Source Weekly

Seldom have I read a more tragic story than the extinction of the passenger pigeon, flocks that stretched as far as the eye could see, one tier above another, taking an entire day to pass overhead.
In just 200 years, Europeans arrived in America and decimated 5 billion birds for cheap meat, feathers, target practice and fun. Sometimes they would bring down several birds at a time, merely because they could. The passenger pigeon died out in the wild in Ohio about 1900. The last survivor died (of loneliness I'm sure) in captivity in 1914.

After 15-plus years of denigrating conservative Christians, and the idea that Christian morality should be taught in the schools, and opposing Christian religious symbolism on any public land, bible clubs on campus, removing God, and the Bible, from the schools, and replacing it with [teaching of] evolution, abortion rights claiming that the fetus was nothing but “blob” or a “parasite,” sex “education,” and more, now the leftwing wants these same “faith-based” organizations to help them promote universal healthcare on moral grounds, or to assist in fighting the violence that is increasing in the education system.
And there is again the rewriting of American history by claiming that the GOP is “racist.” The usual example of such is by using the switching of parties by Strom Thurmond in 1964 basing that claim on the “fact” that the Democratic Party added an anti-segregation plank to its platform. Of course, they have to ignore that it was the Democrats that used violence, hangings, poll taxes, etc. to prevent Blacks from voting for Republicans, and that the GOP had anti-slavery, and anti-segregation, planks in its platform since 1854.

In response to H. Bruce Miller's recent article on outdoor cats [Posted on the Wandering Eye Blog, 9/24] I have a few questions. Mr. Miller seems to believe that the sole reason for the disappearance of birds from his neighborhood is due to the increased housecat population created by a new housing development nearby. Mr. Miller, do you think it could be the new development itself, and subsequent loss of habitat that could be the reason for the bird decline? In fact, in numerous studies done on the topic the number one cause of bird population decline is loss of habitat. Mr. Miller's solution to the problem of outdoor cats is to require that they be licensed the same as dogs. Who will be responsible for enforcing this? With an estimated 45,000 cats in Deschutes County, will we hire hundreds more animal control officers? Then what? When the “bird-killing” cats in question are hauled to the Humane Society, will the Humane Society be responsible for processing them, housing them and euthanizing them when their owners don't show up to claim them? I'm pretty sure they have their hands full as it is!