* Turkey Vultures (cartoon)

My [much reduced in size] photo of Turkey Vultures at Canyon Lake, Rapid City, SD. (Cartoon "balloon" added w/ Comic Life 1.3.) . . .

My wife keeps telling me what ugly birds Turkey Vultures are. "The eye of the beholder," etc., and an anthropocentric projection of human valuations regarding baldness, and wrinkles, et al. Having watched this species all my life—in flight, and yes, even scavenging on the ground—I find these birds to be one of the most "beautiful" in the world. (The birds in the photo are performing the morning ritual of drying their wings out, under a sun that will also create the thermals upon which they will eventually take flight.)

Oh, of course the cartoon blurbs per se involve a satire on that warped ideal of female beauty perpetrated by the pop media. ("Don't hate me because I'm beautiful" is the fairly famous line uttered by a brunette "vixen" in a long-running shampoo commercial [late 1980's?].)