Attitude Adjustment - Well We Tried

 Okay, I'm going to say it.  Under the current leadership, this country has lost its way to the point I wonder if it will return to its former glory in my lifetime.

It's sad. Very sad. My emotions are shot. My back hurts and the meds are tearing up my innards.  Lovely.

Usually, a bit earlier than this, we typically go to Yellowstone to look for bears and wolves to photograph. This year, on the advice of a friend, we tried Teton NP instead. We struck out big time.  Other than Elk too far in the distance and Bison, of which I must have 10,000 photos, all we saw was a solitary coyote.

That's okay though. Just getting a change of scenery had great appeal. The Tetons were still iced with snow and were beautiful

However, getting away isn't what we expected.  Lodging rates are through the roof.  Of course, that is expected in Jackson.  What wasn't expected was a $500 tab for two nights at the Hampton Inn where we had to ask for clean towels and they didn't even make the bed, much less provide clean linens. Okay. It has been said that they can't get the help.  I don't buy it.  The entire town had construction projects of one type or another underway. The workers were mostly Hispanic, of some sort, because the conversations we could hear were all in Spanish. Not that hospitality workers have to be Hispanic, by any means, but we didn't see the women.  Certainly, some of the young men had wives.  Or did they? I will give them credit though.  They were working and I'm sure making a good wage.

Practically every business had a help wanted sign displayed.  It made sense since the summer season is just around the corner and for jobs requiring training, those businesses want to get started. 

Our respite from the real world was within the confines of the park, wildlife or not. It was peaceful. The air was fresh. The scenery was beautiful.

Home now, I spend a lot of time watching this year's owlets learn about life.  They've gotten huge and are finding out about wings. They are adorable and entertaining. I've become very fond of our backyard as I watch their Mom and Dad wait and watch every single day. 

With a weekend full of horrible shootings across the country, I'm beginning to think I don't need a change of scenery after all, especially if I have to do the housework anyway!

The Economics of Abortion

 It didn't take long for the politicians and media to politicize the leak of the draft of the Supreme Court opinion on whether or not the Mississippi law on abortion which asks if the right to an abortion is a Constitutional issue.

First, the outrage should be over the idea that someone on a Justice's staff had the insolence to leak anything.

Second, the rush to point accusatory fingers is purely subjective along ideological lines and should have been held back until more details of what the draft actually says are known.

All that being said, I will be the first to admit I have very mixed feelings over the abortion argument that will never be put to rest until there is a definitive truth as to just when life actually begins. I've heard the arguments from every angle you can imagine, but to date, they are no more than opinions.

I do have some very strong opinions, myself, on aspects after the fetus is proven viable. But there is a portion of this whole situation that is never discussed and needs to be. 

Who gets an abortion and why? The why's range from just not wanting a child to not wanting to bring forth a life conceived during a rape. Okay.  No argument there. Where do the economics come in?

If abortion was outlawed millions of children would be brought into the world. If the mothers did not want or were not able to keep these children and raise them and educate them what would become of them? Some would be adopted. Yes.  But by no means all.  More orphanages? Most likely. Is there a plan for that?  Is there funding? Consider what all that involves. Feeding, clothing, and education are not cheap. And what about those born with mental deficiencies?  Add another layer of expense. 

There is no easy answer, but this is an aspect of it I never, ever hear discussed.  

Abortion, the right to life, a woman's right to choose. Sloganeering at best. I don't envy the justices on the court having to deal with this issue, especially in today's political climate. I also don't envy them for having to deal with the firestorm this leak of an unrendered opinion has created. 

I hope whoever did the leaking is caught and faces severe consequences for breaking a trust. If this era of the powerful and their minions getting a pass for egregious actions without consequence continues, we'll have the entire contents of the Constitution relegated to the out stack of a disgruntled few. There will be consequences, however.  For all the rest of us and we'll have no court to sort it out.

Parenting In Today's World

 I have two passions that consume my time in these, my latter years.  One is writing my 'Slobbers' books. The second is keeping track of our yard's resident Great Horned Owls.

In the late winter, and early spring they make themselves known because they get very vocal during mating season. It has always been interesting to me that the male has a low-pitched hoot, which I would expect. The female, a somewhat higher pitch. Yet size wise, the male is smaller than the female. How they do court one another!

Getting to see them is difficult at best because of their nocturnal habits though at times they will spend a day in a leafless tree.  Some years they tolerate me with my ever-ready camera, other times they take off as soon as I appear. This year they have been a bit spooky until just lately. For the past several weeks the male has been perching on several snags, tree limbs, and even our pergola which is quite close to the house. If I'm careful, I get wonderful photos.

That aside, Dad is perching away from the nest because Mom is tending the eggs and now the hatchlings. I am over the moon that I located them this morning and will be keeping track of what looks to be three as they learn about life beyond the nest.

Now that they have hatched, Mom and Dad will take turns tending them so the other can rest. After the eggs are laid, Dad takes over the stockpiling of food at night while Mom guards the eggs. They both have tremendous responsibilities and they do what needs to be done to see that those responsibilities are carried out. From now until it's time to send the kids off on their own, which will be at summer's end, both parents will be hovering around their offspring, feeding them, teaching them to fly and to hunt. It's called parenting. It is wonderful to watch.

It's interesting to me that animals, be they birds or mammals, take on the challenge of what comes naturally to them, having kids and raising them.  They don't complain.  They don't run away from it. They just do what needs to be done.  It comes naturally to them.

It seems to me a lot of my fellow humans could take some parenting lessons from our 'less intelligent' neighbors.

It Didn't Have to Come to This!

 My, the Kremlin has been busy today. Let's go back a few days though.  Sweden and Finland are both tidying up their internal business so they can join NATO.  Probably a wise decision since Putin has now declared that World War 3 has begun.

Then the Ukrainians blew up a Russian ship.  First Russia denied it, then turned around and admitted it. Uh oh.  This is not good.  Never mind that the ship was in Ukrainian waters and shelling Ukrainian territory. I suppose to Putin's way of thinking, blowing up his ship was an escalation of the war. Whatever he thinks, this was an embarrassing loss for the Russians.

Now he's threatening the use of nuclear weapons. It's anyone's guess who will be on the receiving end, but you can be sure the first will be Ukraine. After all, people are escalating the war he started!

The bluster is now in high dudgeon. Putin has warned Sweden and Finland against joining NATO. He has told us to stop supplying weapons, and who knows what else since I turned off the news a while ago.

Will Biden get a backbone or will he cave to Putin's demands? This could have been avoided if we had given the Ukrainians what they needed in anticipation of the invasion.  I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know something evil was afoot when the Russians were amassing forces on the Ukrainian border. A training exercise?  In a country the size of Russia, they hardly had to go to the border of a neighboring country to hold exercises.

Who knows where this is going to go and how fast.  I still wonder about two things.  One, how did Putin get inside the head of our President that in essence paralyzed him from doing what was right. Especially since there isn't much in his head, to begin with. It isn't his fault. I know that, but to think he has his finger inches away from our own nuclear button scares the hell out of me!

Two, if Putin didn't get in Joe's head, what does he have on Joe and/or his family? I've wondered about that on this blog before. Whichever, it does not bode well for the world.

I suppose the agonizing over which of our high-level officials is going to be sent to Ukraine to show that we can play like the big boys like Boris Johnson. I heard speculation it might be Kamala Harris. It may be more shrewd than I think. They could let their guard down while listening to her laugh about the death and destruction that will surround her. Or, they could lose their concentration while waiting for her to string together enough words to make a cognizant sentence.

This is not a happy post for Good Friday. It is made even sadder to think the Ukranians will not be decorating their spectacular Easter eggs this season. I can only hope they know that the American people are behind them even if our government isn't.

Where You WON'T See Biden!

 Hooray for BoJo! It's nice to see some unadulterated courage from a Western leader. Boris Johnson walking down a street in Kyiv with Ukraine's Zelensky. Never mind that Joe can barely walk on a White House sidewalk.

Hopefully, some other western nations will take a page from Johnson's book and start supplying the Ukranians with what they really need to stave off the Russians.

I think Biden and the rest of them are whistling past the graveyard in their entire approach. I don't see Putin as one to withdraw and pout. I see him as one who will become more and more inhumane the more he is backed into a corner and it will overflow into nearby countries like Poland sooner rather than later.

Why is it the west is so worried about the very appearance of escalation while that's all Putin's actions have been?  The escalation of war against a sovereign nation.

Easter Sunday is rapidly approaching. The day the son of the Christian God rose from the dead. Wouldn't it be wonderful if it signified the day Ukraine began to rise again? Unfortunately, that great power has yet to smile upon them. A sign would help.  Any sign.  Maybe the weapons they need in a timely manner? At the very least, weapons without missing parts?

The one thing they can be sure won't be there for them is the United States. I never thought I could see a darker hour than the Afghanistan withdrawal in our current day and age, but I have.  We can't be accused of abandoning them in their darkest hour when we haven't even acknowledged it exists. 

This administration should be ashamed, but alas, it is not. And we, the citizens, are all paying dearly for it. Not as dearly as the Ukranians, to be sure, but dearly, never-the-less.