12/17/18

Dear Donald,

Do you believe in omens? I’m not sure that I do but something ominous just happened and I am not sure what it portends. I got up late this morning and was out of sorts because our latest foster dog, Lukey Duke, pooped in his crate and in our sun room and I had to take care of him and his mess. When I finally cleaned up the poop and got him on his leash, I was thinking I would write you a very brief note so I could get back on schedule.

Then I left the house and heard a murder of crows squawking. They do that every now and then. Maybe 50 or 100 individuals congregate in a tree and all start talking at once. They sounded perturbed so I wondered what was going on. As I walked down the path, I found a fresh crow corpse. The dogs and I avoided it, did our business and returned to the house. 

After googling mourning crows, I learned that what I witnessed is a common occurrence. Crows know when one of their group dies and they fuss over it. They’ll also remember any human that they associate with that death and attack that person. Luckily they had dispersed by the time I returned to put a bucket over the body so that the UCD researchers could collect it for an autopsy. They want to keep track of whether birds have West Nile.

You might tell Ryan Zinke about this episode during your lunch with him today. It’s too bad that he’s leaving the Department of the Interior under a shroud. According to Collin O'Mara writing in the WP today, he did not live up to the Rooseveltian Conservation standard he set for him himself when he rode into DC on his horse in 2017. He failed to “think holistically and act intergenerationally” as he pursued an “energy dominance agenda.” Please counsel your next Sec. of Interior to avoid being friendly to MGM and Halliburton so he doesn’t have a shroud. 

Those crows remind me of the mystery of nature. I hope your next Sec. of Interior will revere it rather than exploit it.

Have fun at the Christmas Reception tonight,