"...it's not the training to be mean but the training to be kind that is used to keep us leashed best." ~ Black Dog Red

"In case you haven't recognized the trend: it proceeds action, dissent, speech." ~ davidly, on how wars get done

"...What sort of meager, unerotic existence must a man live to find himself moved to such ecstatic heights by the mundane sniping of a congressional budget fight. The fate of human existence does not hang in the balance. The gods are not arrayed on either side. Poseiden, earth-shaker, has regrettably set his sights on the poor fishermen of northern Japan and not on Washington, D.C. where his ire might do some good--I can think of no better spot for a little wetland reclamation project, if you know what I mean. The fight is neither revolution nor apocalypse; it is hardly even a fight. A lot of apparatchiks are moving a lot of phony numbers with more zeros than a century of soccer scores around, weaving a brittle chrysalis around a gross worm that, some time hence, will emerge, untransformed, still a worm." ~ IOZ

Jan 4, 2011

Rockets Red Glare? Like a Gorgon Stare?

I don't know what each of these incidents mean. Perhaps they have no meaning, and I have every inclination to accept that at value. Big cosmos, mostly unavailable to our senses, or the mechanical extension of them. Big planet, same rules apply. Total knowledge will elude us, I imagine, forever - because we lack the capacity not only to record every moment, at every location, but also the context for understanding each and every event, how they relate, and perhaps as importantly, how they do not.

Nor do I know if each of these incidents have any connection, one to the other.

But, I do find them creepy:

"The mystery over thousands of birds raining from the sky in America deepened today after hundreds more plunged to their deaths in different parts of the country.

Scientists said that New Year’s Eve fireworks might have been to blame for the 3,000 blackbirds that died in a small town in Arkansas.

But they were forced to order more tests last night after 500 birds plummeted to the ground 360 miles away in Louisiana on Monday and dozens more died in Kentucky.

And just a 100 miles away from the Arkansas mass bird kill, at least 83,000 dead and dying fish washed ashore - possibly as many as 100,000."

"Four bumblebee species once common across North America have suffered precipitous—and so far mysterious—declines, a new study shows.

Within the past 20 years abundances of the bee species Bombus occidentalis, B. affinis, B. pensylvanicus,B. terricola have plummeted by up to 96 percent. (Related: "Mystery Bee Disappearances Sweeping U.S.")"

Source.

I do know that "fireworks" just doesn't ring true. I've seen birds scatter from fireworks dozens of times. I've never seen them fall from the sky in the thousands during or immediately after.

But, I know very little.

5 comments:

Randal Graves said...

Whatever the DoD's got cookin', it works. (If I have to assign blame, always a decent bet to err on the side of black budget projects, heh.)

Nothing like that's even remotely happened around here, but I can recall as a kid *always* seeing bats around town during the summer and now I rarely do. There are far fewer birds, blue jays are a completely rarity, & so on. A little bit of odd here & there & everywhere.

Jack Crow said...

Randal,

I haven't seen a regular bee in almost two years. Our last garden year, two years ago, had us relying on bumblebees. I know less about flowers than my wife (I can grow chives, though...) but I remember her saying that there were a number of flowering plants she could no longer put in the ground or cultivate, because the bees weren't around to pollinate.

*

When thousands of birds drop from the sky, I really want to put bad money on the DoD, too. Especically when the deaths start to cluster within a hundred or so mile area. But, it could be a magnetic effect, no? I hear there are island sized gaps in the magnetosphere, these days...

Respect,

Jack

davidly said...

Directly or not, man-made. But that's just my too-sense.

Word Verification: pigness

Jack Crow said...

Ditto that, Davidly. Without any evidence, hunchy. Probably wrong, but it feels dirty good to assume that Uncle and his minions fucked up, somehow.

davidly said...

And that those would-be purveyors of secondary black-damage are the only ones with the knowledge to gather the evidence, while anyone else who wants to be taken seriously bends over backwards to give them the benefit of the doubt.