles a bit to go from Einstein’s cosmos all the way back to Aristotle for the stopper. Now if logical paradox of rational word usage can keep us from physically going back into time, in mathematics, why do irrational numbers (like pi) and imaginary numbers (square roots of negatives) have any utility? And if the Big Bang happened, there was a time before time (without space there can’t be the time it takes to cross it) when there were no rules (or least, rules that have no “Logical” reason to have any connection to the rules we’re using to think about this question). What was the question? That’s the problem with the thought experiment, rigorous logic gets confusing at the point at which you interject a “wild hair/hare”, one of those “just for the sake of argument” kind of assumptions. Most of us just can’t keep our thought processes straight in this world, much less in an altered or hypothetical universe. And this is a way of seeing where it’s all going? So it slips into mysticism. If you feel it’s true but can’t prove it, it’s either religion or mysticism. To quote John Stockton during his campaign for the vice-presidency: “ What am I doing here?” Which is a larger question that it seems; and the next guy thinks he has some answers.

William Blake 1757 - 1827

To see a World in a grain of Sand, and a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the Palm of you hand And Eternity in an Hour.

I fervently hope that everyone has had such a moment in their lives; more importantly, I hope that they remember it, and cherish it, and believe in it. I hope that they haven’t refused to remember the “dream truth” quality of those times that are outside of time (and therefore space), when we see things differently. Certainly sometimes they’re visions that have danger and can cause harm; I don’t engage the man talking to God in the street. But that doesn’t mean that he’s not experiencing a life far richer than those who can’t see anything but the dirt beneath their feet.

We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Moderation in all things.
Publius Terentius Afer 190 - 159 BC

The golden mean is great, but how do you know what moderation is if you’ve never seen excess? I guess that I’m advocating:

There is moderation even in excess.
Benjamin Disraeli 1804 - 1881

“Wisdom through excess.” My friend Jimmy used to say. At least in moderation.... By that I mean we don’t have to take the elevator all the way to the top or bottom, but we shouldn’t be afraid to at least peek into the basement and the top floor at least a time or two. So here we have the LSD, mescaline, or psilocybin experience. So many people (especially those who know nothing about it have made it their business to tell us about the drug experience. The Partnership for a Drug Free American is a great example. Listen to their ads:

When she read her first book she read it to me. When talk of the birds and the bees went around she came to me for advice. So why didn’t she come to me when someone offered her a joint?

IT’S BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW SQUAT ABOUT MARIJUANA; YOU’RE IN THE RADIO ADVERTISEMENT BUSINESS FOR THE GOVERNMENT GRANT MONEY.

Another group of poor souls addicted to “drug money”. And I refuse to subscribe to the cop-out of blaming the bad parts of a drug experience on the drug. It’s all inside you already. The exalted highs and the abysmal lows. It’s just a pill! The rest is in your head from the totality of your life. The Partnership folks want to blame all our troubles on the drug. I prefer the person who takes the drug. So for those that are shocked, I have to rely on another of the thoughts of Thomas Hobbes:

The secret thoughts of man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.

I guess my definition of “sin” (and especially those things that deserve to be illegal) doesn’t include the “victimless” crimes, or “dirty thought” for that matter. I fail to feel guilty about dreams in which I commit adultery with Lamia, or engage in ... whatever. And I reserve the right to think about these things when not in the dream state. It is so much more reasonable to contemplate having seen the underlying microstructure of a leaf in its veins or the roots of a mountain in the texture of its hollows and trees, all with a little (50 micrograms!) help from LSD. Even if the "AH HA! I SEE!" moment doesn’t last after those 1000 or so molecules have been pissed away. I know that it was all possible within the 150 pounds of molecules which are ME. Back to Blake:

A Truth that’s told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent.

Prisons are built of Stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.

Not only a visionary, but a cynic (I like that in a person) with a poet’s flair. Here is Friedrick Von Schiller again:

Whatever is not forbidden is permitted.

A very important principal. And one that has been ignored by tyrants thorough out history, and recently as well. I’m reminded of the case in the 1980’s were a US citizen constructed a hydroelectric power plant on his property (refurbished an old grist mill). The issue came up as to whether he should be allowed to tie into the power grid (selling his electricity at wholesale and buying it back at retail). An electrical power company executive opined that he didn’t think that it was LEGAL for private citizens to generate electricity! Fortunately, Judge Ito wasn’t presiding, and the obvious answer came back. “What?” The judge cleared that up for the power guy. As a matter of fact Virginia has some of the better regulations (and lack thereof) concerning home power generation. . I’m selling electricity to the Shenandoah Valley Electrical Coop right this minute. But as I understand it, there is a cap on the percentage of electricity in the grid that can be produced (and therefore purchased from) private citizens… Better get your PV panels while there's still time. You might have to GIVE your excess electricity away (or purposely waste it) if you’re too late. Let’s get that regulation changed; what do you say?

Mating Call Modification

Whippoorwill (Caprimulgus vociferous) Behavior in response to a mimicking device in Rockingham County: Submission to The North American Ornithicalogicial Society.

Electronic file last modified on 25 January 1997.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PRINT & ELECTRONIC VERSIONS ARE CONFUSING AT BEST.

‑‑The original was printed in a single column with lines of 78 characters or less, but it has been converted to lines of 75 characters or less to show better how esoteric we can be.

TITLE:

Whippoorwill (Caprimulgus vociferous) Behavior in response to a mimicking device in Rockingham County in 1997.

CITATION: REDACTED 1997. Whippoorwill Behavior in response to a mimicking device in Rockingham County in 1997. Journal of North American Ornithocalogical Society.

Ornithology 11:511‑523.


Acknowledgments‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑-‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑ 617
Literature Cited‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑-‑‑‑‑‑‑‑ 613
Introduction---------------------------------------------609

The purpose of this paper is to provide results of experiments into the Behavior of a Whippoorwill (Caprimulgus vociferus) during oral mating display in Rockingham County
STUDY AREA: FULKS RUN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, ROCKINGHAM COUNTY

Approx. Center of Site: 38 37' 10" N, 78 56' 51" W
Singers Glen, Virginia USGS 7.5 minute Quadrangle:
Location: Fulks Run International Airport
Area Studied: Former domicile of the author, the site of a ratty old trailer.
Habitat(s) Studied: Graveled area (Limestone crushed rock, size #5/8) near the author's bedroom window
Elevation: 1377 ft ASL (416 m)
Minimum Distance to Ridge top (ASL approx. 2000): 1 mi (0.6 km).
LANDSCAPED FORMER TRAILER SITE

Behavior(s) Studied: Male mating enticement display station.

******************************************************************
METHODS

A landscaped area (formerly the site of a trailer, definitely NOT a mobile home) appears to represent the all time ideal site for Male whippoorwills' enticement display.
During the early summer (June 22 through June 26) of 1997, starting at 10:02 PM (a) male whippoorwill(s) perched on a bench and conducted his enticement display. The call was measured at 85 db at a distance of 30 feet (8.5 m) in a frequency range of 440 to 1360 MHz, with an average repetition cadence of 0.8 seconds, and an uninterrupted duration of 2 hours and 16 minutes. A similar performance was repeated in the AM hours of the following morning, starting at 02:37 and continuing for 2 hours and 31 minutes.

Several consecutive nights of this behavior prompted the author to seek relief from the mating call by means of whippoorwill behavior modification. The afternoon of 26 June 1997, he obtained a "mimicking device" also known as a mechanical talking "parrot". This device is a nine (9) volt DC sound activated recording and play-back mechanism embedded in an imitation "feathered" puppet designed to represent a "talking" bird. The sounds, or calls, repeated by the device are recordings of the sounds that activate the devise, they are modified in both frequency and cadence rate. Frequencies and cadence rate are elevated by a factor of 1.0627. Description of puppet: Length: 36 cm, wingspan: 32 cm, pelage: back, blue, wings green, red, and yellow, breast: white, tail feathers (3): yellow, green, and red (each one solid color). Eyes: blue, feet yellow. Legs: very short (like the whippoorwill). Bill: very large, approximately 4 inches (10 cm) bright yellow. Genus and species unknown, possibly meant to represent a toucan.

SHORTCOMINGS OF OBSERVATIONS

Unfortunately, observations were unsatisfactory because of sleep deprivation. The first several nights the author had resorted to throwing handfuls of gravel (limestone, size #5/8) at the bird. Previous experience (two years ago) had illustrated the futility of fire arms (see JOO 3:321-315), prompted the author to experiment with alternative measures. Thus, data are only estimates of reality. (See sleep deprivation studies, JOP, 1990, 4:255-259).
******************************************************************
GENERAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The evening of June 26, 1997, a whippoorwill arrived at the mating display location at 09:54PM. The whippoorwill began his mating call (measurements: 85 db at a distance of 30 feet (8.5 m) in a frequency range of 450 to 1360 MHz, with a repetition cadence of 1.2 seconds, nearly identical to those previously recorded on June 25, 1997. Duration however was affected by the response of the mimicking device. The whippoorwill ceased his calls for a period of 5.6 seconds (possibly the time it took for him to try and figure out what the f**k was happening). The whippoorwill resumed his mating call and the mimicking device activated and responded with the afore mentioned cadence and frequency modifications. The whippoorwill responded to the mimicking device by modifying his calls. The whipporrwill calls were measured at 92 db at a distance of 30 feet (8.5 m) in a frequency range of 472 to 1430 MHz. At no time did the whippoorwill mimic the “AUWWKKK!” that the “parrot” interjects at the beginning of each new recording. Duration of this "enhanced" mating call lasted for 1 hour and 22 minutes, when it was terminated by the experimenter's intervention (thrown gravel [again, limestone, size # 5/8] that’s all I can find at this time of night and you can hurt your arm trying to throw it violently).

The author theorizes that the stubborn insistence of the whippoorwill counteracts the “parrot’s” ability to reset and therefore rerecord the “enhanced” display characteristics. Were this not the case, both parot and whippoorwill would have likey ramped up in frequency and cadence beyond the point of human hearing. Perhaps to the point they’d both explode (one can only wish).

After removal of the mimicking device, mating displays were observed to recommence after periods of time as short as 20 seconds after gravel was thrown. Mating calls loudness, frequencies, and cadence, returned to previously recorded levels following additional gravel throwing incidents at 11:18 PM, 11:21 PM, 11:25 PM, and 11:26 PM. Presumably, duration would have also been unaffected by the experiment, had the experimenter possessed the patience to test it (have YOU ever heard a whippoorwill when you’re trying to sleep?).


Following is a representation of the above results in table form:

(Table 1); Apologies to those who do not have the requisite software)

Further study of affects on duration are needed, however, observation effort and methods were inadequate to properly document results on this occasion. Others, (Boekelheide and Ainley 1989, Boekelheide et al. 1990a) have noted the persistence of the mating display (after all, the species name IS vociferus! Scott (1973:23) noted that the rate of return to mating display calls is more than 8 times more rapid than the rate at which frogs return to normal behavior after disturbance (gravel throwing, geogenesis and size unknown). Does this mean that FROGS are smarter than whippoorwills? And will you tell me why a bird that screams “HERE I AM, HERE I AM” a thousand times an hour isn’t eaten by some self respecting owl or fox or something?
******************************************************************

TABLE

Mating call resumption intervals, whippoorwills. sub colony.
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑

Seconds duration with
Site SC delay Date mpts Young Source
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
Parnassas A 45 8/9/1991 70+ 1.56+ ? Fawley 1973) *
Parnassas B 10 8/3/1983 19 ? 1.90 Fawley (in prep.)
Breiry Branch A 42 8/3/1983 19 0.45 ? This Paper
Briery Branch B 52 8/3/1983 16 0.31 ? This Paper
Briery Branch C 69 8/3/1983 2 0.03 ? This Paper
Rawley Sp. 84 7/17/1983 49 0.58 1.23 **

** Tesh (1973:9, 23) did not appear to make an intensive effort to measure resumption rate (due to use of shot gun). Thus, Tesh's (1973) data may underestimate the tenacity of C. vociferus.

** Graybill and Hodder (1985:206) list 84 total tests, but Hodder and Graybill (1985:538) lists 82 attempts; the mean value for duration/gravel throws in Hodder and Graybill (1985) is correct if sigma is less than 2.05.
******************************************************************
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Ray Tesh for the lone of the mimicking device. And I am most grateful to Eric Gadberry for the gift of the shot gun; the only strategy that appears to have any effect on Caprimulgus vociferous. However, the nearly instantaneous replacement of the “dead” whippoorwill with a replacement male bird, convinced me that even though I was willing to kill the first whippoorwill on Cross Mountain, I was not willing to kill the last whippoorwill on Cross Mountain. We live and we learn; unless we happen to be particularly stupid Texans. In which case; God help us all.

Literature Cited:
Ainley, D. G. 1990. Farallon WHIPPOORWILLS: patterns at the community level. Pp. 339‑380 in Ainley, D. G. and R. J. Boekelheide (Eds.). 1990.
Whippoorwills, stupidity, ecology, dynamics, and structure of
an upwelling system community. Stanford Univ. Press.
Boekelheide, R. J. and D. G. Ainley. 1989.
Age, resource availability, and idiotic brain-dead birds. Auk 106:389‑401.
Boekelheide, R. J., D. G. Ainley, S. H. Morrell, and T. J. Lewis. 1990a. Whippoorwills. Pp. 163‑194 in D. G. Ainley and R. J. Boekelheide (Eds.). 1990. Bird brains of the North American Continent: ecology, dynamics, and structure birds that are dumber than frogs. Stanford Univ. Press.
Tesh, R. F., Boekelheide, R. J., D. G. Ainley, H. R. Huber, and T. J. Lewis. 1990b.
Effects of #6 bird shot on stupid whippoorwills. Pp. 195‑217 in D. G. Ainley and R. J. Boekelheide (Eds.). 1990. Whippoorwills of the Farallon Islands: ecology, dynamics, and structure of an incredibly stupid bird. Stanford Univ. Press.
Graybill, M. R. and J. Hodder. 1985. Effects of the 1982‑1983 El Nino on reproduction of six species of Caprimulgidae in Virginia. Pp. 205‑210 in W. S. Wooster and D. L. Fluharty, eds. El Nino North: Nino effects in the Eastern North America. Small International Airport Grant Program, Univ. Maryland, College Park, Md..
Hodder, J. and M. R. Graybill. 1985. Reproduction and survival of birds that got "blowed-up" during the 1982‑1983 El Nino. Condor 87:535‑541.
Scott, J. M. 1973. Resource allocation in four species of Caprimulgidae. Ph.D. Thesis, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis.

JOO 5:611‑613 Contents HREF="joomenu.htm” Menu

Water Problems in the Rest of the World

A Republican Bill (Written free of charge for them by Rush Limbaugh)

Whereas, 97% of meteorological and atmospheric scientists (100% of those not in the employ of the fossil fuel industry), so called "scientific organizations" such as the Smithsonian Society, National Geographic Society, The American Meteorological Society and various Academies of Science too numerous to mention all declare that "Climate Change", AKA "Global Warming" is a reality, and whereas these organizations cite and print and post data and images of Arctic and Tibetan and other glacial areas of earth showing the reality of shrinking ice fields as obvious evidence in support of their "theories", be it resolved that;

We Republicans declare all these groups and their members to be ANTI AMERICAN, anti free market, knowing and unknowing dupes of Chinese Communists, pinkos, queers and all those bad people who have a secret agenda.  Further, we declare their information to be a hoax and any repetition of it to be fake news.

And further, be it known that anyone on Earth dependent on water coming to them via the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salwen, Irrawaddy, Jamuna, Ganges, Indus, Orinoco, Japura, Amazon, Jura, Madeira, Mamore, Mackenzie, Yukon, Rhone, Rhine, Danube, Tigress, Euphrates, and White or Blue Nile Rivers to be non people and therefore undeserving of consideration by the God fearing good Americans who has got theirs just fine, thank you very much. And f**k you too, you Pacific Islanders, Bangladeshis, and Dutch who don’t have the good sense to live more than ten feet above the high tide mark (and probably can’t speak English like Jesus did).

The End of War

An open letter to National Public Radio:

Something was very very wrong with your program.
I was fully prepared to participate in the discussion conducted on "Talk of the Nation" on NPR this past Tuesday, March 30 concerning Drone Warfare. But I just couldn’t listen after the first fifteen minutes. It is profoundly depressing to hear so called "experts" dance all around with smoke and mirrors when asked reasonable questions. Further, many reasonable questions were never asked or the host refused to follow up the non answers with any probing. I heard "answers" that evoked apocryphal and anecdotal digressions ("Oh! my friend wasn’t killed because he got to use a robot to kill the other guy." What about the other guy that got killed? How positive was his experience?) No one addressed the concept of "Thou shalt not kill." I’m an atheist and I adhere to that concept. When asked about the "collateral fatalities" [dead innocents], the talking heads mouthed something about the answer being "Highly Classified" and Congressional Authorization; I guess that is justification for killing the "wrong" people. The Iraq War has inured us to the concept of killing "suspected enemies". Now we’re even doing it with drones. What next, autonomous robots?

Now comes the part where you get to write me off as a crackpot: Sixty years ago, Assac Azimov imagined a world where humans and manufactured human substitutes (robots or drones) were cohabitants. He understood that given human nature, (where we can’t stop killing each other in very personal ways) that in order for civilization to continue to exist; at least the robots needed to obey "Thou shalt not kill". He proposed the three laws of robotics to protect the humans from other humans using robots as weapons. He instilled the robots with better ethics than we humans can manage.

The transition from prosthesis to drone to robot is already occurring around us and there is no sign that those constructing these transitional forms nor our representatives in Government are even thinking about the consequences of their actions. The assumption seems to be that only OUR side is going to have these weapons (how has that worked out so far in the history of warfare)? I recently read an OP ED piece in the Washington Post news written by a United States Army general stating that these "super soldiers" will make war obsolete! Just like the sword, the bow and arrow and the machine gun and the atom bomb.

If NPR is one of the best forums for debate of serious issues (and I believe that it is) and it can’t do any better than the recent program; then we are all truly and surely damned.