@Dawn's Meta Thanks for this video

We were visited last week by a Eurasian Hoopoe. They are truly remarkable birds. Here is an email Mr. Meta sent out about our encounter:

So, when we moved to France, we really wanted to see one. For those of you following this saga, when we lived in the rental house near Charolles, twenty miles north of where we live now, we looked out the front window one day and there was a hoopoe walking up the driveway! It was like, “I heard you guys wanted to see a hoopoe, so I thought I would introduce myself.”

That was April 3, 2016. We always keep our eyes and ears open for these guys. They have a very distinctive call, usually in threes, “Hoop, hoop, hoop”. I guess it would have been awkward and undignified to call them “oop-oop-oops”. It is bad enough already. English: hoopoe, French: huppe, Latin: Upupa epops. You can read all about this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoopoe. They can smell really bad, but we haven’t experienced this. Good thing. We are trying to stay on good terms.

This year, we have heard one or two, across the valley, but had not seen one yet. This morning, I am sitting in our upstairs living room and hear a tap, tap at the window. Teddy, lying at my feet, gives a muffled woof, but does not open his eyes—his typical response when he is on break from guard dog duty.

It was a hoopoe! He was looking at me through the window, twelve feet away! I totally freeze for ten minutes, not wanting to scare him away. No need, he wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, he stayed an hour before flying away. We thought he might be injured or somehow distressed, but he seemed fine. I was able to go get the iPhone and make a video. Here you go:

https://youtu.be/L4DD-lKjYzI

He did not fly away until he heard the neighbor park across the valley.

We will keep you updated on all hoopoe news. He is in the tree by the front door right now!

Here is a very good site with information plus the call which we used to get our Hoopoe to up his game: he went from two oop - oops to four.

Hoopoe Information.

We are worried as the weather has really changed and the only reason our visitor came was because it has become too wet and cold, like a winter when it should be Spring. Happening more each year. Gardening good for salads. This weekend would normally be put your tomatoes in. But the high is 13°C, very wet and cold.

@JtC @JtC Some of us still are, it's just not very fashionable anymore.

EDIT: for what it's worth, I've been thinking about this a bit recently and it was Gulf War I which radicalized me. I was middle school aged at the time and bought the lie that we were going in to liberate the people, etc. When we scooted as soon as the oil fields were secure, it led me to where I am today. I grew up in the shadow of Vietnam and between that and the disgusting display that was Gulf War I, I became a peacenik.

peace freaks were everywhere, this I know as fact. What happened to all of those people?

@JtC
Reagan, aka "the me generation". A goodly percentage of peaceniks and other activists were youth, especially college kids. Suddenly in the eighties vast swaths of that general age bracket fully bought into the "greed is good" ideology and everybody's "utopia" shifted from peace and equality to being successful in business and beemers and houses in the suburbs or condos in the city. Not just the anti-war movement, but pretty much all movements took a hit, civil rights, prison reform, unionization, etc., etc.

peace freaks were everywhere, this I know as fact. What happened to all of those people?

@JtC
among sites that take advertising. It was a game in the old days with newspaper circulation, they would give the newsies excess and not count the returns. Mags would also give promo and extreme discount subs because the revenues were in the ads and not in the subs. Fun city.

be well and have a good one

We currently have 2,740 registered members here at c99. But the UID (User Identification) is up to 57,269. Why the discrepancy?

Spammers. Spam accounts even though deleted still retain a UID, therefor over the years I have deleted 54,529 spam accounts. So if we were a bit disingenuous we could claim that we have 57,269 members making it seem that we're much larger than we really are.

Sound familiar?

@JtC There's a message board I am familiar with that is rather famous for this. The people who run it brag of a gigantic membership. It's been around for a long time so once you filter out the spammers, the banned members, the dead accounts, etc., the active membership is a fraction of that number. And when you look at post counts, it becomes obvious there's a small, core membership responsible for most of the posts (some members post counts are into the six figure range!)

They never actually remove any of those dead accounts, even the spammers. It makes looking up a member frustrating because there's so many garbage accounts. But when they run their fund drives, I guess it gives them some sort of justification for the large numbers they throw out for operating expenses, which always seem inflated to me. I can't think of any other reason why they keep the accounts. They have more than enough moderation to take care of it (the place is over moderated really.) I guess if you want to win an internet dick contest, that's the way. lol

We currently have 2,740 registered members here at c99. But the UID (User Identification) is up to 57,269. Why the discrepancy?

Spammers. Spam accounts even though deleted still retain a UID, therefor over the years I have deleted 54,529 spam accounts. So if we were a bit disingenuous we could claim that we have 57,269 members making it seem that we're much larger than we really are.

Sound familiar?

@JtC

be well and have a good one

after my move here about a year ago.

Welp, it sure is a bit different than Illinois.

@JtC I know I had high hopes for some much needed changes to happen. There is so much bad news now that I hope for an un-foreseen happening that will create change.

Around about 2013 or so (please correct me if I'm wrong) I joined up with a like minded Google Group created by our own Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal. She had noticed that many lefties were leaving or were being pushed away from Daily Kos, most never to be heard from again. DKos had yet to become the total flying monkey domain that it is today, but it was well on its way. In an effort to catch these folks before they drifted away she started a Google Group with the intention of eventually forming our own blog. This Google Group was appropriately thought of as The Lifeboat.

The group went through many iterations before it became what it is today. The basic premise and trajectory of c99 was formed at this time. I consider CStMS the ideological progenitor of c99. She brought the core group together and put us on a common path.

I'd be happy to answer any questions along these lines if anyone has any. Or maybe we can get CStMS to chime in if she drops by later.

@dystopian

his last words are some of the most poignant I think I've ever read. Always loved their stuff...

Hey JtC,

Does anybody know what time it is?

I think it is 25 or 6 to 4. Peak Terry Kath

IMHO folks would do well to watch this whole Tanglewood show, they were awesome...

The powers that be have fairly well excised those who do actually have a clue from the conversation. I was a peacenik at 15 in 1970, now am one at 65. I never changed in that
regard, the world did. Now the Dems are a war-mongering primary cheatin' party of Wall St. Where are the Tom Lehrers, Shel Silversteins, Mark Russells, George Carlins, etc. ad. infinitum? We see what they do to whistleblowers now... has chilling effects.

Hope all are well!

edit, removed errant apostrophe, but not the Frank Zappa album.

@QMS
as I knew she still follows things on dailykos sometimes. I tried to ask her about Sarah R., because Sarah R did a lot of good to me. She told me the sad story that Sarah R was very sick with cancer.

I hope snoopydawg is ok and healthy. Then I thought may be some empire morons may have threatened her and she decided to not speak anymore.

Hope dies last ... so let's wait and see, may be snoopydawg jumps in here.

these open symposiums seem to generate a life all on their own, thank dawgs
I canna barely cough up a decent one anymores owing to my fates and such
speaking of dawgs, where did snoops go? lost in the great salt lake with the new
puppy perhaps .. oh whell peeps comes and goeth, dawgs just run

cheers!