Hi Tweets,

Interesting! After someone complained about there being a lack of humor on
the list (a contention with which I have a fundamental disagreement: there's
actually more fun & foolishness on this list than many
'strictly-birds-and-no-joking' lists), I posted a bunch of trivial silliness
so people could get a few yux and *look what happens*. Sheesh. '-)

Taylor Harrison writes:

>>From the November, 1997 issue of Natural History magazine (page 12) - from an
>essay by Samuel Johnson in 1758:
>
>(snip)...for men are surely destroying one another; you will then find
>the ground smoaking with blood and covered with carcasses, of which many are
>dismembered and mangled for the convenience of vultures."
>Man, the old vulturess concluded, with his penchant for self-destruction,
>"shews by his eagerness and diligence that he is, more than any of the others,
>a friend to vultures."

And echoing that, from Walter M. Miller Jr.'s *great* Toynbeean
cyclic-history-of-the-future SF novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz:

"The buzzards laid their eggs in season and lovingly fed their young: a
dead snake, and bits of a feral dog.
"The younger generation waxed strong, soared high on black wings, waiting
for the Earth to yield up her bountiful carrion. Sometimes dinner was only a
toad. Once it was a messenger from New Rome.
"Their flight carried them over the midwestern plains. They were
delighted with the bounty of good things which the nomads left lying on the
land during their ride-over toward the south.
"The buzzards laid their eggs in season and lovingly fed their young.
Earth had nourished them bountifully for centuries. She would nourish them
for centuries more...
"Pickings were good for a while in the region of the Red River; but then
out of the carnage, a city-state arose. For rising city-states, the buzzards
had no fondness, although they approved of their eventual fall. They shied
away from Texarkana and ranged far over the plain to the west. After the
manner of all living things, they replenished the Earth many times with
their kind.
"Eventually it was the Year of Our Lord 3174.
"There were rumors of war."

And further:

"The buzzards strutted, preened, and quarreled over dinner; it was not
yet properly cured. They waited a few days for the wolves. There was plenty
for all. Finally they ate the Poet.
"As always the black scavengers of the skies laid their eggs in season
and lovingly fed their young. They soared high over prairies and mountains
and plains, searching for the fulfillment of that share of life's destiny
which was theirs according to the plan of Nature. Their philosophers
demonstrated by unaided reason that the Supreme *Cathartes aura regnans* had
created the world especially for buzzards. They worshipped him with hearty
appetites for many centuries.
"Then, after the generations of the darkness came the generations of the
light. And they called it the Year of Our Lord 3781--a year of His peace,
they prayed."

As we do, year after year.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)