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Category Archives: …and other stuff
miscellaneous postings by Lawrence R. Spencer
A MASTER OF INTELLIGENT RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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The Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker is a master of natural resource management, conservation, symbiosis, and being a good neighbor!
On a walk through the forest you might spot rows of shallow holes in tree bark. In the East, this is the work of the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, an enterprising woodpecker that laps up the leaking sap and any trapped insects with its specialized, brush-tipped tongue.
The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker makes two kinds of holes in trees to harvest sap. Round holes extend deep in the tree and are not enlarged. The sapsucker inserts its bill into the hole to probe for sap. Rectangular holes are shallower, and must be maintained continually for the sap to flow. The sapsucker licks the sap from these holes, and eats the cambium of the tree too. New holes usually are made in a line with old holes, or in a new line above the old.
- The sapwells made by Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers attract hummingbirds, which also feed off the sap flowing from the tree. In some parts of Canada, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds rely so much on sapwells that they time their spring migration with the arrival of sapsuckers. Other birds as well as bats and porcupines also visit sapsucker sapwells.
- Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers have been found drilling sapwells in more than 1,000 species of trees and woody plants, though they have a strong preference for birches and maples.
- Sapsuckers tend to choose sick or wounded trees for drilling their wells, and they choose tree species with high sugar concentrations in their sap, such as paper birch, yellow birch, sugar maple, red maple, and hickory. They drill wells for sap throughout the year, on both their breeding and wintering grounds. In addition to sap, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers also eat insects (mostly ants) and spiders, gleaning them from beneath a tree’s bark like other woodpeckers. And at times they perch at the edge of a tree branch and launch after flying insects to capture them in midair, like a flycatcher.
LEARN MORE: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-bellied_sapsucker/lifehistory/ac
MISERY’S THE RIVER OF THE WORLD
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Video by Richard Borge
Lyrics and Music by Tom Waits:
Misery’s the River of the World.
Misery’s the River of the World.
The higher the monkey can climb the more he shows his tail.
Call no man happy ’til he dies.
There’s no milk at the bottom of the pail.
God builds a church.
The Devil builds a chapel like the thistles that are growing ’round the trunk of a tree.
All the good in the world you can put inside a thimble and still have room for you and me.
If there’s one thing you can say about Mankind: there’s nothing kind about Man.
You can drive out Nature with a pitch fork but it always comes roaring back again.
Misery’s the River of the World.
Misery’s the River of the World.
Misery’s the River of the World.
For want of a bird the sky was lost.
For want of a nail a shoe was lost.
For want of a life the knife was lost.
For want of a toy a child was lost.
Misery’s the River of the World.
Misery’s the River of the World.
Everybody Row! Everybody Row!
Misery’s the River of the World.
Misery’s the River of the World.
Everybody Row! Everybody Row!
HOW TO SET AN ELEPHANT FREE
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A fast, easy, simple way to set an elephant free from captivity is to allow them to discover and express their own “inner artist”. Every sentient being is a “Creator” (including some humans). Creative ability exists within Everyone. Enable creativity! Admire, and encourage every creative impulse and ability within Your Self and others. We are Creators of Universes! Anyone who tells you otherwise wants you to be a slave…..
LEAPING LEMMING SHEEPLE, BATHOLE!
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HOW CAN HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF PEOPLE BE WRONG? (again, and again, and again, and again….in fact, almost always)
Lemmings became the subject of a popular misconception that they commit mass suicide when they migrate. Actually, it is not a mass suicide, but the result of their migratory behavior. Driven by strong biological urges, some species of lemmings may migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. They may encounter a body of water along the way, try to swim across and drown. But, it’s accidental death. I can happen to any migratory species, and often does. (especially when there are alligators involved!) Is there any significant difference between human beings and lemmings? Well, for starters, lemmings are MUCH cuter, they don’t DESTROY their environment and they don’t KILL and EAT other animals.
Since about 8,000 BCE — the brief history of Humanity on planet Earth — there have been a total of approximately 107,602,707,791 human beings who have lived and died (give or take…). If you think that re-incarnation is an actual phenomenon, then there is an excellent chance that a LOT of those dead bodies where inhabited by you and me in the past, over and over and over again. (I know it’s a scare thought, but so what? It is what it is, or isn’t according to your own experience.)
During the past 10,000 years or so, most of the powerful “leaders” in the history of humanity were worshiped, endorsed, supported and adored by the majority of the population they led into ruin, death and chaos. Not just mass-murders like Hitler, Stalin, Caesar, Bush and Cheney and other obvious psychopaths, but people like The Royal Families and The Popes of the past and present. These “leaders” who claim they have a “Divine Right To Rule” — empowered directly by the “word of god” — are equally power hungry, greedy and murderous: they’re just more clever at disguising their blood / power lust. In any case, the repeated tendency of “the majority” toward self-destruction should give one pause to consider the possibility that THE MAJORITY of human beings are 1) Simple-minded 2) Cowardly 3) Incredibly gullible 4) Suicidal.
I suggest a couple of things to do the next time you see a herd of people (or lemmings) stampeding toward certain death and disaster, which are the inevitably result of “financial consulting”, “majority rules”, “banking regulations”, “democratic elections”, “popular opinion”, “honor and glory”, “social / political correctness”, “corporate integrity”, “Hollywood entertainment”, “television commercials” and “government warnings”:
1) STAND BACK SO YOU DON’T GET TRAMPLED
2) HIDE SOMEWHERE “THEY” CAN’T FIND YOU
3) RUN THE OTHER WAY!
4) IF YOU FIND YOURSELF IN AGREEMENT WITH THE “MAJORITY” YOU MIGHT WANT TO GET MORE INFORMATION FROM OTHER SOURCES
5) Or, IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO, GO DOWN TO THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS AND WAVE GOODBYE AS THEY JUMP IN!