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Mon, Jun 30, 2025

5:06pm EDT

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Carrion Luggage

by Robert Waltz

Rated: 18+ · Book · Opinion · #2336646

Items to fit into your overhead compartment

Carrion Luggage

Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.

This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.

It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.

It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."

I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

🌖 HuntersMoon

a day ago
In response to "It's On the House"

I hope there are staff quarters. No way my wife would ever consent to cleaning a place like that.

1 Like

🌖 HuntersMoon

Jun 28, 2025 at 11:45am
In response to "Not Apparent"

My wife became pregnant 2 weeks before I left for Vietnam... and 2 weeks after I returned.

I took matters into my own hands (no, that's not a deliberate pun

) and solved 2 problems. She wouldn't get pregnant again and I'd know if she was unfaithful.

I'm with JACE. Keep your nose (again, no deliberate pun) out of my business.

2 Like

JACE

Jun 28, 2025 at 11:17am
In response to "Not Apparent"

Interestingly, before my wife and I decided to start our family, we had the discussion about how many children we wanted--I wanted two, she (coming from a large family) wanted six. We wound up with four.

My point is that both of us were raised Catholic and I was 'dressed down' by our priest for wanting to purposely limit our family size. Approaching the birth of our fourth, however, my wife decided this was enough. She (we) had a devil of a time getting our priest to 'sign off' on birth control. So, she took care of that issue while still in the hospital after giving birth.

We were a bit disillusioned with the Catholic church's views about family by that time.

Keep your nose out of our business so long as we hurt noBODY or society in general.

3 Like

Stik to My Own Beat

Jun 28, 2025 at 10:14am
In response to "Not Apparent"

in a world that seems increasingly and bafflingly pronatalist

It's not baffling if you are aware of both population studies and the role of dominionism in Evangelical Christianity. While both pro-capitalist supporters of having many children and the dominionist ideology have been building up over the last 20 years or so, this is the first time they've been anywhere near the social controls at the same time. They both support large families for different reasons (money and racism, respectively) and thus have a loose alliance right now. I think one of the best things for people to do to combat this is to pay close attention to stories from people who have managed to leave either space. I can think of a few books off the top of my head that cover this subject: A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings, Pink-Pilled: Women and the Far Right by Lois Shearing, and Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover. Aside from depicting personal experiences within these movements, there is also exploration of how the structures themselves work. We need that understanding in order to push back and ultimately drain the motivation for people to latch onto these ideas.

In a similar vein, another important action to take is to help boys and young men stay out of those traps in the first place. Mentorships (whether participating in or providing funding for) can help raise a generation of men who are willing to stand up to pronatalism and the movements that promote this idea. Unlike feminist movements of the 60s and 70s, we can't afford to leave (young) men behind at a time like this. If we do, well, they're gonna gravitate to those who make them feel welcome. Unfortunately, the groups most likely to do that are the ones that are embracing pronatalism for (too) many reasons.

3 Like

🌖 HuntersMoon

Jun 27, 2025 at 6:06pm
In response to "The Holy Roll"

I can't argue against NYC for bagels. Best I've ever had. KC barbeque for the tomato-based; NC barbeque for the vinegar-based. IMHO, of course.

1 Like

Annette

Jun 27, 2025 at 11:45am
In response to "The Holy Roll"

I agree with your barbecue assessment.
I don't know enough about bagels to have an option.

1 Like

Kåre เลียม Enga

Jun 26, 2025 at 4:43pm
In response to "Duo or Duo Not (There is no Tri)"

They were (and presumably still are, though they [Hall and Oates] divorced last year) talented musicians.

Your use of the word divorce got my interest. So I went looking...

... soft 'rock and soul' ... good elevator music.

Oates has a musician son Tanner Oates who is doing okay. Hall has a son Darren who is struggling (big abandonment issues re his father). The divorce was over music rights...

1 Like

Sum1

Jun 26, 2025 at 12:28pm
In response to "Duo or Duo Not (There is no Tri)"

Alright, since I had no idea how Steely Dan named themselves, I had to look it up. Somehow, that got me looking at other inane subjects too, like the monsters that lived and thrived in the Permian Period, long before T-Rex was around. Now I'm tired, been up since a little after 2. It sounds like it's nap time. Let's hope some kind of synapsid – a peculiar group with a kaleidoscopic array of body shapes and features, from the newt-like Cotylorhynchus, with an oddly tiny head and the mass of a small moose, to the goofy Estemmenosuchus, reminiscent of a hippo wearing a lumpy papier-mâché party hat, doesn't haunt my dreams.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250624-the-bloodcurdling-permian-m onsters-that-ruled-the-earth-before-dinosaurs?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_pla cement=newsletter&user_id=66c4c7545d78644b3abc192c

3 Like

🌖 HuntersMoon

Jun 26, 2025 at 12:24pm
In response to "Duo or Duo Not (There is no Tri)"

I noticed that your title pair went through at least 3 versions. It brings to mind the old saying, "Architects don’t make mistakes; they just create temporary designs."

1 Like

Dave Ryan

Jun 26, 2025 at 11:26am
In response to "Duo or Duo Not (There is no Tri)"

On that note:

2 Like

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