{"id":24925,"date":"2023-07-25T10:05:34","date_gmt":"2023-07-25T14:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=24925"},"modified":"2023-07-25T10:05:47","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T14:05:47","slug":"camera-girl-and-the-welfare-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2023\/07\/25\/camera-girl-and-the-welfare-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Camera Girl and the Welfare State"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Like all women, Camera Girl believes in socialism.\u00a0 Her bird feeders and scrap piles are an attractant to all the lazy and discontented riff raff that skulk at the borders of the Compound.\u00a0 Of late it has gotten completely out of hand.\u00a0 At six o\u2019clock in the morning a murder of crows begins screaming at the top of their lungs for their scraps of chicken and bread crumbs.\u00a0 At seven a voracious gaggle of turkeys descends on us to pick away at every seed that has fallen from the feeders.<\/p>\n

This aggravates the crows to even more lunatic levels of cacophony.\u00a0 Over the course of the last few weeks the hatchling turkeys have become noticeably larger and stupider.\u00a0 They no longer startle when the crows approach them.\u00a0 Even the chipmunks and squirrels have become mere background noise in this ocean of free-loading loafers.<\/p>\n

Of course, reality does set in from time to time.\u00a0 Perched above this scrum of bottom feeders, are the original occupants of Camera Girl\u2019s colony; the cardinals, sparrows, finches mourning doves, grackles and blue jays.\u00a0 They remain above the fray plucking seeds from the feeders and like aristocrats raining down mockery and droppings on the rabble below.\u00a0 But from their elevated position they are a perfect target for the local hawk.\u00a0 Probably once a week I\u2019ll notice a patch of dull feathers on the ground where a mourning dove has been hit by one of these high-flying marauders.\u00a0 When I\u2019ve witnessed one of these attacks, I\u2019m always intrigued to see the hawk plucking feathers from his victim.\u00a0 I guess he knows his business but it seems a fussy habit for something so violent as this assault from the sky.<\/p>\n

But even this murderous object lesson does little to discourage the dysfunctional mob that mills around outside Camera Girl\u2019s kitchen window.\u00a0 Of late a rabbit has begun joining this motley crew.\u00a0 What\u2019s next?\u00a0 Will the local foxes, bobcats and coyotes join their erstwhile prey around the communal slop pile?\u00a0 Will finally the black bear family show up and take up residence in this incipient Hooverville?<\/p>\n

She loves these useless camp followers.\u00a0 She even names them.\u00a0 The largest and loudest of the crows is Moe.\u00a0 The male turkey is, of course, Tom.\u00a0 The rabbit, or rabbits, (they all look alike to me) is Bun-Bun.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there are other cutesy names but these are the ones I hear the most.<\/p>\n

I look on with murderous intent but I stay my hand.\u00a0 My hope is that nature will take its toll eventually.\u00a0 Based on logic and their general physical appearance, I\u2019d say that heart attacks will be the primary weapon of the grim reaper.\u00a0 But right behind that will be Darwinian selection.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine these gobblers outracing a fox or coyote in the confines of the forest primeval.\u00a0 In fact, I saw a sample of what is to come.\u00a0 On Sunday afternoon, Camera Girl and I were walking around the yard when we startled an adult turkey from its feeding.\u00a0 It attempted to fly into the woods, but crashed into a pine tree branch and barely avoided tumbling fifty feet or so to the ground below because of a fortunately located branch beneath this embarrassing collision.\u00a0 These creatures are morbidly obese and a reckoning will occur.<\/p>\n

Well maybe, in a sense, even this imbalance is a natural pattern.\u00a0 The high energy density of the fossil fuel era has even altered the equation for animals that live at the boundary between the human and the so-called natural environment.\u00a0 Watching a game camera last year, I noted that when Camera Girl used to leave her scraps at dusk it attracted opossums and racoons and eventually the racoons became so obese that they noticeably waddled around on the video.\u00a0 This led me to demand that she only feed the animals in the morning so that the crows would be the recipients and so spare the racoons from atherosclerosis.\u00a0 But all I\u2019ve done is transfer the disease from the mammals to the birds.<\/p>\n

Recently I\u2019ve had the realization that I am the final link in this ecological free lunch.\u00a0 Camera Girl has been fattening me for the fall all along too.\u00a0 Her delicious cooking has kept me lazy and contented throughout the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump years.\u00a0 Only the horror of the Biden regime has been able to snap me out of my stupor.\u00a0 I resemble those crows and turkeys milling around squawking and accomplishing nothing useful.\u00a0 The bread and circuses of the American empire have kept us all in thrall to the free lunch that\u2019s been spread for us.\u00a0 But the price of the free lunch just got a lot higher.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like all women, Camera Girl believes in socialism.\u00a0 Her bird feeders and scrap piles are an attractant to all the lazy and discontented riff raff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[300,3294,1202],"class_list":["post-24925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-camera-girl","tag-welfare","tag-wildlife"],"yoast_head":"\nCamera Girl and the Welfare State - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2023\/07\/25\/camera-girl-and-the-welfare-state\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Camera Girl and the Welfare State - 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