Billboard beatitude.../..."Sbrek"

Waiting at a red light here in Tucson, the other day,

I used my cell-phone to take a picture.

There will be no commentary on the subject thereof.

This is pure, objective, cell-phone-photo-journalism.

I supply 'just the facts;'

I submit to you then, this contemporary billboard setting of a beatitude:

(If you have a hard time seeing it, here's a description:

Against a backdrop of a U.S. flag, there is a huddled prayer-group of soldiers...

Underneath "God Bless our Troops," Matthew 5.9 is cited: Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they shall be called children of God.

And then, if you look carefully at the bottom right hand

corner of the billboard,

you'll see that it's sponsored by an organization named, no joke,

"Junque for Jesus.")

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Say the word 'breakfast' outloud.

Now say it five times fast:

breakfastbreakfastbreakfastbreakfastbreakfast

Can you hear how the predominant sound,

(since the 't' at the end of breakfasT gets dropped,)

is, approximately, 'sbrek?'

Well, that is what our little bird hears, at least.

So--although Paquito doesn't 'sing for his supper,'

he can now, kind of, 'speak for his breakfast'...

MMVIII...animals...colors...in memoriam...

Two-thousand-seven in Tucson ended, for us, with the visit of an out-of-town relative.

So, yesterday, we took this dear dear guest out to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, the de rigueur thing-to-do when visitors come to Tucson...

My wife and I have been to the museum/zoo/botanical garden several times, but we'd never taken the turn to see the mountain lion exhibit...so, yesterday, almost by happenstance we made a right turn, and there, through a window:
To be so close to a puma, to watch the bristling fur while it breathes during its big-cat-nap...Wow...

And then--for just a moment, the mountain lion lifted its head and stared straight at me:

There is definitely a place for thick glass-walls...(San Francisco zoo? recent news headlines? oy...)What goes through a mountain lion's head when they see us? Nothing very disturbing, evidently; immediately after this eye-to-eye encounter that made my day, the big cat just went back to basking, eyes-closed, on its sunny perch...

Sun-in-winter...truly therapeutic. Yes, this is a recurring theme in this blog, I know, I know...the repetition of light...but, really, the colors are brilliant, and the light does wonders for a winter-soul.

We took our out-of-towner to Sabino Canyon, and the cottonwoods and sycamores are at their autumnal best in late December:

Snow on the peaks, 'fall'-color in the canyons...Our first winter in Tucson has been just brilliant.

But nights are cold.

Our out-of-towner's cautious advice, last week, was to pick all the citrus from our two trees, so that the freeze that was forecast for that night wouldn't ruin the fruit...So, pick we did, and we ended up with eighty oranges, with a few lemons thrown in, and some grapefruit from the 'public access' tree around the corner...lots of juice, lots given away to friends... Yeah, so I couldn't resist taking a picture of Paquito our parrotlet in front of some of our citrus bounty. Come on, you gotta admit, he's just so cute...He finally spoke in the presence of our out-of-towner, who was thrilled to hear the squeaking "hey birdie!" and "salut, ça va?" in the mornings...

...I had to fish out this picture of Paquito and Tango, our parrots who moved down from Seattle with us back in July; road-trip with birdies...they did so well for the five days in their car-carriers:(the car was parked...no worries...)

And this brings me to the sad news I feel obligated to post on this blog...

Fifteen months ago, my wife and I adopted Tango, the Senegal parrot...(click on this link and then scroll to the bottom to read about the first day that Tango came home with us...)

So much joy a little bird can add to a household! So, the past couple of weeks, what with repeated visits to the vet, we have been a bit preoccupied...

And then, a few nights ago, Tango died in our hands.

He was just too sick, evidently...may have been a congenital defect...He might have lived thirty years, but he died less than two years after hatching...

The breath of life is an amazing thing--it's all or nothing. To hold a feathered-creature (hope is a thing with feathers--didn't Dickinson write that?) as breath ceases in your palms...it is a humbling, fascinating, saddening, quiet thing...

Yes, yes, he was just a little bird, and we only had him for less than a year-and-a-half...But...But...

...we are so sad. He was truly a little companion with a personality and even a vocabulary...

We are learning animal-empathy, then...

Here is one of the last photos we took--just a few days ago, when we thought he might pull through, two nights before he died...

In memoriam,

then,

for

TANGO,

so little a creature,

(so many good things

in such a small feathered package)

who depended on us for food and shelter...

and who gave us back

so much happiness

in return

March 2006--December 2007

Seattle--Tucson

...upon seeing a bird on a car in a parking lot...

This afternoon, I saw a great-tailed grackle on the hood of a car in the Trader Joe's parking lot...

Whenever I see one, I am instantly transported back to living in Nicaragua, where, like clockwork at 5:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., the trees across the street would roar to life with the birds, waking and returning...

Quiscali mexicani are called zanates (sah-NAH-tehs) in Central America...

And so, it is a bird that has inspired me to post my first video-clip to a blog--taken when I was still learning to use my digital camera in Central America--zanates at sunset, León, Nicaragua, a year-and-a-half ago:

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Earlier in the afternoon, since we both had the day off work, my wife and I decided to go for a short hike--we drove to the eastern edge of the city--strip-malls peter out into ranches tucked into mesquite woods and finally you hit the boundary of national park wilderness-land...A perfect winter-in-the-desert-day: 69 degrees in the sun, after a frosty morning...The view below is taken from the Rincon foothills, looking to the NW, towards the Santa Catalinas and the Tucson mountains...

(Which version shows the textures of the 'teddy-bear' cholla cactus better--the black-and-white or the sepia? S. prefers the b&w...I like the 'old-west'-feel of the sepia...)

Further up the trail, you climb up a ridge that lets you see the snowy forested summit, 8000 feet up...

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...and today's word-of-the-day, gleaned from this morning's local paper:

Guatemexicoestadounidenses

Huh? Here's the link to the article, if you're curious...

Angles of light...birdie woes...

Winter solstice in the northern hemisphere:

On December 21st,
Tucson's sunrise to sunset is 7:21 a.m. to 5:23 p.m.--
10 hours 2 minutes and 14 seconds of daytime,
with the sun at 34.4 degrees above the horizon.

Compare that to Seattle's 7:55 sunrise to 4:20 sunset--
just 8 hours 25 minutes of daytime(!),
with the sun at a measly 19.9 degrees above the horizon.

My childhood winters in northern Germany--8:33 sunrise and sunset at 4:22,
just 7 hrs 49 minutes of day,
with the sun barely peaking at 15 degrees above the southern horizon.

Angles of light are important--
artists speak of 'the special light in Provence'...
or 'the quality of light in Santa Fe'...
'the way the sun rains down in Tuscany' etc, etc...
it's all about geometry--
how many degrees up in the sky, how long are the shadows...

The numbers will make you crazy; they'll send you packing...
No wonder Van Gogh left the Low Countries for the South of France...

More statistics, for six months from now:
Summer solstice:
Tucson-5:18 sunrise to 7:34 sunset (standard time; AZ doesn't switch to daylight savings),
81.2 degrees in the sky, almost overhead; positively tropical.
Seattle-5:12 sunrise to 9:11 (daylight savings time), solar noon at 65.8 degrees above the horizon.

(Incidentally, here's a link to world night/day map:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunearth.html)

Nicaragua in December--the sun is at 54.5 degrees above the horizon...
maybe that's why León's colonial streets and its volcanic countryside looked more Tuscan in December...

Here in Tucson now--lovely morning shadows on the mountains; they really are purple on the horizons...
And just in time for winter, last week, and then again today, there has been snow on the Catalinas:

Yes, that's my work-window-view of the Catalinas, in mid-town Tucson...

...and from the entrance to Sabino Canyon, the Rincons on the east are snow-dusted as well:

This past weekend, my wife's parents were in town...so we drove up the Catalina highway; at about 7000 feet up, the icicles were impressive--there IS winter in southern Arizona; all is not cactus: ...and this is the view south, toward the Santa Rita mountains...there was snow all the way down to about 4500 feet, on the northern slopes...

...and we got down to the base of the mountains just in time for sunset: ========================

And now, for birdie woes.

Tango has been sick. Liver problems, evidently...leading to neurological issues, meaning falls and lack of equilibrium--birdie vertigo! Some trips to the vet ($$$), and now with medication and temporary cage-modifications, our Senegal parrot is improving.

I would never have guessed I would one day spend MONEY on a little birdie...(blood test? cholesterol levels?) but hey, when the little companion has a life-span of THIRTY years, you can't NOT help him out, right? (Truly, he is a feathered-friend.) A hamster or a gecko, I might just let go, you know, but a parrot?...well...It's been a dodgy few days for avian health in our household, but he's pulling through...and we can sleep more soundly...

Ay ay ay...

Winter in Tucson, then...freezing nights and snow-capped sunny afternoons, yards full of ripe citrus, an ailing parrot, and now, time off...

Lettuce on ice...cultural collision...

The first snows have arrived on the mountains around Tucson...
...down to around 6000 feet...
A thunderstorm hit yesterday afternoon down in the valley,
leaving a half-inch of ice pellets on the ground...and it was PINK!
Seriously...some wind updrafts must have picked up some desert sand somewhere, and it came down as pink hail in our little front yard...
Our little lettuce-garden got beat-up by the skyborn refrigeration;
the perils of winter gardening...


In today's International Herald Tribune, there's a very interesting opinion piece dealing with Arizona;
local issues on in an international stage...
Here's the link to the column:
=======================================
Where Mariachis and Minutemen collide
by Lawrence Downes
PHOENIX, Arizona

Want to see America unraveling? Come here, to Thomas Road and 35th Street, to M. D. Pruitt's furniture store. Come on Saturday morning and stand near the eight delivery trucks barricading the parking lot, like the wall of an urban Alamo.

For the last seven weeks, a sidewalk protest here by Latino immigrants has blossomed into a feverish reality show, attracting Minutemen, mariachis, children dancing in Mexican folk costume, white racists, United Nations observers, Phoenix police officers and Maricopa County sheriff's deputies.

The weekly confrontation - strident and stalemated - perfectly mimics the national debate. But it's a sideshow to something uglier: What happens when immigration's complexities are handed to local law enforcers sympathetic to the fury of one side.
Thomas Road has lots of Latino day laborers, or jornaleros, who hustle for work near Home Depot. A few months ago, the Phoenix police shooed them away. They dispersed to streets nearby, angering local businesses. One of the biggest, Pruitt's, hired off-duty city police officers to keep jornaleros at bay. The city put a stop to that, so Pruitt's turned to the county sheriff, Joe Arpaio.

Sheriff Joe, as he is known, needed no prodding: Hunting undocumented immigrants is his specialty. He has arrested hundreds under a state antismuggling law (for smuggling themselves) and has had 160 officers deputized as federal immigration agents. They have made more than 50 arrests near Pruitt's since the protests began.

They'll pull a car over for a traffic infraction, then check everyone's papers. They say they act on reasonable suspicion only - if they see a shirt or shoes like those worn south of the border or hear Spanish. They say it isn't profiling.

There is no doubt whose side Sheriff Joe is on. He has officers on Pruitt's payroll, guarding the lot on protest days. Last week, he issued a news release demanding that the demonstrators stop hurting Pruitt's and vowing to crank up the pressure until they went away. It was a naked attempt to stifle dissent and help a business ally.

People here are used to that from Sheriff Joe. He describes himself as "America's meanest sheriff" and has recently been basking in the love of nativists like the Minuteman Chris Simcox and radio host Terry Anderson, who gushed over him at a roast in Sun City West this month.

If Arizona begins punishing companies that hire illegal workers under a law that takes effect Jan. 1 - a lawsuit to block it was thrown out Friday - it will fall to counties to do the purge. In Maricopa, that means Sheriff Joe.

The protesters at Pruitt's are the only real opposition he has faced. Their leader is Salvador Reza, a stocky American of Mexican and Apache ancestry, an Air Force veteran who has spent years organizing jornaleros and small-business owners here.

Reza says he can't understand why America accepts global flows of companies, money and jobs but not workers. Why faith in market forces seems to have been eclipsed by fear of immigrants. Or why the country cannot set up legal channels to let jornaleros come and go and not be hassled.

"They actually are people with a work ethic that would make the Puritans proud," he said.

Pruitt's owner, Roger Sensing, says he needs armed officers to protect customers from jornaleros. Reza calls that ridiculous, and one informed noncombatant, the Reverend Craig Geiger, pastor of a Lutheran church across the street, agrees. He told me he had never seen a laborer enter Pruitt's lot. He also said his Latino congregation did not drive to church anymore. Documented or not, they fear Sheriff Joe. They walk.

Pastor Geiger leaves the neighborhood on Saturdays, because it gets deafening. When I was there, a trio singing Mexican ballads strolled through the crush. A Minuteman with a bullhorn followed them. "Monkeys coming through!" he shouted. His side rushed up to drown the music out: "Born in the U.S.A.! Born in the U.S.A.! KKK! Viva la Migra! January First!"

The restrictionists see Jan. 1 as the dawn of a new era, when the Mexicans disappear and everything gets pure and legal again. It is uncertain whether Arizona's economy will survive the exodus. "Unfortunately, they'll probably wake up when they bankrupt the state," Reza told me.

Lawrence Downes is a member of the New York Times editorial board.

First snow...

...no, not here in Tucson itself--but in mountains nearby.
About 2 hours to the east are the Pinaleño mountains, just north of the agricultural area around Wilcox. The highest peak is 10,720 ft. (3267 m.)-high Mt. Graham. (Incidentally, it is the 20th highest peak in the lower 48 states.) A couple of days ago, we were in the area, and as we we drove by, the clouds cleared and on the forested summit--just a hint of white--the first of the season:

I love the contrasts here--up or down, and you're in a different world.

(We're still waiting for the first blanket of white to cover the Catalinas here in Tucson...)

To the NE, heading closer to the border with New Mexico, is the old mining town of Clifton,

in the gorge of the San Francisco River;

late fall, cottonwoods:

Like so many towns out West, this 1800's town has been through boom and bust...
The historic main street even has 'ruins' (the arched façade of a movie theater that burned down decades ago.)

From the neighboring, much higher, town of Morenci, where the huge Phelps-Dodge mine is located, you can look down on the valley, cut deep into the naked geology of the high plains all around:

And this would be part of the mine itself, scouring away the mountain...And bust is becoming boom again--copper prices have gone up, since demand is rising--newer hybrid cars are fueling (ahem) the need, since they require copper parts!

People come from all over to work at the mine--the only real source of employment in the area.
They even still have a 'company store,' and 'company housing.' And one of the people who lives and works there said that they're expecting some African immigrants pretty soon to help work the mine--cosmopolitan, eh?

And then heading back toward Tucson, as we approached Mt. Graham again, some 'god-light' appeared:

...maybe even suitable for a cheesy Hallmark calendar? Oh, wait--there are no kittens or flowers in the foreground...maybe next time...

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Our final few tomatoes are hanging on, ripening as December approaches, on our front porch. Cilantro's doing well, now that it's cooler. (I actually wore wool to work for the first time today.) We've had our first couple of oranges from 'our tree.' Got some containers to grow lettuce and spinach--our 'winter crops.' And that's tonight's weather/produce update from Tucson.

...published in the International Herald Tribune...my letter!

A couple of days ago, there was an interesting column published
in the International Herald Tribune--one of my favorite papers to read online;
it's published in Paris daily, but it's in English.
The column was about christians vs. muslims,
and the concept of God;
Sweeping generalizations were, predictably, made--but what stood out as
intellectually dishonest was the statement to the effect that 'the christian concept of a triune god is central to the Bible.' Not true...so not true...historically, textually, culturally, not true.

So, during ,during my lunch break, I fired off a letter to the editor to rebut the columnist's sweeping statement--
--and it was published in today's paper!

So, yes, there is a bit of a self-congratulatory tone in this posting,
because it is a small thrill to have my letter published in one of my favorite international newspapers.

But I'm glad an opposing voice will be heard by the readers...
Below are the links to the original column, and to my letter...

The link to the original column:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/13/opinion/edpabst.php

The link to my letter-to-the-editor-rebuttal:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/15/opinion/edletters.phpLink

By the way, this morning I woke up to the pitter-patter of--what is that--rain?! The shower lasted for all of two minutes--but it was the first rain I've seen/heard in months here in Tucson...

(I hope it's raining some in Georgia--perhaps you've heard about the city of Atlanta--major major city--being only weeks away from NO water; the other day the governor had a 'pray-for-rain' (?!)session on the Capitol Steps...)