* Children & Animal Extinction

* SPEAKING of EXTINCTION (and morbid children's books)--here's an ad from the BITS & PIECES gifts catalogue (Holiday 2007). How casually the young are indoctrined into an "everything's-all-right" attitude regarding the extinction of other species. The phrase "don't exist in the wild anymore" even intimates that these animals are still safe, in zoos or in rich people's backyards, perhaps. The Dodo on the cover is especially ironic in this regard, as perhaps the most famous species driven to extinction by humankind's own handiwork. But, "whatever": it's "Hours of dot-to-dot fun," all the same!

* "Name the Four Oceans"

. . . to quote some game they're playing on a call-in radio show right now. But it occurs to me: there's really only ONE ocean, or else they'd just be REALLY BIG LAKES.

* RADIO RANT: Michael Savage on Ecofeminism

Thanks, Mr. Savage—you've given me a better title for my ENGL 945 course. Last night (9/5), you made reference to "wackjob moron feminist treehuggers." What an interesting appellation! Henceforth, then, I think I should call my Native Ecofeminist class "Wackjob Moron Feminist Treehugger Squaws." Okay, maybe squaw isn't a word you'd be brazen enough to utter on the radio, but I assume it's an epithet that swims around comfortably in your consciousness.

* RADIO RANT: Subduing the Universe

A biblical scholar speaking on the Michael Savage last night (8/28, though apparently it was a "best of" rerun): "God created man to subdue the universe." I'd comment on this powerful notion in some detail, but right now I'm busy planning the subjugation (and ecological rapine) of a 3rd-world island-nation in the South Pacific. . . .

* "DEEP Ecology"

I'm sure all of you got tired of listening to that glib sleazeball capitalist, Utah mine-owner Bob Murray, on the cable news. What an asshole. I guessed immediately that this was Mr. $$ doing a cover-up operation, despite all his cant about his company's great concern for the trapped miners' families, etc. Worst of all—let's blame it on "Mother Nature," Bob says; besides some purported originary "quake" (refuted by real seismologists), it's them damned "NATURAL" movements in the earth, them damned seismic "bumps" that won't let us progress upon our savior mission. Did you ever think—duh, you KNOW you knew, you bastard!—that all that ground activity is BECAUSE of your (questionable) mining practices? I don't even wanna witness all the tracks-covering you'll be performing in the next week or so: think I'll bury myself in my schoolwork.

* RADIO RANT: Making Mirth w/ Myths

I was car-radio-surfing this Sunday morning, on the drive back to Lincoln from Verminville, when I happened upon a Christian talk-radio station. They were doing an apparently weekly feature for them, a review of the week's new movies, including one called Arctic Tale. The main reviewer fellow was surprisingly positive in general, given my assumption that this film is at least "sort of" a lefty/tree-hugger/eco-nut movie; but things heated up (pun intended) when the other radio personality detected a global warming agenda in the plot. Even here, the reviewer eased all good Christians' fears(?!) by asserting that this message is understated, not blatant. Well, until the ending-credit stuff, that is, where such bogus ideology becomes too overt for these good souls: a few quotes therefrom have both of them guffawing, chortling, snickering . . . at the sheer absurdity of believing in this myth that is global warming. . . . Thank the Good LORD that Christians don't believe in anything nearly as ridiculous.. . . ["Eat this dried-up, tasteless wafer. It's really the body of Jesus of Nazareth, who died circa 33 A.D. Besides that, he's still alive, even as you're munching on him right now." "The hell, yu' say!"]

* RADIO RANT: Women's Rights vs. Animal Rights?

Paul Zeise, a beat writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has created a new round of controversy in the Michael Vick saga by uttering the following on a Pittsburg talk show: "It's really a sad day in this country when . . . Michael Vick would have been better off raping a woman [rather than running a vicious dog-fighting racket] . . . . Had he done that, he probably would have been suspended for [only] four games [rather than a year] and he'd be back on the field." To me, the meat of this new controversy is that several national sports commentators have come to Zeise's defense (e.g., John Fricke), via at least the implication that the current atmosphere of "political correctness" has led to a privileging of wild animals over our own women.

On one important level, these people are right, of course: Kobe Bryant and the legion of athletes charged with rape and spousal abuse have been getting mere hand-slaps from their leagues & teams, as the patriarchal game of wink-wink continues. They should be getting much more severe penalties. However, this issue is really independent of the Michael Vick episode; and the stance above, in its ostensible attempt to be anti-sexist, reveals once again an utter anthropocentrism: i.e., a human (woman) is more important than another animal. I, for one, believe that being instrumental in the violent deaths of many individuals of another species is a greater crime than the sexual abuse of any single member of our one species (whatever the gender). There, I've said it. Zeise, Fricke, et al. are wrong; it is hardly a "sad day," but a positive evolution in the general consciousness, in my mind. What is sad is that this debate seems to force one to pick & choose between women's rights and animal rights. But again, they're separate issues.

Of course I'm completely wrong in the "separate issue" thing, but this twist of an admission takes the argument to entirely different level. A major tenet of ecofeminism is that what the patriarchy does to women and "animals" (and to Natives and the environment) comes from the same source, an imperialist White male need to identify and ostracize an Other, including a propensity to commit violence against "her"—to maintain at last a master/slave, Self/Other, civilization/nature hierarchal binary, to reassure the Self of its superior status. What is truly surprising, then, is that these commentators are speaking of the two crimes as if they were fundamentally different things!

* Lost in Space: Drunken Astronauts

The recent report regarding possibly intoxicated astronauts blasting off is understandable on one level: after the Challenger & Columbia shuttle disasters—or heck, go back to the Apollo 1 fire—inebriation might be considered a viable modus operandi for strapping oneself atop any of NASA's ballistic concoctions. But that is an obvious take—a version of which I've even heard on the "talk radio"—which I try to avoid in these blog entries. A slightly less obvious, but no doubt closer to the truth, explanation involves the very culture of the "Top Gun" pilot/astronaut: hard-flying, hard-drinkin'—the whole stereotype. But my own (as usual, more idiosyncratic & nutsy) angle is an "eco" one (surprise): "We are members of a species of Gaia, the earth; and they expect us to go to Luna, etc.?! Do they think we're LUNatics?! I'm havin' a few shots right now. . . . (No, I didn't think this consciously. Mostly, I've just been in the habit of drinkin' with the other 'Top Guns' for years.)" Ultimately, it's a sad, sad thing that behind GW Bush's lip-service policy regarding our eventual colonization of Mars lies many scientists' belief that our species' sole salvation is to become trans-planetary, because of either global warming, humankind's propensity for warfare, and/or that inevitable big rock from space that'll cause mass extinction. Part of me is as pro-futurist, Star-Trekky, and "let's go" as many of you. Another part of me feels that we're futilely trying to flee from a Mother who's weened us for eons: would we even still be "human" then? (Oh, that's called evolution. I see. I'm such a Geico caveman.)

* YouTube Debate: The Unasked Questions

I believe that tomorrow night is the CNN "YouTube" Democratic debate, for which "home youtubers" can send in their video questions for the candidates. Questions you WON'T hear in the debate:

1) What should the government be doing about Silicon Lizard? ["Silicon Lizard" = the title of an old surrealist poem of mine]

2) Please raise your hand if you think all this talk about religion in the primary debates has been a bunch of disingenuous, pandering, hypocritical bullshit. [Assuming no hands are raised, a follow-up question (the one that Larry King asked Paris Hilton!):] What is your favorite passage from the Bible? [Then:] How many minority groups does this passage alienate & ostracize?

3) Would you consider a gay Native American paraplegic as a running mate?

4) Please raise your hand if you really consider George W. Bush to be an illiterate nincumpoop who will certainly be remembered as the worst president in history by far.

5) Tell us what you think—or know—that the candidate to the right of you likes to do in bed, as his/her most lascivious & taboo turn-on. (The candidate on their far right can speculate instead on whether metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.)

6) When did you last beat your significant other?

7) If elected, do you promise never to serve, and to leave the country & never come back? [a paraphrase from somebody else's poem, by I forget who]

8) If you idiot Democrats couldn't even beat George W. Bush in two straight elections, what are you wasting our time for, again? (Shouldn't we select a candidate, at least, whose first name is CHAD?)

9) Given you liberals' great concern for global warming, will you promise to campaign around the country without the use of fossil-fuel transportation? (Hey, it'll work those hips & bellies off o' some of yu'.)

10) Will you PLEASE promise never to end a speech with anything close to "God bless America"? If not, could you define both "God" and "America" in your campaign materials? If no to both, could you please read Dante's Inferno and accustom yourself to the most nether circle of Hades, because that's where I'm telling you to go?

* Thinking Happy Thoughts

Quot. of the Day:

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.
    --Jean-Paul Sartre

* Eco-Indian vs. Eco-Anglo

In The Journey, a museum in Rapid City, SD, humankind's concern for the environment is emblematized in a two-part exhibit, with a definite value-judgment timeline implied. On the left side of the presentation [photo above] is an archetypal Indian, as it were, living as one with the land–although, frankly, he looks rather stunned just to be alive. In the 2nd photo (the Native guy can still be seen, now on the far left), the Euro-American–or, the "new & improved man"!?–has a similarly healthy concern for the environment; moreover, with the aid of charts and graphs and Darwinian science, this dapper fellow must be considered even more eco-conscious: indeed, he is a fine tribute to human evolution, to the advance of civilization itself.  [Oh, my daughter tells me that the person on the right is a woman! Still hard to tell, even from the larger version of this photo, but now I guess she's right.]

* Humane Slaughter Wins!

I'm not even awake yet, really, but I just heard on the radio that those bastards at PETA have once again maligned our good people at Omaha Beef (or someplace like that, business-wise): those godless radicals are wrong again! Our good local meat people have been judged by the authorities to have "done nothing wrong against the 'Inhumane Slaughter Act'"! (God, I never knew there WAS such a law. . . . and thank the Good Lord once again for all acts of HUMANE slaughter, wherever they occur. . . .)

But then, I do have a problem w/ PETA, as I do w/ most so-called "animal rights" groups: they are often so damned "mammalo-centric" (to quote a term coined in my book manuscript), and/or so infatuated w/ the "big" animals of either size or number that I gladly prefer the even greater (and truer) radicalism of Deep Ecology. . . .

[P.S., later this morning: I'm not even sure that there is such a thing as the "Inhumane Slaughter Act" now; I may well have been (partly?) dreaming? This quit-smoking nicotine stuff says that it may cause "vivid dreams"—in which case, one should stop using it immediately and consult a physician. Huh?? What civilization/culture before/besides ours has been so dead-set against "vivid dreams"?!

But a web search for the "Inhumane Slaughter Act"(!) confirms the fact: I manufactured an entire blog entry—complete with initial satire and and subsequent arguments of some vehemence—around a nicotine hallucination, apparently, around two or three heard or misheard words on the morning radio news as I was just waking up. But it all seemed so real!

And of course and finally—those on the right could well claim that I've only been tilting at windmills all along, and chasing chimeras from day one; but then they must have missed the poetic truth of everything written above. And below.]

* A New ZOO Review

With my brother & family's advent to Lincoln this last week, I got to re-appreciate Lincoln's Folsom Children's Zoo and to see (hurriedly) Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo for the first time. If "NATURE" = a FOX enterprise ("When Animals Attack"), the ZOO, to coin another phrase, is "Where Animals . . . Lie Around & Look Miserable." Of course, this is a vast over-generalization, the eco-issues involved are inordinately complex, and more specific "photo-journalist reports" will be forthcoming. But one pict for now (for fans of Rilke's Der Panther sonnet):

* Pioneering New Frontiers—with Empty Beer Cans

"Pioneering New Frontiers" is the U of Nebraska's "new" (a few years old now) PR "slogan." And it certainly well represents an ongoing colonialist ideology that still permeates this state in terms of both place names and—I assume—good ol' boy attitudes, be they conscious or unconscious. As I've travelled the back dirt roads around Lincoln this summer in search of birds, the names of the lakes and SRAs (State Recreational Areas) have struck me as inordinately symptomatic: places like Stagecoach, and Wagon Train, and Conestoga. (As I drag my binoculars out of the car upon my arrival at one of these venues, I half-expect Hoss Cartwright or Rowdy Yates to show up on a fast horse and ask me, "Boy. [Dramatic pause.] You from around these parts?") Then there are the apparent acknowledgements to Native Americana, as in the names of Pawnee Lake/SRA and Indian Cave State Park. But for some reason, I keep hearing in my mind's ear "Indian Joe State Park" for the latter, and feel the flash-of-a-moment hope that Tom & Becky are safe from that savage ne'er-do-well's dastardly doings. (In other words, there's something exotically sinister in the connotations of the very phrase "Indian Cave.") At last, such names—"in these here parts"—sound so much like guilty elegies, half-hearted half-tributes to a race long gone. (And—well—"good riddance to 'em!" Examine a state map of Nebraska for Indian reservations to see how well the Natives were gotten rid of—in "these parts.")

Thank the Lord, then, that the colonials are taking good care of the good ol' Nebraska land, what with all the nature set-asides and such. (I keep reverting here to redneck idioms, for some reason.) Every SRA & state park has a large sign at every entrance, "No alcohol consumption allowed." But I swear that I've seen more empty beer cans and broken beer bottles in such places than I have Red-winged Blackbirds. (Hint: these are very common birds "in these parts"!) Seriously, I guess the problem is state funding for enforcement; the staffing of even the more frequented state parks seems really insufficient, and I'd assume, too, that conservation is hardly high on the agenda of those at the State Capitol, proud though they be of the nesting pair of Peregrines atop that building.

* Western Bird Notes—and a New Poem

My recent trip out "west" was a reminder of how a mere 500-mile difference in habitat changes the very birds. Well, sort of, since the old French saying, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" still rings true, as similar niches are taken over by different, but closely related, birds. Mountain Bluebirds rather than Eastern Bluebirds, for instance. The Bullock's replaces the Baltimore Oriole; the Spotted becomes surrogate for the Eastern Towhee; the Violet-Green Swallow zips over the lake instead of the Tree Swallow. In the place of (mostly) White-Breasted Nuthatches, I see/hear (more of) the Red-breasted species. No more Eastern Meadowlarks at all—only Western. Lazuli instead of Indigo Buntings. (One notable exception: Eastern Kingbirds are still more common than the Western variety, here in Western SoDak: they are the true "tyrant flycatchers" in that sibling rivalry!—as the many pecks to the head they've given me in one lifetime prove.)

Two other western/Black Hills species reminded me of something else (besides the fact that I used to write poems)—the ornithological names of birds are often themselves acts of Western imperialism:

    TWO BIRDS MEET LEWIS & CLARK (1805-1806)
                                                                --TCG, 6/23/07

            I: Lewis's Woodpecker  

They call me Lewis's Woodpecker.
I didn't choose that name, but after millennia of me
hammering at the dead wood of these pine hills . . .
they came: with maps, and a native woman, and a
whole mind's-load of old world naturalist terms & knowledge.

In fact, I guess my real name is Latin now, but I can't even
begin to pronounce it—so just call me "Lewie," after that
guy who kept looking around and writing things down, in a
fine script, as if he were capturing my feathered soul.
I heard that he killed himself, only a few years later.
Why he did is beyond my understanding, but then,
I am only a bird.

            II: Clark's Nutcracker  

Well, this Lewis fellow's sidekick was named Clark, and so
here I am, or how you know me. The only thing else you
need to know, apparently, is that I crack open
pine cones for a living.

But did you also know that my nickname is "camp robber"?
Yes, tourists, I'll steal your picnic table blind. But hey, that's
nothing, compared to what Lewis &
Clark started here, halfway on the
way to stealing a continent.

* Custer Lives

I'm back from a week w/ my daughter Emma; I picked her up in Denver and took her to visit her grandma, uncle, & cousins in "the Black mining Hills of Dakota." I grew up in the Black Hills, and it struck me on this visit how we longtime locals take the place names for granted, seldom or never considering their origins.

Take the town—and the state park—called Custer, for instance. We camped out at Custer State Park last Friday night—oh, the Mountain Bluebirds & Western Tanagers—and attended a "camp-ranger" presentation that evening, on the park's "Wildlife Management," that is, the state's control of the big-game populations, mostly. When the college student/intern finished her talk, Tom the Terrible raised his—er, my—hand: "I was just curious about the origin of the Park's name. Why Custer? I do recall that he ordered over 700 Indian ponies to be put to death on the spot at one point in his storied career. Is this an example of good 'wildlife management,' perhaps inspiring the name choice?" (Thankfully, most people there got the sarcasm.) She hemmed and hawed, and did her best at disavowing such past behavior, until I actually felt sorry for her. But then, Custer's bloodlust continued into the 20th century in western SoDak, so much so that most of the Park's vaunted large mammals are (re-)imports, including the bison. And at least one, the (Rocky Mountain) Bighorn Sheep, is a "surrogate" for a similar Black-Hills-native animal that was hunted to extinction (Audubon's Bighorn Sheep, all individuals gone to animal heaven by 1916).

* Eco-Boring

As I sit here writing a book review of Native poet Kimberly Blaeser, and as my mind wanders, thinking of cool questions for Lawrence Buell's visit to my class this fall, a metaphor (gasp—no, not another one!) for ecocritical studies in general comes to mind. Ecocriticism—as a humanities enterprise—is still a fine front lawn, of Kentucky bluegrass, or whatever; but there are still a few "weeds" or "varmints" (often Native American) cavorting on said lawn, saying, "Geez, this is boring. Give someone else a chance." (Or—we can analyze the tree imagery in Tennyson once again. . . .)

* Avian Immigrants

I see on the news that an Indian Peafowl is loose in Santa Fe, NM, having eluded the authorities for over two days. As one news site so brilliantly informs us, "Peacocks aren’t native to New Mexico, so animal control officers assume he’s an escaped pet."

I implore these people: please catch it! Avian immigration has long been a curse to native bird populations. (I'm being both serious and tongue-in-cheek here.) Where were these animal-control people when the House Sparrows and the European Starlings were let loose in New York City in the 19th century? We must catch this—thing—before its concupiscent ways (as with most over-breeding foreigners) lead to a vast reduction in our native grouse, quail, and turkey populations. (Oh, wait—we've already taken care of that.)

A final, totally serious aside: in the last year or two, I've noticed good numbers of an other introduced immigrant, the Eurasian Collared-Dove, in both eastern and western South Dakota, rapidly expanding its range from the southeastern U.S. (It had only become an established U.S. resident, in Florida, in—1982!) I'm not sure how native Mourning Doves are going to be affected by this interloping cousin; all I know is that this new bird's wheezy, jay-like ehn ehn is just plain creepy. (For some reason, I'm reminded of the then-utterly-alien, ironically incongruent strains of "Gary Owen," as played by Custer's men on their way to Black Kettle's camp.)

* Bad Bird Bandits

I had the great pleasure of an afternoon/evening at Fran K.'s last Sunday, a wonderful antidote to my utterly mundane urban existence, a place outside of town that reminded me of childhood summers at my grandma's in the small town of Ft. Pierre, SoDak, Grandma Mollie's old house a mere block away from a deliciously "uncivilized" slough and three blocks away from the Missouri River (sans tourist traps).

The human conversations were entertaining as well. But at one point, my wife told the story of Blue Jays robbing a House Finch nest on her front porch. And I felt half-brained & incomplete, in not being able to quote Robert Francis's moving retort of a poem, called "Blue Jay." So here it is [Quot. of the Day]:

So bandit-eyed, so undovelike a bird
to be my pastoral father's favorite—
skulker and blusterer
whose every arrival is a raid.

Love made the bird no gentler
nor him who loved less gentle.
Still, still the wild blue feather
brings my mild father.
    --Robert Francis

The subsequent conversation involved rationalizations regarding "nature's way," etc. (I even referred to Darwin myself, if I recall.) But I was too tongue-tied/brain-dead to bring up "intuition's way," my own identification with the vultures & corvids, etc., of our ecosphere. And so this poem.

* Tornados and Fires and Drought—Oh, My!

Gaia lives! (And "she" is pissed.)
Uh, listen to the news—er, the WEATHER—and tell me that the planet Gaia is not angry with us all. . . . (Go ahead and call this statement a personification of an inanimate being; I don't. There is more "animism" in the universe than was ever "dreamt of in your philosophy," Mr. Dead-Matter Business Man.)