Emergency Preparedness Revisited, Sparrows, Crows, etc.
I was going to write a post on the sparrows rediscovering the birdhouse, but given the twisters in Oklahoma, a quick reminder on emergency preparedness might be more appropriate.
It was around 50 degrees F today. A week ago, it was 10 degrees. Obviously, swings in temperature can cause severe weather. The northeast should see some pretty high winds over the next day or two. Given that, this preparedness booklet is valuable indeed.
What else? Well, back to birds of course!
Forget about the sparrows, after I started this, I got the photo above. (This is turning into a bit of a hodge podge isn't it? Onward!)
There's something about crows that just busts the wife and me up... They have that funny "Inspector-Clouseau-Lurking" walk... They're incredibly bright... And man oh man, do they look funny eating pizza and pretzels. I wonder why it is that we anthropomorphize? It's late, but I'll throw out my own theory...
We tend to grant human-like attributes to non-humans as a way of "cheering on" our highest ideals - Freud's "super ego" at work, if you will. Unfortunately, according to Mr. Freud, humanity also has a very dark side - the "id". The id is the part of the psyche that wants you to slow down as you pass a car crash just to take a quick look. And when it comes to animals, the id expresses itself as "anthropodenial" - the tendency to deprive animals of any human-like characteristics such as the ability to fear or feel true affection. Once those traits are out of the way, terrible animal cruelties occur. My guess is that the trick is to rationally balance anthropomorphism with the anthropodenial... That is, balance the super ego with the id.
Ah heck, I could rant about this stuff all night. (I'm going to make that psychology degree pay one way or another!) But I think we've had enough topics for one day.
Be safe, and we'll see you by the feeders,
CapeCodAlan
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