Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, September 20, 2024
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62 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Had my endoscopy performed yesterday. Doctor says it will be 3-4 weeks before I get biopsy results. I hate those kind of waits but I suspect it is more the doctor’s office stacked up with patients than the need for the biops y to be finished. If the biopsy isn’t good, I suspect I’ll be contacted as soon as a week from now.
Dear Wife got 10 dollars for every year of her age as a birthday gift from her boss/our pastor. He also just about begged DW not to quit at the end of the year. She is quitting, especially now that my health is possibly deterioating.
A senior moment- I planned to take DW to dinner for her birthday but I totally forgot the dietary restrictions before my endoscopy. DW reminded me. We’ll go to Okeechobee Steakhouse for dinner tomorrow. Okeechobee is the best steak house in the county.
Earlier this week I wrote about learning Kaspersky software will no longer be available for purchase. I made the decision to go back to Bitdefender and ordered and received their software Wednesday night. I didn’t upload it right away.
Guess what happens before I leave for the hospital yesterday. A program called Ultra AV downloaded onto two of my computers. Ultra AV is the company KSP supposedly sold their customers to. KSP will not be updating their software any longer starting on Sep 29.
KSP was supposed to inform their customers first. They didn’t. I deleted the download. I, and I’m far from the only person, suspect Ultra AV a software company whose website didn’t exist before July, is just KSP under a different name.
I don’t like not being informed ahead of time nor do I like my computers being chosen to be guinea pigs. Ultra’s customer service is about non-existent and they are totally unknown. KSP yesterday. Last night I was up till almost midnight deleting KSP and installing Bitdefender on my 3 PC.
Guess what I receive in my email box this morning? A message from KSP telling me about Ultra. Too late.
If my post sounds incoherent, blame it on just one cup of coffee for me so far this morning and only 5 hours sleep.
@Bill Jempty: Best of luck with it all, Bill.
The Canadian government just made a very interesting airline related move. The Canadian Transportation Agency proposes to charge the airlines $790 CAD for every customer complaint the agency has to resolve, even if it gets resolved in favor of the airline.
The reason is the high cost of resolving such complaints. The fee would be a way to defray the costs. Unlike the writer at the link, I don’t see the cost to the government as entirely unreasonable. think of how long resolving issues with customer service can take. Hours on the phone, several emails, gathering documents, etc. Now imagine if you were payed a regular hourly salary for doing this.
What I find remarkable is charging the airlines. In most countries, it would be the customer who’d pay the fee. This would benefit the airlines and screw the customers, just like laissez faire capitalism advocates demand. And if the complaint were for an amount lower than the fee, most customers would simply not even try, as they’d lose even if they won.
IMO, if the airlines pay a fee, then they’d be more likely to resolve in the customer’s favor most complaints that are lower than the fee. Because then it’s the airline that would lose even if it won.
There once was a pervy black Nazi
Who thought Jews destroyed Francis Scott Key
His fiery sermons
Sound better in German
It sure beats the four in Benghazi
Among other ramblings, El Felon said “If I don’t win this election – and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens…”
I can’t vote in a US election, but I’d be glad to take my share of the credit for that positive development.
@Kathy:
I must admit that’s the first time I’ve heard that particular trope from him. He’s talked a lot about Jews being disloyal, of course, but up to now I haven’t heard him blame Jews as the leading culprit for his possible upcoming defeat.
I guess the good news is that he’ll never admit he lost, and therefore the Tribe can’t take the blame for something that didn’t happen. Mazal Tov!
@Kathy:
When in reality, Jews make up only about 2.5% of the total US population and mostly live in non-swing states.
Pre-emptively blaming the Jews and setting them up as scapegoats is a very old and tired but incredibly scary move. Sigh.
Trump went to the Israeli American Council’s “national antisemitism summit” and told them that if he loses it will be because Jewish people are conspiring against him:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/trump-jewish-voters-antisemitism-event/index.html
Microsoft wants to reopen Three Mile Island and use all of its output to feed the energy-ravenous server farms needed for Microsoft’s AI products.
I heard two related NPR stories back to back yesterday that on the surface, seem to have nothing in common: one about Steward Healthcare System’s bankruptcy, and the second about Miley Cyrus getting sued over allegations that her song “Flowers” copied Bruno Mars’s song, “When I Was Your Man.”
The common denominator? Private equity firms, which bought the healthcare system and drove it into the ground in search of profit; and which purchased Bruno Mars’s copyrights, and is now trying to profit by suing anyone with any song that even slightly resembles something in his catalog.
The person interviewed for the latter story said that if the lawsuit prevails, it could portend terrible things for the music industry, which has a long tradition of both “answer songs” that reply to a previous song, and of borrowing from music that came before. In fact, it might be hard to make new music if you can’t prove that your work is entirely free of the influences of other works.
@Stormy Dragon:
So, creating his own personal Dolchstoßlegende. How unsurprising.
@SKI!:
Correct. Their biggest potential influence is probably Pennsylvania, where they made up about 4% of the vote last time. Of course the majority of Jews are staunch Dems, a certain smaller chunk are staunch Republicans, so the number of Jewish swing voters is pretty low; and Jewish Americans in general are pretty reliable voters overall, regardless of partisan leaning, so there’s not much issue of turnout.
In a very close election the Jewish vote could matter (at least for those of us who remember the Butterfly Ballot fiasco in 2000), but the idea that we’d ever be the leading reason for Trump’s victory or defeat compared to much larger demographics like Latinos or young people is ridiculous.
@Monala: In San Antonio, Steward Heathcare System bought Southwest General. From what I gathered, the hospital had to pay high rent and fees to a separate entity of SHS, making it lose money. They tried to strong arm and threaten Bexar County and San Antonio into giving them some subsidy. They were refused and then shut the hospital down. Fortunately, the county owned University Hospital System already had plans to build their own much more modern facility and are doing so.
Private equity firms are truly vulture capitalists intent on raping and pillaging going concerns.
The PRRI religious census came out a couple weeks ago. It’s kind of amazing.
At the same time, the racial/ethnic groups showing a serious increase in population, are Hispanics, and to a lesser extent, Asians.
I believe the decline of religion has panicked groups like White Evangelicals. Why not Catholics or Mainline Prods? It’s the word, evangelical. White Evangelicals see themselves in the business of recruiting, expanding, less so the others.
So, you have this demographic panic – fewer people in the pews, older people in the pews, less educated people in the pews, and the steady rise of atheists, agnostics and DGAFs, and the steady browning of the population.
This is why White Evangelicals so easily threw Jesus under the bus and flocked to Mr. Grab ’em by the pussy. They are in decline, and they are afraid.
@Kingdaddy: this is my problem with AI and crypto. Massive amounts of water and energy are needed. Here in Memphis, Elon installed a giant server farm, without permits, this past summer and we almost immediately started getting air quality alerts. Of course, the farm is located smack dab in a poor community already suffering from health issues related to environmental conditions. I could make a fortune selling I Hate Elon bumper stickers.
I knew Gates was into nuclear. He used to couch his support in terms of “clean energy “. I suspect it was more about propping up AI and crypto than being green.
Cute trick by the techbros introducing more uses for tech and never acknowledging the huge stress on the environment or the tax payer or society and civilization, in general.
@Michael Reynolds:
There’s a lot of secular Jewish people who identify as Jewish despite never or rarely engaging in Jewish religious practices because they see it more as a cultural identity than as a religious identity.
I think we’re seeing a similar process beginning in Christianity. At its core I think that’s what MAGA really is about: non-religous Christian cultural identity
@Michael Reynolds:
Much of the concern about “woke” and “cancel culture” follows from conservatives finding out that while they used to represent our culture and do the ostracizing, they’re now on the outside of our culture and being ostracized.
Trump and MAGA, religious and otherwise, are a doomed rear guard action. They will fail. In the long term. Sort term, they can do an awful lot of damage.
@Stormy Dragon:
The question I have is whether White Evangelicals were ever about anything but identity politics.
I’m skeptical of all religious belief. People want to have faith, but they don’t. They want to believe the Bible stories, but they don’t, not really. Not the way they believe the sun rises in the East. Not the way they believe in gravity. It’s aspirational, not actual. Under stress they abandon the pretended beliefs and gravitate to what they actually believe in: what they see as their own.
You cannot really believe in Jesus Christ and hatred of the other. Jesus was failing them. Jesus wasn’t bringing in the donations. Jesus was refusing to smite all the people they hate. So the wheels on the bus went round and round, all over Jesus. Trump Bus Lines.
@Monala:
The history of music copyright lawsuits has fascinated and often baffled me, and I’m sure it takes on added complexity in the age of AI.
Two songs I grew up with were “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker and “I Want a New Drug” by Huey Lewis. The former was the source of one of the more famous music lawsuits; apparently Parker was hired to do a song similar to the Huey Lewis one for the film after they couldn’t secure the rights to it. The matter was settled out of court. Yet to my ears, the two songs sound nothing alike. I suppose they have vaguely similar chord progressions, but that’s about it, and it’s not even a chord progression that was original to the Huey Lewis song; the song “Pop Muzik” by M from several years earlier used a more-or-less similar chord progression.
Then there was the lawsuit over George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” for its similarities to the Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine.” Harrison spoke about how mortified he was by the lawsuit, and how it negatively affected his ability to compose because he grew so paranoid that he might be unconsciously copying an earlier song like he had that one time. In this case, I can hear the resemblance between the two songs; they have basically the same melody in the verse and chorus. And at the trial they had music experts testifying that it was a distinctive melody, not some oft-used theme that shows up in a lot of pop music.
What’s odd to me is that I can name a bunch of examples of songs that sound very similar to my ears, but where to my knowledge there was never any legal action taken–for example, Springsteen’s “Pink Cadillac” compared with Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music.” And Berry’s music had been the subject of lawsuits before–the Beach Boys’ “Surfin USA” compared with his “Sweet Little Sixteen”; the Beatles’ “Come Together” and his “You Can’t Catch Me”–though, that one was apparently launched by one of his producers and he had no direct involvement.
The weirdest lawsuit along these lines–which, thankfully lost–was when John Fogerty was sued for the similarity of one of his songs as a solo artist to a CCR song–that he had written! The lawsuit was based on the idea that he didn’t own the copyright for his own tunes. His countersuit reached the US Supreme Court.
And then there were the lawsuits over the use of samples in hip hop and other DJ-centric genres, where those like MC Hammer became a sacrificial lamb who got fleeced for a practice that would later become totally normal and accepted in the music business.
@Stormy Dragon:
While there are definite similarities between secular Jews and so-called “cultural Christians,” it’s important to recognize the historical backdrop, where in many ways these two phenomena have different underlying causes. Secular Jewishness (I hesitate to call it “Judaism,” but I have heard it termed that way) grew out of the emancipation of Jews in the modern age, where many abandoned their faith but were still subject to anti-Semitism and separated from the rest of society, something which contributed to the maintenance of group identity. Then there’s the fact that Jews are an ethnoreligious group (my 23andme says I am 99% Ashkenazi, a fact that isn’t dependent on my personal beliefs or practices), something you cannot say about Christians broadly speaking (though there are subsets where it begins to look a bit like that–say, Irish Catholics).
Nowadays, I see fewer and fewer people of Jewish descent choosing to identify as Jews, and a big part of the reason is that they don’t feel they need to anymore. And with the higher rates of intermarriage and conversion than was the case before about the mid-20th century, it reduces the traditional ethnic character of the Jewish community and makes it seem more like a religion akin to Christianity.
@Stormy Dragon:
There is some element of truth to this but only on the periphery of MAGA. There will always be a strong Christian cultural identity in this country just like there is in much more secular Europe. It is just that we are peeling away the overt Christian overlay and recovering the original secular origins of Christmas and Easter, i.e., celebration of the winter solstice and the arrival of spring. Many of us will not believe in a deity but will still celebrate with a Christmas tree and presents as well have Easter egg hunts and a good Easter dinner. We will also over time incorporate Diwali as a celebration and other cultural celebrations.
@Stormy Dragon:
Or, more accurately, an ethnicity.
Judaism as an ethno-religion, predating Christian-driven conceptions that a “religion” is driven by religious belief and practice, and as such, is more akin to a private club where you can be accepted for membership but can’t simply state that you are a member without getting accepted by the existing members. Your beliefs and practices once you are a member are, with very rare exception, wholly irrelevant to your membership.
Another death that didn’t have to happen. Thanks, Trump! Thanks, Republicans! Thanks, SCOTUS Justices who flat-out lied during their confirmation processes!
Afraid to Seek Care Amid Georgia’s Abortion Ban, She Stayed at Home and Died
This is horrendous and will keep happening until reproductive freedom is restored in all states.
@Kylopod:
Music is built around a finite number of notes, that can be arranged in a finite number of chords, that can be arranged in a finite number of progressions, etc. The total number is then reduced by the determination of what sounds ‘pleasing,’ so it’s no wonder that musical phrasing gets repeated. After all there is a old, old joke that goes through pop, country, rock and roll and folk music about playing the same old three chords.
@Stormy Dragon: “There’s a lot of secular Jewish people who identify as Jewish despite never or rarely engaging in Jewish religious practices because they see it more as a cultural identity than as a religious identity.”
Wait — there’s another kind?
Just kidding. That’s how it seemed in California, but now that I’m in New York…
New Alt-right Playbook dropped:
The Alt-Right Playbook: Why Don’t You Respond to Criticism?
@Stormy Dragon:
Really interesting. I think you are on to something here
@Michael Reynolds: A quibble. There are Christians. I’ve met a handful, people who are really trying to apply their sincerely held Christian beliefs to their everyday life. But they are a tiny, tiny fraction of those calling themselves Christians. And, to a one, they were some of the most non-judgmental people I’ve met.
@MarkedMan:
That’s true in my observation, too.
@MarkedMan:
Absolutely. There are Christians so genuinely Christian that they shame people like me. If they constituted even half of self-proclaimed Christians, this would be a better world. I say that as an atheist.
Sadly for the world, and fortunately for smug atheists, the percentage of Christians who actually live their faith is tiny. The majority are engaged in a version of stolen valor.
Incidentally, had an Uber driver pull a stolen valor line on me yesterday. Claims he was in a foxhole in Vietnam in 1962. (Nope.) That he was spit on by a hippie. (If so, he’d be a real rarity. Especially in 1962 when there were no Hippies, and the US in general DGAF about Vietnam). I really despise men who pull that shit. Find someone else to pretend to be, don’t try to take what men earned with their work, their sweat, their courage, and too often, their blood. Pretend you were a college athlete, no one cares.
The Prairie State just got a little more pungent…
@Mister Bluster:
See, right there you know it’s bogus. Potheads don’t speed. Potheads drive 10 mph under the speed limit, and frequently hold up traffic when they become mesmerized by the colors of stoplights.
@Kylopod:
And then there’s John Fogerty, the only person I have heard of who was sued for infringing on his own copyright. He won.
@Michael Reynolds: @Mister Bluster:
I’m surprised that the case didn’t get thrown out since 3 mph is within the margin of error for a speedometer.
@Sleeping Dog:
@Kylopod:
@Monala:
The Austrailian Comedy group, Axis of Awesome, did a piece about 15 years ago, showing how every single pop song ever written uses the same four chords.. I’m a huge fan.
Several years later, the band’s lead singer transitioned from man to woman, and the band’s reveal of it is freaking hilarious. It’s called The Elephant in the Room
Both videos will make your day.
You’re welcome.
@becca: And you think the citizens and corporations advantaged by AI were going to care?
“I got one word for you: plastic.”
@EddieInCA:
A bald man trapped inside a man with hair. I can identify.
@Stormy Dragon:
So you would agree with the idea that America was once a “Christian nation” but “is not anymore?”
Interesting.
@Mikey: WARNING: CRT ALERT!!!: As sad and tragic as these stories are, Georgians, Americans at large for that matter aren’t going to GAF as long as the faces of the tragedy are black. We, in aggregate, eventually settled on arguing about whether the deaths of 30 some white suburban preschoolers was some sort of manufactured crisis; we can and will do the same here.
Team America–Fuck yeah!
So sort of like parishioners in various countries? I’m not intending to mock or diminish the claim, just noting that the phenomenon is long-standing. White Evangelicals did not invent this. It’s been part of the mix since Constantine (?) converted and nationalized Christianity.
@just nutha:
???
I’m talking about Jews not becoming not-Jewish regardless of their beliefs or practices. There are LOTS of atheist Jews, including many who are religiously observant. Regardless of a Jew’s beliefs or practices, they don’t lose their ethnicity. And ethnicity defines whether someone is Jewish as it is an ethno-religion.
Conversely, even if you have tons of Askenazi DNA, if you weren’t born Jewish or convert, you aren’t Jewish. You aren’t part of the tribe.
@Michael Reynolds:
Does “advanced degree” mean PhD?
If so, here’s a comparable stat: only 2% of UK population have PhD’s (or similar).
Otoh, I recall an British academic back in the 1990’s with considerable experience of US academia, saying he reckoned an average UK mutiple-A level student was about par with a US undergraduate degree, and a UK BA/BSc from a “Russell Group” standard University was on a footing with a lot of US postgrads, outside the elite schools.
@Stormy Dragon:
@Michael Reynolds:
Heh.
I’m an agnostic.
But I’m an Anglican agnostic.
The US is a little unusual in the degree of “theological shopping around” within Christian, and especially Protestant, denominations.
In many countries, religion is simply a part of communal/social identity, and 90% plus of the time, simply a default inheritance.
Like the Anglican tendency to use Church for baptisms, marriages, funerals, and maybe a Christmas carol service, and the Harvest Festival in rural areas.
Actual active “belief”, and participation, has tended to erode away, for a variety of reasons, as is now happening in the US.
The difference seems to be there is more of a continuing,if slowly fading, “tribal” identification with a particular denomination in many areas; perhaps not so much in the US, with the major exceptions being “cradle Catholics” and Jews?
Please note: these are observations from an outsider: please feel free to tell me I’m talking nonsense yet again. 😉
Also: recalls the old Northern Ireland joke about the Muslim/Buddhist/Hindu/Jew/whatever who moves to Belfast…
I was brought up in a very, very strict and conservative evangelical church. My brother is a minister in that church and much of my family remains active in that kind of church. My perception is that they were less overtly political in the past and didnt not act as God’s warriors for any particular party. OTOH, they always wanted to turn their cultural preferences into religion and depending upon the church there was often some racism. Just as an example take rock music. Now, the big churches have praise bands with full bass, drums, guitar sets and are basically playing soft rock, but when rock came out it was the Devil’s music. Elvis was shaking his hips. OMG. The revival preachers would come and tell us that it had its emphasis on the backbeat, just like the music Africans used to worship the devil. (The racism part.)
Clearly there was no Biblical basis for the belief but it was sin to listen to rock and roll. As rock became more popular that gradually went away. How could it be a sin and then not a sin? It was just cultural since the old people didnt like modern music. Now I dont like modern music either, but I dont claim it’s a sin or the devil’s music, unless played after midnight close to our house.
Still, while a lot of stuff was sin that wasn’t in the Bible for cultural reasons it was pretty rare to hear anything remotely like politics in a sermon. To be fair that remains the case in some evangelical churches but it’s now pretty common to have sermons and/or the congregation politicized.
Steve
We now have a junior moon. Baby moon, perhaps.
http://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/science/earth-asteroid-mini-moon/index.html
I did not have Cards Against Humanity sues SpaceX on my 2024 bingo card:
https://www.elonowesyou100dollars.com/
@SKI!: Parishes–where the public records are part and parcel of the parish church records is culturally similar, though not genetically identical. Both establish a cultural identity that has no strong relationship to the originating organization. You become “Christian” by being born into a “Christian” family, baptized in the parish church in a “Christian” nation. What you believe, what you do, how you live, even that you don’t attend church means nothing as to the “Christian” identity. (And that’s why the non-conformists are driven out of parishes, excommunicated, and inquisioned during the counter reformation.)
No, it’s not apples to apples comparison, I’ll agree on that. But it’s not apples to ground glass or moon rocks either. The two systems share common features. But disagree if you want. Tomorrow we can disagree about something else (just like we did two days ago).
ETA: “But I’m an Anglican agnostic.”
Exactly!
@JohnSF: By the 90s, we were “dumbing down” the curriculum (yes, I said that) for the purpose of creating more high school graduates (the reason you need to lower the bar in the first place). His conjecture isn’t surprising to me at all. I’m just blue skying here because I don’t understand the UK secondary ed system very well, but I would guess that the correlation between the numbers of “multiple A-students” in the UK system and the numbers of American high schoolers who would qualify for, say, National Honor Society* in the US might be similar.
*Not all school systems participate in National Honor Society in the US, so there are more qualified students than there are National Honor Society members. Additionally, not all students who can qualify for NHS can afford/choose to embrace the cost of membership (IIRC).
@Stormy Dragon: Lol, is this real? It’s awesome! I just wish it was for more than a negligible amount of Musk money.
Fun news of the day: Chinese zoo paints dogs to look like pandas
I mean, they’re panting, that’s why they’re called pandas.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
My “Anglican agnostic” stance is because I love (some) of the old traditions of Anglicanism, the old church architecture, the hymns, the (OK they are Catholic) manuscripts. art, music.
And that several Anglican pastors I’ve known have combined theological sophistication, considerable intelligence, and genuine concern for the less fortunate.
And also, in historical perspective, the rather odd tendency of 18th century Anglicanism be a refuge for natural historians and poets.
It’s that in some respects, Anglicanism has always, to me, been part of a background of cultural assumptions and traditions.
Some good, some not so much.
Otoh, it only takes a little research to realize how oppressive the squire/vicar/magistrate order was in 19th century rural England, and how pissed off they were when the consequences of WW1 broke their domination.
(Another very Brit sidelight: how the Anglican clergy and gentry both resented and were forced to accommodate with Catholic or Dissenter Lords)
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Multiple A in the UK is not uncommon, but not usual either.
There has been grade inflation recently, but the usual figure was around 10%.
This is anecdotage, but back in the mid-1990’s UC Worcester had placement programs with several sound, if not stellar, US universities.
UCW academics had to plead with the US ones to be tight on the grades, because otherwise the UCW undergrads tended to get swollen heads.
It’s partly because UK schooling tended to specialise early (arguably far too early) and to require at A level a aptitude for independent analysis, not rote learning, that Americans did not encounter until much later.
This has,it seems, changed over the last couple of decades, due to the pressures of “teach to the test”.
And always had the problem of less “academic” and “later developing” students being sidelined in the UK system.
And the UK problem of education as an elite “goal in itself” which could produce highly trained fools. See Boris Johnson.
(As I can explain further, from experiences both parental and personal)
@Franklin:
Pandas pander.
@Franklin: Pantomime Pandas.
I am frequently reminded of a bit in Catch 22, the book, IIRC didn’t make the movie. Yossarian has been sleeping with Lt. Scheisskopf’s wife. They have a post-coital argument about religion. They’re both atheists, but Lt. Scheisskopf’s wife doesn’t believe in a kind, loving God while Yossarian doesn’t believe in a mean, vengeful God.
Interesting twist on the exploding pagers/radio story: Gold Apollo and Icom are pissed that their corporate brands are in the crapper now because of Israel and they’re big enough that the Taiwanese and Japanese governments are also pissed on their behalves:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93yg2w53dzo
@Kylopod:
Sorry, I think this is a poor example. This one is a note-for-note plagiarism. It’s not “a resemblance”, it’s an identity. Different words, but exact same melody and harmonies.
I agree that it’s hard to draw the line sometimes, but this isn’t one of those cases.
Remember the Dali transport that hit the Francis Scott Key bridge?
Well I called it. The DOJ has filed a lawsuit against the owners/operators because “the electrical and mechanical systems on the Dali were improperly maintained and configured in a way that violated safety regulations and norms for international shipping.” AKA the owners/operators put profit above everything else forcing the crew and maintenance to “jury-rig” the ship.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-lawsuit-against-owner-and-operator-vessel-destroyed-francis-scott
Sometimes, maybe probably most of the time the buzzards that gyre above my downtown are doing it for fun. Because they can, to show off, perhaps to woo a mate.
I pegged one buzzard yesterday who was goofing around with updraft vs. wind to just stay as still as possible for the hell of it for as long as possible. He/she positioned themselves repeatedly in the correct windflow to just hover and not move at all by the vortices there for a half minute or so. When they lost airborne stillness broke off circled quickly back to the same sweet spot of wind to hover and not move repeatedly. It was deliberate play activity. They were trying to do it, obviously.
Probably not as smart as ravens or crows, but buzzards are decidedly playful and savvy. Maybe as smart in their own way. Today I saw a communal gyre about 1500 ft. up.
There is purpose to a lot of their behavior that they can. Gyring is definitely a communal behavior and process. Those dudes fuck around in the air because they have fun doing it. Because they can. This is play behavior.
A flock of buzzards gyres above me every day and I find it delightful.
There is right now a glaring opportunity for an ornithologist to make their bones on marking buzzard behavior in my location.
It’s fascinating.
@JohnSF: “y “Anglican agnostic” stance is because I love (some) of the old traditions of Anglicanism, the old church architecture, the hymns, the (OK they are Catholic) manuscripts. art, music. And that several Anglican pastors I’ve known have combined theological sophistication, considerable intelligence, and genuine concern for the less fortunate.”
My wife has recently joined an Anglican church in New York City — although I think over here they call it Episcopalian or something — and all of the above applies to it. Gorgeous building, beautiful music, and a real sense of welcome and caring.
@Stormy Dragon: “pissed on their behalves”
Is this really the plural of “behalf,” or did you make it up? Not complaining, honestly curious!