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Carrion Luggage
Carrion Luggage
 
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.
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Fairly short thing today, and a link I won't have nearly as much to say about as I did yesterday. Yeah, I get passionate about music. Deal with it.
I signed up here in 2004. So, sometimes, when I'm doing these riffs, I think, "How would this have played in 2004?" In this case, I think the headline would have been viewed as utter nonsense.
Summary: Jason Mangone, our Executive Director, writes about his reflections on our research with Movember, a charity focusing on menâs health.
The irony of someone named Mangone writing about men's issues isn't lost on me. Though I imagine it's not pronounced like that.
Online discourse has been statistically proven to be weird. This is especially true when talking about issues related to men and masculinity.
That's because we're supposed to sit down, shut up, and let the women talk.
In my effort to highlight the maw of the engagement machine, I went to Twitter and typed âmasculinityâ into the search bar. I discovered that this weekâs online debate centers on a VICE article about âMankeeping,â or âthe emotional labor women end up doing in heterosexual relationships.â
This article is from late 2025. Twitter no longer existed then.
As for "Mankeeping," do a little thought experiment here: suppose some man came up with a word like "womankeeping," describing how exhausting it is to have to listen to women complain about every little detail of their day. Now, what label would you slap on such a man?
We asked Americans to choose, from a list of seventeen traits, âwhich do you think are most important that men try to exemplify nowadays?â The top answer, chosen by 36 percent of all respondents, is âProviding for your family.â
36 percent is hardly a resounding majority. There's a chart with a bunch of the answers at the link.
Even more boring: most Americans donât view discussions about menâs issues to be zero sum. An overwhelming majority â 77 percent â of Americans agree that âAddressing menâs issues and womenâs issues are both important and talking about one doesnât reduce support for the other,â compared to only 12 percent who agree that âDiscussions about menâs issues take attention away from addressing the challenges women face today.â
While that's heartening (and there's another chart for it), I feel like 12 percent is still way too high, and reflects a common attitude in society which is like "Why are we even thinking about Y when X is a problem?"
As if we can't walk and chew gum at the same time.
If you want to parse the headline, though, I'll have to leave that up to the linked article. I'm done for today. |
© Copyright 2026 Robert Waltz (UN: cathartes02 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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