Super-cool super-hawk and more

The hawks around here are all aflutter these days, as it's apparently time for them to start courting potential mates. On Rt 220 between Bellefonte and State College, I've seen at least four or five redtails at any given time--some alone, some within spitting distance of others. I guess the hormones are firing up and it's time to check out the prospects!

Here's a raptor I saw on Friday:

Am I correct in thinking that this is a female red-tailed hawk? The tail doesn't seem too red in these photos, but it was redder in real life. I'm sure Susan or someone will correct me if I'm wrong. It seems like whenever I think I've got a hawk ID, it always ends up being a Cooper's Hawk. But this one definitely doesn't have the long Coop tail. So--redtail?

Other sightings as I drove around Bald Eagle State Park on Saturday:

It's so cool to see water seeping out of the hillsides and freezing into these beautiful scenes. Here's another: Saw some ducks and geese, but nothing new.

Finally, some scat Gretchen and I found on Sunday at Colyer Lake:

Click to embiggen, and note the fur and seeds. I'm guessing the fur is squirrel fir, as it was stiff and kinda wiry looking. But the seeds? Is this coyote or wolf poo?

A President Forgotten but Not Gone

Frank Rich has really nailed it, regarding George W. Bush, in his op-ed "A President Forgotten but Not Gone."

We like our failed presidents to be Shakespearean, or at least large enough to inspire Oscar-worthy performances from magnificent tragedians like Frank Langella. So here, too, George W. Bush has let us down. Even the banality of evil is too grandiose a concept for 43. He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana whom Josh Brolin and Will Ferrell can nail without breaking a sweat. He’s the reckless Yalie Tom Buchanan, not Gatsby. He is smaller than life.

The last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Bush’s presidency found that 79 percent of Americans will not miss him after he leaves the White House. He is being forgotten already, even if he’s not yet gone. You start to pity him until you remember how vast the wreckage is. It stretches from the Middle East to Wall Street to Main Street and even into the heavens, which have been a safe haven for toxins under his passive stewardship. The discrepancy between the grandeur of the failure and the stature of the man is a puzzlement. We are still trying to compute it.

The one indisputable talent of his White House was its ability to create and sell propaganda both to the public and the press. Now that bag of tricks is empty as well. Bush’s first and last photo-ops in Iraq could serve as bookends to his entire tenure. On Thanksgiving weekend 2003, even as the Iraqi insurgency was spiraling, his secret trip to the war zone was a P.R. slam-dunk. The photo of the beaming commander in chief bearing a supersized decorative turkey for the troops was designed to make every front page and newscast in the country, and it did. Five years later, in what was intended as a farewell victory lap to show off Iraq’s improved post-surge security, Bush was reduced to ducking shoes.

Some of my favorite lines include the title "forgotten by not gone" and others, like:

• He is smaller than life.


• You start to pity him until you remember how vast the wreckage is.


• ...in what was intended as a farewell victory lap to show off Iraq’s improved post-surge security, Bush was reduced to ducking shoes.


• Lately he’s promised not to steal the spotlight from Barack Obama once he’s in retirement — as if he could do so by any act short of running naked through downtown Dallas.


• Almost poignantly, he keeps trying to hawk his goods in these final days, like a salesman who hasn’t been told by the home office that his product has been discontinued.


• It’s that arrogance that allowed him to tune out even the most calamitous of realities, freeing him to compound them without missing a step.


• With this level of self-regard, it’s no wonder that Bush could remain undeterred as he drove the country off a cliff.

Rich truly outlines all that is wrong with George W. Bush -- as if we didn't already know! And the way he wraps up the piece is perfect. Rich recounts an exchange between Bush and a reporter, who asked what he had learned during his time as president. Bush's response:

“I’ve learned that God is good. All the time.”

Once again he is shifting the blame. This presidency was not about Him. Bush failed because in the end it was all about him.

The asshole will be gone soon ... thank God!

humorous memoir

As an animal fearing woman, I write about my acclimation to an animal loving world and manage to stare down swans in Sweden and a guinea pig in my washroom. I do avert my eyes for the wombat in Australia.

“If All Dogs Go to Heaven, Then I’m in Trouble” is a humorous memoir of animal encounters with a twist. Among published animal tales, very few are skewed with a touch of fear and laughter on every page. Unlike books written by pet-loving authors, my twenty eight chapters introduce the reader to a variety of animals: a snapping Shetland pony, a bowling ball playing pit bull, and a terrified turtle that tolerates my distress.

Here's a chapter list:
If All Dogs Go to Heaven, Then I’m in Trouble

Mere Kibble Prologue
Goats, and Llamas, and Puppies, Oh My!
Mercy, Mercy Me
Farm Fresh Follies
Squawk Box
Pixie and Poodles
Pixie Weighs In
Stuffed in a Closet
Old Buttercup
Thunder Daze or I Miss Old Buttercup
Future Guard Dog for Hell: Roseanne
San Saba Snakes or Far From a Mall
Who Was That Masked Turtle?
Is That Chirping I Hear?
The Guinea Pig Surrenders
There’s a Pit Bull in My House
The Swedish Swan Incident
Don’t Stare Down the Wombat
The Workplace is Going to the Dogs
A Bunny Explosion
Animal Shenanigans Entertainment
Benji Loves Aunt Joanne
Dogged Pursuit
Bubba
Hey Stupid, the Baby’s Crying
Animal Humanitarian Efforts (You Never Have to Clean Up Poop)
I Can’t Count Sheep, They Could Attack
My Torturous Final Days on Earth

Do you want to read this book? I'm throwing it out to the publishing world. Surely, the world at large needs a laugh or two.