« Years ago, when American air travel was not inconvenienced by D.B. Cooper, side trips to Havana, and Middle East terrorists; when airline passengers dressed well; when the government’s oversight kept the industry relatively stable and when airlines pampered their customers with meals, drinks, pillows, blankets, cigarettes and kindness; traveling was comfortable to the point of boredom. It was in the late 1960s that I had proposed something called PORTHOLE HORROR. Each window seat passenger had the option of pressing a button to begin a steady stream of air combat action which would fill the inside of the plane’s window. Obviously, those days are past and Airbus floated an idea for which the only other standee passengers kept parachutes on their backs and carbines in their hands. I had assumed that the thousands of lives and millions of frightened passengers would have kept the airline industry from attempting to squeeze more money from its flying public. Not so. Good taste and business? The bus left the station.
Wait a cotton-pickin’ second!! I am happy Abraham Lincoln had decided not to hang the leadership of the Confederacy, but I don’t think he wanted citizens to wax their cars. The U.S. placed a military cemetery on Robert E. Lee’s family property. That was gesture worthy of 14th century Florence and reverberates today. Let a private group rebuild Davis’ home. Would taxpayers be expected to place vinyl siding on Timothy McVeigh’s house? Just because one wore levis and a windbreaker and the other dressed as a Kentucky colonel doesn’t mean the country is responsible for the latter’s Home Depot bills. There must be plenty of rich, crypto-confederates willing to restore old Jeff’s crib. While I fully support the preservation of history in thought and material, I would think African-Americans have a real beef on this one. »
 

While working outside this week-end, I listened to a bird’s monotonously repetitive song and growled toward the tree branch, “Buy a @#%^*! fake book!” Then I wondered why birds could not learn new songs. I wasn’t joking. Now I read this!

Wednesday, April 26, 2006 · Last updated 10:02 a.m. PT

Songbirds may be able to learn grammar

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP SCIENCE WRITER

WASHINGTON — The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separate man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests.

Starlings learned to differentiate between a regular birdsong “sentence” and one containing a clause or another sentence of warbling, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Nature. It took University of California at San Diego psychology researcher Tim Gentner a month and about 15,000 training attempts, with food as a reward, to get the birds to recognize the most basic of grammar in their own bird language.

Please read the entire article here.

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BLUEBIRD OF DISCONTENT 

042606bluebird.jpg

www.news.cornell.edu; Isidor Jeklin/Cornell Lab of Orinthology
One for My Baby (Harold Arlen & Johnny Mercer)

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GREAT DAY IN THE MOURNING DOVE

042506mourning dove rust2.jpg

National Audubon Society, Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region
indiana.edu; Photo: Courtesy of Delbert Rust;
Waiting for the Robert E. Lee (Music: Lewis F. Muir; Lyrics: L. Wolfe Gilbert)

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