Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.
This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.
It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.
It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."
I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.
You know I think I found a perfect way to be honest and travel with the pooch! Drive in your own vehicle! You'll see more sights, stay in a pet friendly hotel and maybe have some adventures. But thats just my opinion.
We've been flying two or three times a year the last few years, and with layovers and return flights that's probably eight or ten different flights. I haven't seen a single service dog. I wonder if it's more of a problem on other airlines or for certain departure point and destinations?
Oh, wait. At least half of those are international flights. I don't know how or if this applies to service dogs, but pets for sure have to quarantine before they can cross international borders. When we moved to Germany the second time, we had two dogs, and we rehomed them rather than put them in quarantine for (six months? I think it was).
And yet, they never ask people who had siblings things like "Was it hard, not being the center of attention?" Or, "How did it feel to feud with your siblings over the inheritance?"
To be fair, when it comes to the latter question, it doesn't really need to be asked because a lot of the time people will come out and complain about it on their own. That's what happened with my father-in-law, anyway.
And I will say this. Even though I was an only child, big family gatherings were a part of my childhood, and I generally enjoyed them. I do kind of miss it in middle age and do sometimes go overboard when it comes to giving Christmas gifts as a result.
Horace didn't "invent" souvenir. He maybe expanded the word's meaning from it's original use "to recollect" or "to remember" into "a token item that reminds me of something."
If this is how the article writer wants to define the beginnings of one word, he or she is clearly bad at this and everything else they wrote is now in question.
I'm also going to brag that I knew almost every one of these. You can believe me or not; doesn't change anything.
As the first month of the year, January somewhat appropriately takes its name from the Roman god Janus, who was associated with entrances, doorways, gates, and beginnings.
Knew that one, too, though January wasn't always the first month of the year.
15 more words we owe to the Greeks and Romans are explored here.
And I'm not covering all 15.
Aurora was the Roman goddess of the dawn... As the early-morning bringer of daily light, Aurora’s name later came to be attached to the famous dawn-like phenomenon of swirling colored arches of light that appear in the night sky at high and low latitudes.
Okay, well, auroras aren't very dawn-like, from what little I've seen. And I've been trying to see; there have been reports of auroras being seen all through the continental US due to a recent solar storm but, as usual, I saw nothing.
Hyacinth is said to have been a beautiful young man who was struck on the head and killed while the god Apollo taught him how to throw a discus.
At least he didn't teach him how to throw a disco.
This, by the way, was the one I hadn't been aware of.
Both money and the coin-producing mint where it is made take their names from Juno Moneta, an epithet for the Roman goddess Juno specifically associated with an ancient temple erected in her honor on Rome’s Capitoline Hill.
What the linked article doesn't say, and is only mentioned in passing at the link given there, is that the actual translation of "Moneta" is "warner," as in "she who warns." I find this, in connection to money, amusing.
Derived ultimately from a Greek word meaning a distribution or doling out of something, Nemesis was the name of a Greek (and later Roman) goddess of retribution and divine vengeance, who was tasked with either punishing or rewarding people for their evil or benevolent actions.
And yet the "rewarding" part gets neglected.
There are, of course, more at the link, for those who enjoy etymology. Just, as usual with MF, don't take anything too seriously unless you've double-checked the facts.
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