Spring Migration: Waterfowl

WC spent some time yesterday wandering around Fairbanks’ birding hotspots to see what had arrived. It was mostly waterfowl, but that’s all right because they are decked out in breeding plumage and look particularly spiffy. Here are some samples:

Greater White-fronted Goose

While they don’t commonly breed around Fairbanks, Speckle-bellies are reliable early arrivals at Creamer’s Refuge. This guy was suspicious about WC and that big lens even at 40 meters. WC has always thought White-fronteds has extraordinarily big feet, even for a goose.

American Wigeon

This Wigeon drake was at Tanana Lakes (neé South Cushman Ponds). Wigeon do breed in the Interior, and are one of the more common puddle ducks. The males are at their very brightest right now.

Barrow's Goldeneye

Barrow’s are a diving duck, and generally breed in mountain lakes. They are in Fairbanks mostly on spring migration. The male is distinguished from the Common Goldeneye by the shape of the white patch under the eye; the females, at least for WC, are indistinguishable, although the males can obviously tell them apart. This pretty pair was at the Peat Ponds on Goldstream Road.

Young’s Legal Defense Fund: Why?

The Honorable Dirty Don Young, U.S. Representative for all Alaskans who voted for him and maybe a few others, has been an annoying boil on the butt of Alaska politics for a third of a century.

He has famously paid lawyers more than $1 million bucks to defend him against charges that have never been filed. Now WC is always in favor of paying lawyers. But even at Akin, Gump‘s ruinous hourly rates, that’s a breathtaking pile of donated dough (Dirty Don never uses his own money).

But it apparently all ended happily for Dirty Don. Back in August, he announced that the Justice Department had told his lawyers USDOJ had decided against indicting him, and that it had dropped its investigations. USDOG didn’t independently confirm Dirty Don’s claim. But they didn’t deny it either.

So why is Dirty Don still raising money for his Legal Defense Fund? Crimes planned but not yet committed?

Why won’t Dirty Don provide an explanation or an accounting? Even though he refused to answer any questions or offer any explanation, the good voters of Alaska re-elected him yet again.

Why won’t the Feds explain anything about the investigation? Why are Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics being forced to sue the Feds for failing to meet public records obligations?

Dirty Don is one of the most senior Republicans in the Republican-controlled House, yet he has no committee chairmanships and has a nearly invisible profile. Dirty Don runs on his seniority, yet despite being the 6th most senior member of the U.S. House and second most senior Republican, he has no plum committee assignments. That suggests that Republican House leadership knows something we don’t.

So maybe Dirty Don does still need his slush fund. We can hope.

WC Apologizes for Calling Rep. Matt Dean “A Weasel”

WC apologizes for calling Minnesota Representative Matt Dean (R, District 52B)  ”A Weasel” for bad mouthing Neil Gaiman.

This whole affair started when Representative Dean, was reported by the Minnesota Star Tribune, to have said:

Dean also singled out a $45,000 payment of Legacy money that was made last year to science fiction writer Neil Gaiman for a four-hour speaking appearance. Dean said that Gaiman, “who I hate,” was a “pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota.”

WC is a serious fan of Mr. Gaiman and his writing, and took immediate offense at Rep. Dean’s ignorant, cheap shot. WC said Dean, who WC automatically disliked, was “an ignorant teabag weasel who wouldn’t know good literature if it bit him on the ankle, and probably has to move his lips to read.” WC also accused Dean of not knowing when to use “who” and “whom.”

After WC had calmed down and investigated this story, it turned out to be a little different than Rep. Dean had said.

How did Gaiman “steal” the money? By giving a speech in Stillwater, Minnesota. Mind you, he was invited. You can listen to the speech here.

But Gaiman accepted — stole, for a given definition of the term – a $45,000 speaker’s fee from the Washington County Library. If by “stole”, you mean “donated to charity,” which would make him a modern-day Robin Hood Weasel, if anything.

Gaiman’s response to all this says more about him than WC can possibly offer. Gaiman is, after all, a professional and a professional writer. From Gaiman’s blog:

1) It’s funny. Sad that this is the kind of thing that elected officials say in public, but still funny. It’s the kind of thing that you expect to hear at school from fourteen-year old bullies, before they tell you that they’ll be seeing you by the lockers with their friends, not what you expect to see from an adult.

.

2) It’s kind of nice to make someone’s Hate List. It reminds me of Nixon’s Enemies List. If a man is known by his enemies, I think my stock just went up a little.

.

3) I like “pencil-necked weasel”. It has “pencil” in it. Pencils are good things. You can draw or write things with pencils. I think it’s what you call someone when you’re worried that using a long word like “intellectual” may have too many syllables. It’s not something that people who have serious, important things to say call other people.

.

4) I don’t like being called a thief. I’m pretty sure that I know what thieves are and do. In this case, Matt Dean’s claiming that I “stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota”. (I’m not sure where the $45K number comes from. I just checked: I actually received $33, 600 from the Minnesota Library System for a talk that was then broadcast and is still up [look down to second section].)

I do not know whether this man is calling me “a thief” because:

A) I charged more than he’s comfortable with for a talk, or

B) People happily pay me a lot of money to come and give talks, or

C) He thinks I gave the talk wearing a stripy sweater to an audience of people who were there at gunpoint and afterwards took their wallets, or

D) He’s against the principles of the Free Market, and feels that governments should regulate how much people are paid to talk in public.

But for whatever reason, it seems kind of weird, and is a lie. (Yes, I gave the money to charities – a sexual abuse one and a library/author one, long ago, when the cheque came in, well before this ever became a political football. But that seems completely irrelevant to this: I don’t like the idea that a politician is telling people that charging a market wage for their services is stealing.)

.

5) I think that Minnesota has things it can be proud of – quality of life things, that make it really good to live in this part of the world. The things that have kept me out here for twenty years. One of the biggest things is it has really good Public Radio and a thriving, active, involved arts scene. It makes me sad to see people trying to crush or even diminish these as part of their political agenda.

WC understands that Rep. Dean’s mother made him apologize for calling Neil Gaiman a name. “She was very angry this morning and always taught me not to be a name caller,” Mr. Dean said. “And I shouldn’t have done it, and I apologize.” Note Dean wouldn’t have apologized but for his mother.

WC can do no less. WC apologizes for calling Rep. Dean a “weasel,” but not for calling Dean ignorant, for accusing Dean of failing to recognize a gifted writer and fine literature, or for being a teabagger.