Animal rights vs. gardeners rights

Busybodies of the Brave New World

As the busybodies of the Brave New World on Cape Cod and elsewhere in Massachusetts proliferate so do the welter of rules, regulations and laws that teat us like dumb kids in need of nanny services even though some of us have been around for many years.

As one who grew up on a hardscrabble farm in Western Massachusetts, I was taught to respect nature and utilize its abundant resources wisely. Thus it was that hunters never took more from the woods than they could eat, never hunt for the joy of killing and kill predators like skunks, foxes and weasels only when they raided your chicken coop and deer out of season when they ravaged your orchards. Rats were always fair game for the sharp-eyed riflemen among us.

We learned how to skin and prepare edible game for cooking. This included woodchuck, porcupine, raccoon and, if you got enough of them, squirrels and chipmunks for a Brunswick stew. We drew the line at skunk. Some knew how to prepare them and vowed they were great eating.

Now we arrive at the Brave New World where big brother and bigger sister have decided to teach us how to survive without using any of the baser techniques we grew up with.

Shooting predatory animals has gone the way of outdoor burning. We used to burn leaves every fall and grass every spring. No more. Limits have been placed to protect us from ourselves so today few people under the age of 40 have any idea how to safely burn out of doors. So we have to learn to live with these restrictions just as we have been forced to live with incredible restrictions on the use of firearms.

Now I love my garden. Can’t wait to dig up the good earth, plant my peas, green beans and lettuce as early as possible and wait until Memorial Day to get my tomatoes into the ground. I grow vegetables in my “protest patch” to prove that I still know how to do it. To carry things further I even can. preserve, dry or freeze what grows to maturity.

How many bulbs can a woodchuck suck

Here is my dilemma: I looked out the window the other day and spotted a huge woodchuck—he looked to be size of a small Grizzly Bear (maybe a big smaller, but he/she was huge.) I knew exactly what this terrorist woodchuck was doing. He was scouting my garden area looking to see what kind of free lunch I was planning for him and his relatives.

I immediately called the animal control office in Barnstable and pleaded for the loan of a “have a heart” trap since leg hold traps are illegal and don’t discriminate between predatory woodchucks, pets and children.

When I spoke the courteous young woman who answered the phone, I told her that an Al Quaeda Woodchuck was scouting my garden, plotting acts of terror and destruction and doing so without any concerns I might intervene.

She asked if I was planning to trap the chuck and turn it loose on somebody else’s property. I told her, “No” that I was either going to eat it or take it down to the pond and see if it could swim.

She informed me that it is now against the law to trap any wild animal in Massachusetts.

“Even terrorist woodchucks?” I asked (rather plaintively).

“Even terrorist woodchucks,” she responded.

“But my garden is unprotected against this marauding beast!”

“Contact a registered, certified pest control company. They will take care of it for you,” she said.

I haven’t done that yet. I don’t know how much it costs and my income is sadly fixed. So I will keep working on my fence so I can at least slow the giant predatory vegan down long enough for me to chase it.

The only other alternative is to borrow my grandson’s dog who successfully warded off the woodchucks for years before he moved out with my grandson. It took the damned chucks two years to realize that the dog threat was gone and they wasted no time ravaging my protest patch.

Ah, me. It is going to be a long, long spring and summer as I tend my plants and try to ward off the marauding wildlife. If somebody has a good way to keep woodchucks out, I’d sure like to hear it.

Just when you thought it was safe….

Mother Nature is a mean mother

One of the postulates of Murphy’s Law (which tells us everything that can go wrong will go wrong) is that Mother Nature is a mean mother. The actual word is not appropriate for family readership.

I have been thinking about that a lot when I read of the increasing threat to us humans from nature’s not so nice creatures like rabid skunks, rabid raccoons, squirrels and feral cats who hang around looking for handouts and a warm place to sleep and breed.

By far the most threatening and intrusive are the always hungry coyotes who came to Cape Cod unbidden and found, with no natural predators to keep them in line, a place where they can grow and prosper. Coyote apologists like the wild animals, it seems, more than they do the human species. Despite evidence they are traveling in packs killing pets—large and small- and attacking children and even adults, the coyote has its friends who warn us to stay inside rather than disturb the predatory cousin of the dog.

I have friends whose children were terrified by a coyote some years back in the first reported incident of an attack on humans. The little boy was out in his yard when the coyote struck causing his little sister to start screaming and his mother to throw caution to the winds and drive the beast away from her little ones. The attack traumatized the boy who to this day is wary of anything that even looks like a coyote.

So animal lovers and animal control officers advise us to stay inside, not to feed the birds, not to allow our pets to wander in our own backyards lest they become a meal for a coyote pack. Don’t offend the offensive animals. If they are rabid they will go after anybody and anything that moves. That is also true for the skunks whom I used to consider friends of the earth because they dug up the lawn to feast on grubs.

Now I am putting up wire fencing to try to keep them and other critters out of our yard where our grandchildren play with their friends and where we like to sit in the heat of the day and the cool of the evening.

We are warned over and over again that the backyard may be where the animals attack. We already know that an unguarded front yard is off-limits for little kids because some sick pedophile may be on the prowl to snatch somebody’s unguarded child. So we have to watch out front and back.

Or we have to be content to stay indoors.

Lo and behold! Now comes a news report in the Cape Cod Times by staff writer Joe Heitz that by staying inside we may be killing ourselves and poisoning our children and grandchildren. Huh? That’s right.

A study by Clean Production Action which studied 70 homes nationwide (including one in East Falmouth here on Cape Cod) indicates that chemicals and toxins are building up in our homes. Dust which we forever chase with brooms, dust cloths, mops and vacs may be tainted, they say “with hazardous chemicals".

Among the alleged toxins is DDT (which has been banned since the 1960s). DDT showed up in the dust of “65 percent of the homes tested”. That from a senior scare specialist from the Silent Spring Institute. Imagine that. DDT showed up in this "massive" nationwide “scientific” study in 4.5 homes. We are also told that there are toxic chemicals in cosmetics, detergents and plastics which could all drive up the incidence of asthma cases, cancer rates and children with learning disabilities.

This is incredible news! Or should we say it is not credible news but advocates looking for grants to continue their bogus research to protect the great unwashed from ourselves.

So we are being told to stay out of our backyards for fear of ferocious animals that might attack any time; we are warned not to let little kids play in our front yards because some neighborhood pervert might grab them and now we are told not to stay indoors because we might get contaminated from toxic dust.

What is a body to do?

Powerful politicians want to kill wind energy

Why?
Utopia is a Greek word which literally means “no place”. It is considered by many to mean something quite wonderful-- especially among those who consider themselves to be idealistic Utopians out to create a better world, a new world order, or, to borrow Aldous Huxley’s title, a “Brave New World.” I have never been comfortable with most of these self professed Utopians because they rarely have a clue about the needs and aspirations of most Americans and are so busy trying to do for them that they do them in.

That may be what is wrong with the Alliance for the Protection of Nantucket Sound and their dissembling allies. They may have succeeded in bring Wind Power to a state of Utopia which is where they would site all of those magnificent wind turbines which have the promise of leading America to energy independence and clean, non polluting electrical energy. Take a look at what has been happening because of the nefarious tactics of the Alliance and their powerful friends.

They have made it clear that they will fight to death to drive Cape Wind’s proposed wind-park on Horseshoe Shoal onto the rocks at any cost. Put it there, put it where, just don’t put it here.

Those who have been touting Massachusetts Military Reservation as the perfect alternative to Nantucket Sound for the first major wind park better start questioning who it is that the Alliance really wants to protect.

Among their strongest political allies is Old Bull Republican John Warner, senior Senator from Virginia, who tried to sneak an amendment into the defense appropriation bill last year to cripple the Nantucket Sound Wind Park.

Mr. Warner is more intent to do the bidding of friends and relatives along the Oyster Harbors-Wianno “gold coast” than protecting the interests of the American people.

Anyone with an ounce of sense must admit that lessening America’s dependence on foreign oil and natural gas is far more important to our future than any privileged minority’s uninterrupted view of an empty horizon. Yet Old Senate Bulls of like John Warner and our own Senator Ted Kennedy continue to do what they can to destroy prospects of a wind energy project off our shore. If it is allowed to move forward observing all the safeguards that are available, it could open the way for future offshore wind farms to generate electricity without polluting the air and fouling the seas with oil spills. We could kiss our OPEC “allies” goodbye and good riddance.

The Alliance and its supporters, funded by well-heeled contributors with ties to fossil fuel producers and traditional power generating utilities, have maneuvered skillfully to delay approval of the Nantucket Wind Farm.

Their game has been and continues to be delay, delay and delay. And they have done a job on Cape Wind seeking to drain the private developer of funds and support.

As long as money keeps coming in, they will pursue this course of action plotting to make something bad happen to Cape Wind. People calling the shots for the Alliance have had a lot of experience killing projects that might produce jobs and wages for middle class workers.

Well, something bad has happened. They dug up another forgettable fossil politico to make mischief. Their new ally is a Republican Senator from Tennessee—former presidential candidate Lamar Alexander whose biggest contribution to presidential politics was wearing flannel shirts. The symbolism was lost on me and most voters who totally ignored the Tennessean’s presidential bid..

What do John Warner, Ted Kennedy and Lamar Alexander have in common? Not much except, apparently, a visceral hatred of wind turbines. The former two U.S. Senators hold the mistaken belief it might devalue family property values. The latter Senator from Tennessee objects for no valid reasons except, perhaps, to protect the TVA’s lock-hold on power generation in the Tennessee Valley and to guarantee a captive market for coal from Appalachia which produces 376-million tons annually-- half of it from strip mining.

Tennessee is a small fry in coal production compared to Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. But coal revenues are still important. Read production statistics of coal producing states and you will begin to understand just how big the coal industry looms in the national picture. Since coal is king in many states you can bet your boots the big coal money interests don’t want to see development of wind power except as a token toy prop. Now you see what Cape Wind is up against.

Coal, oil and natural gas producers as well as nuclear power utilities have all taken billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies over the years. Should wind power receive the same kind of treatment? Industry opponents who nearly stampede to collect government subsidies say no.

The Warner-Alexander Amendment does what the fuel industry wants. They would deny all subsidies to wind energy development interests including the PTC or Production Tax Credit without which wind power projects cannot get off the ground. That alone could kill not only the Cape Wind project, but also most viable wind energy sites being considered in these United States.

What about the marvelous scheme to put wind turbines at Otis Air Base? Not if the Warner-Alexander amendment passes. Wind turbines would be banned within 20 miles of all military bases, “highly scenic locations and offshore.” That leaves “no place”-- the literal translation of utopia.

Whose fault is it? Utopian Susan Nickerson of the Alliance told the Cape Cod Times that Cape Wind is partly to blame because it is the pre-eminent offshore wind project in America. She said she supports continuation of the PTC but if its demise works to kill the Nantucket Sound project, I imagine that bridge will have to be built before we can cross it. Ms Nickerson, like Sen. Kennedy, also says she supports wind energy—but not in the crowded, already damaged Nantucket Sound which is about as pristine as a parking lot in a upscale shopping mall filled with boutiques.

So what is the Alliance solution? Let’s kill it. We have money to burn and that doesn’t create air pollution.

With leadership like this we will always be over a barrel,

Eagle Scout Honor Court and my Greco-American Hosts

On April 27th I was honored to attend the Fifth Annual Distinguished Citizens Award Dinner hosted by the Cape Cod and Islands Council of the Boy Scouts of America. I was the guest of Spyro and Dino Mitrokostas, two long time supporters of the BSA. They had purchased a table at which several of us assembled tthat night at Christopher's Restaurant in South Yarmouth, MA. More about them later on.
It was a wonderful evening in which 2004-2005 Class of Eagle Scouts were recognized along with their sponsors--most of whom were also Eagle Scouts when they were young. And the saying in Scouting is that "Once and Eagle Scout, Always an Eagle Scout."
Paul covell, Master of Cermonies was witty and provacative as he spoofed some of the other guests including Cape Cod Times Publisher Peter Meyer and Barnstable County Sheriff Jim Cummings both of whom joined in the spirit of the evening and traded barbs. Each gave as good as he got. But it was all in the spirit of good fun.
The accomplishments of this new class of Eagles is something to be proud of. They worked hard to earn the merit badges that took years to complete. But they did it.
Hearing them recite the Eagle pledge and the Eagle chard was very moving. As Council President Raymond Hebert said in his published remarks it was a pledge "to give back to Scounting more than it has given me"
"Every Scout in order to to join has to take an Oath of Duty to God and Country, to help other people at all times, to obey the Scout Law to keep himself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight."
These Eagle Scouts, their sponsors and the entire assembly of Scouting Officials, friends and financial supporters all turned out to sing the praises of the Figawi Charities Board of Governors who were this year's recipient of the Distinguished Citizens Award.
With the Boy Scouts in the gunsights of anti-religious bigots out to suppress them, it is heart warming to learn that there are so many out there who still support them financially and spiritually. I was amazed at the number of Eagle Scouts there are in the Community giving, helping and nurturing this wonderful organization. They quietly go about their lives always giving to others and working to create a better community.
My hats off to the Figawai Charities Board of Governors for their hefty contribution to the Boy Scouts. They need every dollar that can be found to support the wonderful work they do in preparing young people to lead exemplary lives and in turn lead others by example.
Previous benefactors honored with Distinguished Citizen Awards includ Dorren and Chuck Bilezikian, Sheriff James M> Cummings, former Chamber of Commerce Executive John D. O'Brien and former Cape and Islands Senator Henri Raushenbach.
One long time benefactor not honored yet is the Lyndon P. Lorusso Charitible Trust named in honor of the only son of Lila and Paul Lorusso. They have never stopped giving to the community and the Boy Scouts have long been on the receiving end of their generosity. The recent decision by Lila Lorusso to distribute funds from one of their charities gave a substantial donation to the Scouts. They deserve to be honored.
One of the highlights of my evening was sharing the Mitrokostas family table with Walter Brooks founder of Cape Cod Today and Solon Economou who, like me, is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times and a fellow "blogger." In addition to my host, Spyro Mitrokostas, I also met John Paneonnis of Dennnis another Greco American.
Solon, John and Spyro all had roots in Worcester and all of them are extremely proud of their Greek heritage. Listening to them speak with pride and wonder at the benefits they have received as Americans makes me proud to know them. To hear their stories of pride and their fights against predudice which attended their growing up makes me wonder at those who seem to take their freedoms for granted.
So I tip my hat to my Greek American friends and give them a hearty thanks for all that their culture has brought to the American Experience. The Greeks, after all, did give us the very word and concept that resonates in these United States--Democracy.
So it was that on Greek Orthodox Good Friday, I spent the day planting flowers to pay tribute to these proud people for all they have given to the great ideals of western democracy.
--30

Reflections of a Catholic Sinner

For Cape Cod Today blog: John Paul II & Benedict XVI
May 7, 2005

Reflections of a Catholic sinner
By Francis I. Broadhurst

I was prepared for the death of Pope John Paul II and resigned to the slow death prescribed by the courts for Terri Schiavo. But I was totally unprepared for the vicious attacks against both of these human beings that filled the airwaves, jammed the internet and became grist for the mills of the mainstream media and assorted pundits.
I was even less prepared for the calumny heaped upon John Paul’s successor, Pope Benedict the Sixteenth, formerly Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany
Baptized Roman Catholic, I received my first communion and was subsequently confirmed. Like so many, I am an example of a poor Catholic and a good sinner. The spirit is willing, but the flesh indeed is weak.
Growing up in the 1940s, I was taught to despise all bullies—individual, national, political, criminal or corporate. My mother taught us to first understand where they were coming from and then to condemn them.
. Topping the list were anti-clerical Nazis and Fascists who used religion to advance their agendas before they turned on it. Godless Communists for whom religion was a crime against the state were next followed by faithless Anarchists who are as angry with God as they are at mankind.
Rounding out the list were the broad spectrum of ugly racists and supremicists, abortion advocates who want sex without consequences, prejudiced people, assorted hedonists and—last but not least-- greedy people for whom plenty is never enough.
All of them have used religion as long as it advanced their evil causes. When the religious showed opposition, the evil rulers began to persecute them. All of them seemed to harbor a particularly venemous hatred of Roman Catholicism—especially traditional, conservative Catholicism of the kind embraced by John Paul II and by his long time advisor and spiritual successor Pope Benedict XVI.
I am baffled by the intolerance exhibited by the media and people of other faiths who would remake Catholicism to suit them. They seem to genuinely shock and dismayed to discover the new Pope, like his predecessor, is a Catholic!
“Cafeteria Catholics” in America and anti-clerical zealots in Europe have long sought to suppress the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. They dismissed Pope John Paul II as ante-diluvian because he refused to cave in to their demands he accept ideas they want to be Catholic dogma.
And now --before they have any idea of what path Benedict the Sixteenth will take--they have prejudged him as “too doctrinaire “ and—heaven forbid— a German national who, like all young people growing up under the Nazi’s, was forced to join the HitlerYouth.
My mother and my religion taught me many principles: reverence for life, respect for all faiths, and abhorrence of anything that smacked of racial or religious prejudice and discrimination.
So ingrained was my dislike of bullies I shed more than a little blood and lost my share of bare-knuckle battles to put those principles into practice.
I never thought of those childhood lessons as conservativism. Heck, I didn’t even know what a conservative was until I joined the Goldwater bandwagon. Even though the wheels fell off Barry Goldwater’s campaign wagon, the tart tongued man from Arizona laid the groundwork for what has become modern conservativism.
My tilt to conservativism has been reinforced over the decades as those who lean left of center have become increasingly strident in their denunciations of religion, judicial and political reform, individual freedom, private property, constitutional gun ownership and the culture of life as articulated so well by Pope John Paul the Second.
When the courts refused to stay the starvation of Terri Schiavo despite pleas by the Pope, the President and the Congress, I was not happy. She had parents willing to care for her and they pleaded for that opportunity. She was innocent of any crime but was incapable of speech.
When the angry left denounced attempts to preserve her life, they ignored the cruel practices carried out by Hitler, Stalin and other brutal dictators in the name of “racial purity” and the “salvation of the State”.
Hitler, having absorbed the arrogant, racist philosophies of the British and American Eugenics Societies, believed he could “purify the race” by eliminating “undesirable” elements. He declared this official state policy to be the “patriotic duty” of every German citizen. If they were loyal to the state, they were obliged to turn their retarded, disabled, incurable and “useless” children, parents, siblings and neighbors over to the state to be “disposed of.” Dispose of them they did after conducting hideous “medical” experiments on them while they were alive.
Anyone who comprehends the inhumanity of the Nazi’s, Stalinists and Maoists, knows this and should be outraged by it. Yet ignorant haters, who freely accuse President Bush and his administration of being Nazis, don’t seem to understand or care what the Nazis and dictators in other regimes have done and are continuing to do with targeted groups they deem unworthy of being considered full fledged human beings.
Why then were so many Americans and Europeans outraged that our Congress and our President tried so hard to preserve and prolong the life of Terri Schiavo? After all, wasn’t she disposable? Wasn’t she one whom the state and federal courts correctly ruled was not fit to live even though her parents were willing to accept the burden of caring for her?
Why are so many driven to support measures to take the lives of the helpless when others seek to maintain those lives?
To support their demands for death to the helpless, these haters cite the fact that while Governor of Texas George W. Bush signed into law a measure to allow the courts to decide to withhold life-sustaining treatments from children deemed unable to survive without extreme medical support. That law does not acknowledge the right of parents or grandparents or anyone else to interfere with the court’s death sentence for the child.
It was a bad law; and I suggest that President Bush would take it back if it were in his power to do so. He made a mistake then. He did not make a mistake in championing the cause of Terri Schiavo to be kept alive by her parents.
Ralph Nader, with whom I rarely agree, is one of the most outspoken critics of the death sentence imposed by the courts the innocent Terri Schiavo. He declared it “unconscionable” that any judge or panel of judges can impose the death penalty on disabled or mentally incapacitated individuals who can no longer speak for themselves and have not left a written will. He clearly recognizes this is precisely the blood soaked road that the Nazis took in the name of the state and in pursuit of the “ultimate solution.”
Nader, like many conservatives who value life even for “undesirables”, recognizes the inherent evil in a culture where the most vulnerable innocents may be condemned to death for no reason other than physical or mental incapacitation. The Nazi’s relished doing that in their mad drive “to purify the race”.
When religious people like the young Pole who was to become Pope John Paul II opposed the ruthless eradication of the weak, the helpless, the homosexuals and the Jews, he was sent to do forced labor and often executed in the concentration camps.
When any individual spoke up against euthanasia of those selected by Hitler’s Gestapo for elimination, they were sent to concentration camps along with the condemned. It was all very efficient-- and very inhumane.
Glib intellectuals of the left have been very active in pushing for racial purity. The British Eugenics Society was peopled by the likes of Fabian Socialists Sidney and Beatrice Webb, G.B. Shaw and Bertrand Russell. . In America it numbered luminaries like Margaret Sanger, Margaret Mead, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Ford, Dorothy Thompson, John Dewey and many of the leading lights of the late 19th Century and early 20th.
They were as convinced back then, as zealous left and right wing “idealists” are today that somehow we ought to do something to keep inferior people from breeding.
Then, as now, much of the motivation was based on knowing and unknowing bigotries and fear of “race mixing” and the breeding of “genetically flawed” human beings. It is a sickening disease which afflicts people of all colors, creeds and nationalities especially those who desperately need scapegoats to blame for their own miseries and shortcomings. Add to the list of those to be despised the radical “Islamo-Facists” who have putrefied the Muslim world and twisted that religion into a tool for oppression, persecution, torture, rape, slavery and murder.
Pope John Paul II was the most traveled Pope in history. He reached out to bring about reconciliation with the Jews which offends anti-Semites and radical Islamists for whom hatred of the Jews has been indoctrinated into their lives from childhood. He reached out to the Muslim world pardoning his would be assassin after meeting him face to face in his prison cell. He supported an independent Palestinian nation state which did not endear him to bitter ender Israeli’s for whom any compromise with the Palestinians is anathema. He humbled the Soviet empire with his bold stand for Polish independence and uncompromising support for the Solidarity Movement which toppled the dictatorship.
As Pope he also brought the “independent” liberation theologists into line when he forbid them to wear political hats and work for causes that were inimical to religion.
This Catholic, as bad as I am about following the dictates of this conservative theologian, is delighted that his successor holds similar beliefs and refuses to re-shape the Church in the image of its liberal American critics who perhaps belong in less demanding churches. There are plenty to choose from.
The Catholic Church has made mistakes. So have we all. We are imperfect and prone to sin. Many have left Catholicism because they didn’t like all the do’s and don’ts that are part and parcel of being an obedient member of this world wide body which has done far more good than harm in its more than 2000 years in existence.
Part of the mantra used against the Church is the fact that there have been too many instances of sexual abuse among the clergy that went unpunished and hidden by Bishops and Cardinals anxious to avoid the angry public reaction that would erupt. I, too, was offended and angered by the cover-ups and the string of scandals uncovered and headlined by a media that really doesn’t like the Catholic church much anyway.
If these critics were serious about protecting innocent victims from sexual abuse, they would focus not only on the Catholic Church but also on other religions where it is equally rampant. Better yet, they ought to check the Internet and find (if they can) some coverage of a draft report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education.
A blog from NewsMax.com by Jon E. Dougherty exposed the sad secret of sexual abuse of children in America's public schools. Please note these are public schools to which parents, unless they can make other arrangements, are forced to send their children.
Dougherty wrote that Charol Shakeshaft, the Hofstra College scholar commissioned to do the study, calculates between 6 and 10 percent of public school children cross the country have been sexually abused or harassed by school employees and teachers. Her study indicated that roughly 200,000 students experienced some kind of physical asexual abuse by a school employee during the single decade from 1991 to 2000. Compare that to 50 years of documented sexual abuse cases numbering 11,000 by some 4,000 priests and deacons since 1950.
Professor Shakeshaft told the industry newspaper “Education Week” on March 10 “the number of abuse cases—which range from unwanted sexual comment to rape—could be much higher.”
There is a double standard among the mainstream American and European media when it comes to dealing with the politically correct establishment in education and religion and the politically incorrect Roman Catholic Church under traditional prelates.
‘Why do people quit Roman Catholicism and other traditionally conservative Christian churches?
G.K. Chesterton had the correct answer: “The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”
This new pope, like his predecessor is a Catholic and seems destined to continue the dogmas so well articulated by John Paul II.
For my part, I reject his vituperative critics and profess that I am glad Pope Benedict XVI is Catholic. Maybe this stray will find himself back to a state of grace.
--30-

Springtime on Cape Cod

Remembering winters past & present

It has been a long, snowy winter like those I remember from childhood growing up in the tiny town of Becket in the Berkshires. The blizzards, snowdrifts and bitter cold forced us to stay inside.

The snow on Cape Cod this year wasn’t the sledding kind little kids could enjoy. The big circle I marked out in the snow so our grandchildren could play “fox and chickens” was only used once. The cold was too intense for outdoor play and the snow too dry to build snowmen and snow forts.

We defied warnings issued by animal control experts about coyotes and opted to feed the birds when heavy snow covered their natural supplies. Russian Olive, bittersweet, inkberry, choke cherry and a variety of wild berry bushes abound on the edges of our land. The cranberry bog in back-- replete with grasses and shrubs—contains boundless opportunities for birds, ducks and other creatures to forage. The blizzards buried most of it.

It was worth the effort to put out buckets of sunflower and other birdseed. We thrilled at the incredible air shows our fine-feathered friends put on each day.

We even tolerated the squirrels-- descended from the critters who lived inside our attic several years ago. They still try to come “home” gnawing through the wood facia boards, chewing through and around metal flashing. We’ve kept them out so far but they keep trying. Stubborn creatures whose agility never ceases to amaze me.

We put the birdseed high off the ground on the cover of our compost bin to keep the birds out of harms way. There are several feral cats on the prowl for unwary prey. They never got to our birds even those who fed on the ground. The warning system birds set up through Crows and Blue jays is a marvel.

They compete fiercely for food but seem to cooperate to avoid becoming some predator’s lunch. They kept to a fairly constant feeding pattern: First squirrels, then Jays, Cardinals, Starlings and Grackles followed by Red Winged Blackbirds, Robins, Slate Colored Juncos and a variety of Sparrows. We saw Mocking Birds. Catbirds, Sapsuckers and Woodpeckers-- large and small.

Perky chickadees and Tufted Titmice flew in-and-out

Perky chickadees and Tufted Titmice flew in-and-out at will among the bigger birds. Graceful Mourning Doves, sometimes sitting motionless like round gray stones against the white snow, sometimes flocking in multiple pairs, would take flight trailing their distinctive woodwind sounds behind. Equally lovely was a Great Blue Heron that haunts the old trout hatchery down the way and an Osprey who finds fishing in Fuller’s Pond too good to pass up.

Large hawks have soared daily high above the bog plummeting like rockets to sweep up prey. They put on an aerial shows incredible to behold. As long as they were gliding on the air currents, smaller birds remained hidden in brush and briars.

But it wasn’t until the Red Winged Blackbirds arrived that we knew Spring was close at hand. Each Spring they return to nest in a nearby swamp. This year they seemed to arrive earlier than usual and in greater numbers.

Another sign of Spring was the draining of the bogs flooded for the winter. When the water went down, flocks of Mallards that had waddled up to partake of seeds put out for the other birds, retreated to the pond. Dozens of them came to scoop up free seeds. They weren’t supposed to do that. But they were beautiful and provided welcome respite from the dreary cold.

We may have more winter before it’s finally over, but Spring has come to Cape Cod. Like others penned in by winter’s cold, I can’t wait to get gardening. It’s time.

Some baggage to be lost in 2005

The law of unintended consequences

The law of unintended consequences isn’t well understood by some movers and shakers especially in politics, law and academe. Common sense flees when “reformers” lose political wars. But their legislative remedies rarely, if ever, are designed to put them into the winning column.

Some of us remember when Republicans in Massachusetts couldn’t win legislative elections. The liberal wing of the GOP-- aided and abetted by traditionally liberal League of Women Voters-- decided to change that. They proposed reducing the size of the House of Representatives which had always functioned as a brake on legislative excesses and governors’ ambitions. The League’s theory was if the numbers of representatives were cut from 240 to160 the stupid voting public would have less opportunity to interfere with good liberal legislation.

The measure passed as the 101st Amendment to our state constitution.

It marked the second time since 1857 the House had been reduced. Each town used to have a seat in the House. The benefits for representative democracy were many

• citizen legislators · short sessions-- and
• no truly burdensome legislative bureaucracy
• It worked well and taxpayers were generally the winners all the way around.

In 1970 the 92nd Amendment cut the number of representatives in the General Court to 240. That amendment kept seats for representatives from both Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard as promised when Massachusetts wooed and won the islands from Rhode Island and New York which both wanted these rich little merchant kingdoms.

The 101st Amendment cut the size of the House to 160 and eliminated the two Island seats. The League’s liberal activism earned them the nickname “League of Women Vultures” from Speaker David Bartley who accurately predicted the people would lose in the end.

Guess what? They did.

What was the unintended consequence of this “great reform”? There were no Republican gains. The legislature today is virtually immune to the will of the people. It has become a full-time, over-staffed giant forever seeking new ways to tax the people, impose new and onerous rules and regulations on every soul, spend our money and take care of friends and contributors.

Extremists speak of “reforming” our national institutions

Extremists who still can’t comprehend the law of unintended consequences speak of “reforming” our national institutions. They would abolish the Electoral College, take control of elections from the states to create a national enterprise much like the socialist states of Old Europ; and change the Constitution to allow foreign born, naturalized citizens to become president. All bad ideas to conservatives who love the Constitution and common sense.

Reformist elites are primarily socialist and liberal Democrat by persuasion with a smattering of “greens”, fringe libertarians, Hollywood celebrities, academics and pundits. They seem to share in common a penchant for despising the great unwashed mass of citizens who love their country for what it is, what it does and how it works.

My fondest hope for this promising new year is to see these “reformers” marginalized even more than they have marginalized themselves. They should heed Hubert Humphrey’s warning that “The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.”

Another dream for 2005 would be to see an end to judicial law making. Our supreme judicial court chief Justice Margeret Marshall exemplifies what happens when judges re-invent the constitution.

She reached into modern European law to legislate gay marriage as a covered constitutional right. The unintended consequence of her law making was that it triggered a rebellion among religious fundamentalists who turned out in droves in many states to pass laws prohibiting gay marriage and nullifying civil unions.

It was predictable and predicted. Many hard working gay people are suffering as a result. . Massachusetts became a poster child to rally the religious of all denominations – Christian, Jew and Muslim-- against gay marriage. Consequences have been cruel and punitive.

The smug arrogance of our Chief Justice has set the gay community back years. The sooner she retires the better off we will be. It is doubtful that the Bill of Address being filed by some Massachusetts lawmakers to forcibly remove her will gather enough support among the wishy washy legislators who make up the General Court. If she goes, it will have to be of her own accord. Let’s hope she makes a graceful exit, but don’t count on it.

End hate mongering by the left and the right

Also on my wish list for 2005—an end of hate mongering by the left and the right, reduction in the size and scope of our national government, an end to the practice among “gotcha journalists” to run with unchecked gossip.

The fiasco of CBS “fake but accurate” smear of Mr. Bush on 60 Minutes’ is but one of many calamities that befell and befouled the mainstream news media in 2004. Unabashed media bias has led to creation of the “blogosphere”-- now a major player on the Internet feeding good and bad information instantaneously to millions.

Oh! What a more nearly perfect world it could be if character, morality and honesty—three of the most valued virtues of an enlightened society-- come back into vogue.

Red Sox, Republicans and Seabiscuit:

All of them Victorious

I grew up watching the Red Sox lose starting in 1946 so I cannot suppress my glee at the string of victories posted by those Splendid "Idiots" who look more like a scruffy bunch of Dead End Kids than slick, professional baseball players.

They knocked the hated Yankees into the middle of next year then swept the Series against the Cardinals. After more than 50 years of hoping, I'd grown tired of saying: "Wait 'till next year!"

Being a Republican in a Blue State

Being a Red Sox fan prepared me to be a Republican in Massachusetts. Each year as Democrats return in dismally large numbers to Beacon Hill, Republicans say "Wait 'till next time!"

"Next time" comes and goes - and the Massachusetts Legislature remains in the grasp of Democrats who often forget government belongs to the people not the other way around. Republicans remain a permanent, obscure minority on Beacon Hill where they can caucus in a phone booth. The way Gov. Mitt Romney conducted the Republican effort was, to be charitable, ham handed, dumb and just this side of stupid! That is a subject for later review. Let's get back to the Red Sox!

My beloved Red Sox offered a wonderful diversion from an election campaign that turned so rancid and hateful I was turned off from politics, polls, media chatterboxes, analysts, pundits and the cursed spin doctors who lie through their teeth. And this from a lifelong political junkie.Enter the Red Sox. God bless 'em. They restored hope, fun and optimism to an otherwise grim world.

Like Seabiscuit, the racehorse that diverted millions from the pangs and pains of the Great Depression, the Boston Red Sox-- kind of ugly, rather ungainly, self-professed "Splendid Idiots"-- rescued millions from the ravages of a savage and indescribably dirty political campaign.

Litigious Liberals Losing of Late

But lo and behold! the election has come and gone and George W. Bush, targeted for extinction and humiliation by the intellectual elite, left wing Democrats, pollsters, punditry and most of the mainstream media not only won the Electoral Vote. Yet he won the popular vote by the largest majority in the history of the Republic.

The election celebration he was denied four years ago by litigious Gore factions was celebrated November 3rd at the Ronald Reagan center. It was glorious.

<>I predicted President Bush would confound his critics just as Harry Truman (D - MO) did when he "gave 'em hell" in 1948 and took the election by storm over New York Governor Thomas Dewey (R - NY). The mainstream media back then loved the third party candidate Henry Wallace who, like Kerry today, was glib, deeply committed to left wing causes and totally in sync with the intellectual elite and academic pontificators.

The same vile things said about old Harry from Missouri were said about "Dubya" from Texas. Ordinary folk flocked to the Bush banner as they did to Truman in '48. The Majority of Americans ignored the nasty nonsense and proved once again that the people who like plain talk and strong action.

Winner take Awe

The biggest winner, of course, was President Bush whose stewardship of his office was vindicated by this election. Other winners include our courageous military forces, the working middle class, the moral majority who have been outrageously defamed by the immoral minority. Also among the winners were Blacks and Hispanics who refused to stay on the liberal plantation and refused to be taken in by the Democrat scaremongers.

Also winners were people who want a safe, strong America for their kids and grand-kids; add to the winners circle Bloggers, Fox News, Brit Hume, economist Tom Sowell and the increasingly important Internet alternative news outlets. They all won big.

F.I.B.'s Dubious Dastards List

Among big losers. Duplicitous Senate minority leader Tom Daschle who helped make sure President Bush could not succeed in bringing Democrats and Republicans together before 9-11 or after. He led the obstructionist party seeking power and partisan gain. Other big losers include all the angry politicians who wanted to be president because they know they are smarter than Mr. Bush. The list includes Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, Joe Biden, Bob Kerry, and the debris left over from the Democratic primary fight.

Messianic billionaire Bush basher George Soros was a big loser along with hate-peddler Michael Moore, the foul mouthed, amoral Hollywood establishment and mainstream news media, notably CBS and The New York Times which acted at times as advance men for Kerry.

The N-Double-A-C-P was a big loser as were union thugs and lying pollsters who misled everybody. Add Maureen Dowd, Molly Ivans, Bob Beckel and assorted local and national columnists to the list. The day after the election, John Edwards was a big loser as he continues trying to divide us into the "Two Americas" of his fantasy.

John Kerry, conceding to Mr. Bush the day after the election, gave the most gracious speech of his career. He was greater in defeat than when punditry had him winning.

President Bush ended the campaign as he began it expressing optimism for America. He struck the chords that have always resonated with ordinary Americans. "When we come together there is no limit to the greatness of America."

God bless George Bush, the Red Sox and America. They are all in a class with the legendary "Seabiscuit"