Owls Ripped My Flesh

Today is Friday, the 10th day of September, the 253rd day of the year 2021.  112 days remain until the end of the year.

Here in Atlanta, sunrise was at 7:18 a.m. this morning and sunset will be at 7:50 p.m. for 12 hours and 32 minutes of daylight.  The waxing crescent moon is 17.3% illuminated and rose at 11:04 a.m. this morning.  It will set at 10:19 tonight. 

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Diana Rigg's passing.  Impermanence is swift.

Speaking of impermanence, on this date in 2017, Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm, after causing catastrophic damage throughout the Caribbean. Irma resulted in 134 deaths and $65 billion in damage.

It's Isaac Funk's birthday! (look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls).  Funk was born in 1939 and would be 192 years old (and a medical miracle) were he still alive today.  It's also a big day for drummers today.  Rock drummers Don Powell (Slade), Barriemore Barlow (Jethro Tull), Bill Stevenson (The Descendents) and Pat Mastelotto (Mister Mister, King Crimson, and The Rembrandts, who you probably know from the Friends theme song) were all born on this day.

Has the delta wave of the covids peaked?  Even ignoring the underreporting that occurred over the Labor Day weekend, the number of new cases per day here in Georgia seems to be going down.  I don't know if it's the effect of more Georgians getting vaccinated or increased mask use. Neither is mandated statewide, although Atlanta does have a largely unenforced mandate for masks in indoor public places. It could be the largely unexplained tendency for the delta wave of infection to suddenly decrease for unknown reasons, as seen in India and Great Britain. Or it could just be a short-lived statistical anomaly and cases will start to go back up again soon, but my fingers are crossed.

While on the topic of good news, it appears that there aren't any hurricanes or tropical storms out brewing in the Atlantic and heading our way, at least for now.  Again, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Here in the neighborhood, in addition to having to worry about the covids, climate change, falling trees, and the Great Buckhead Crimewave, unlikely as it sounds, it seems we're now under attack by owls, too.  No kidding.  This neighborhood is infested with barred owls, and their nightly calls ("Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?") serenade me almost every evening.   Sometimes, when they're all going at it at once, it sounds like the nighttime jungle sounds in a Tarzan movie. 

Early this morning, there were at least three owl attacks in nearby Brookwood Hills - a woman out for a walk at 5:40 a.m., and two joggers in the same general area at 7:00 a.m.  Earlier this week, a man was attacked - twice - while out jogging on the Northside Beltline Trail.  He was dive-bombed by an owl at around 6:40 a.m. as he was heading out on his run, and even though the bird drew blood, he kept jogging, only to be attacked 20 minutes later on his return at around the same spot.

I've not heard of any attacks occurring later that 7:00 a.m., which I take as more evidence that there really is no merit in getting up early.   I was still safely in bed when all this carnage happened.

Finally, if you think I may have been exaggerating or over-reacting in my recent discussion on how the Buckhead City Committee is dominated by far-right extremists, take a look at something they re-tweeted just this week:

Ha ha, see? - California Governor Gavin Newsom's a communist robot holding a hammer and sickle.  And conservative talk-show host (and gubernatorial challenger) Larry Elder is the "David" that's going to take down Newson's "Goliath."  Fun-ny.

My point is, re-tweeting this on the BCC's official Twitter account shows they're not even pretending to be bipartisan.  They keep insisting that their movement is a "common-sense" initiative and a reaction to perceived rampant crime, and has nothing to do with politics.  But then they re-tweet cartoons like this and reveal their true colors.