For the last several years we have been seeing turkey vultures. They're big, ugly, and I hope I never see one circling lazily over my head waiting for me to take my last breath like in the old western movies. The experts suggested using a scarecrow type of deterrent which seems to work, i. e. they take a taxidermy mount of a vulture and hang it upside down on places they've been roosting. Besides dropping big splats of yuck, they are a potential hazard to flying airplanes.
Recently, that very thing has happened when a couple of planes struck birds and made emergency landings to check the damage. And, a couple years ago, a flock of birds ingested into the engines of the plane piloted by Capt. Sullenberger caused him to set his airliner down in the river. How to ease the problem? One thing they are saying is not to build garbage dumps near the airports. The birds like to hang around and scavenge. Common sense.
I just received "The Sun" magazine which this month talks about garbage. A favorite writer of mine, Wendell Berry, wrote an article titled "Waste" in this issue. Berry has earned a reputation of being an outspoken environmentalist and makes strong arguments for his case. Here he talked of watching huge amounts of garbage floating down the river near his Kentucky farm home as well as seeing daily fifty to sixty truckloads of garbage from large cities being hauled into the landfill located in his county. He says much of our waste problem is caused by the "intentional flimsiness and unrepairability of the labor saving devices and gadgets that we have become addicted to."
I won't go into any more of his argument, but he makes a good point. The same magazine posted a couple of good quotes regarding garbage. Lily Tomlin said, "I bought a wastepaper basket and carried it home in a paper bag. And when I got home I put the paper bag in the wastepaper basket." Another person was quoted, "Throw a few chairmen of the board in jail for polluting the air and water, and you'll see pollution disappear quite rapidly. . . . You would also see some pretty drastic prison reforms."
