Author: Stacy Horn

I don’t think this picture really captures the chaos outside my window every morning. It calms down after an hour, thankfully. But there were many more birds around off to all the sides when I took this shot, all dive bombing the feeder. Oh dear, they’re back. Honestly, I have very mixed feelings about having this feeder. I would feel differently if I felt rich!

I put my handmade litterbox down for a second, upside down, and Buddy, being a cat, immediately goes inside.

This is a view from my roof, looking uptown. I’ve got three famous buildings in view: the Empire State, the Pan Am … okay, the Metlife building, and the Chrysler.

So today it’s supposed to hit 90 which absolutely sucks. 90, I hate you. And all of you other degrees above, too.

I planned to go to a sing of the Faure Requiem tonight, but the church is never air conditioned so I might pass, depending. John Maclay, the director of my choir, is conducting though. For those of you who don’t know about sings, during the summer choir people get together for a group sing of various choral favorites. It’s not a performance and anyone who wants to go can, whether they can sing or not.

I went to a sing of Mozart’s C Minor Mass a couple of weeks ago, which was harder than I had remembered. Sorry everyone around me!

I love requiems, and the Faure is an interesting one. It’s less death-y. My favorite requiem, the Brahms, you don’t forget for one second what you’re singing about, but the Faure, it’s not like you forget, but it’s lighter, more soothing.

I just read on Cosmic Variance that Richard Dawkins is wondering aloud if ridicule as a way to deal with people who believe in God is enough.  “I lately started to think that we need to go further: go beyond humorous ridicule, sharpen our barbs to a point where they really hurt.”

Ridicule and humiliation generate one thing (mostly):  anger. And that anger will either be directed inward or outward.  Neither is a good thing. After spending a few years studying unsolved murder in New York, I can also add that for some the only way to restore their self-esteem is to kill someone. (Murder is often about shame, it turns out.) For the bulk of humanity however, shame will result in some smaller, quieter form of destruction, and rarely constructive change.  “Nobody likes to be laughed at,” Dawkins points out. And you think the result might be a quick switch to the position of the tormenter?  I suppose for a sad few it might, but that isn’t a true change of thinking or understanding is it?

Actually, the choice to follow such a course of action makes me wonder about those who made it. Who shamed them?

For the record, I am mostly an atheist.  There’s just part of me that can’t get past the arrogance of atheism, and how it feels the same as religious fundamentalism, so I go with agnosticism. This could be as much to do with being a middle child as anything else.  I know a lot of atheists think this is a cop out, but I can live with that.

My point is, I’m all for trying to increase everyone’s understanding of how the universe works.  I want to know more.  So to Richard Dawkins who was wondering aloud:  hell no.  (Little joke there.)

Weirdly, just because we’ve had so much. You’d think I’d be sick of it by now. But rain feels like a day off to me, and an excuse to relax. I just feel bad for the birds.

I fill that feeder half way up every morning and by mid-afternoon it’s gone.  I guess I should be glad that the rain is going to slow them down. They’re going at it hard right now, as I type.  I’m still getting a mixture of pigeons, doves and finches. That’s it. Where are all the other birds? Like Starlings, for instance. They are almost as ubiquitous as anything else. Where are they?

Oh.  A dove is checking me out right now.  Doves seem to be the most at east with me, the least frightened.