News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Those that know William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 2-11-22
Tl B phnew ghm ux t letox, lh B phnew ghm ux t ftlmxk. Mabl xqikxllxl fr bwxt hy wxfhvktvr.
Tuktatf Ebgvheg
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
Aristotle
Only Eight Red Wolves Remain in the American Wild
Listed as an endangered species in 1967, the red wolf (Canis rufus) was declared extinct in the wild in 1980. A native of the Southeastern U.S. for 10,000 years, the species has continued, albeit in low numbers, only because a small population of red wolves raised in captivity was reintroduced into a 1.7 million acre recovery area in northeastern North Carolina.
Between 2002 and 2014, according to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), “the wild red wolf population consistently numbered over 100 animals.” But from there, the story headed south. AWI writes that by 2015, the red wolf population had dropped to an estimated 50 to 75 animals. The next year showed more loss, with an estimated 25 to 48 red wolves remaining. As of October 2021, only eight red wolves were known to be in the wild. AWI says mismanagement by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are responsible.
Program management moved from red wolf biologists to bureaucrats in Atlanta, far removed from on-the-ground work. And landowners who didn’t like the recovery program continued to kill wolves, claiming innocence – “we thought it was a coyote.” As well, the USFWS actually issued permits to kill red wolves on private land, even in the face of so few numbers. Writes AWI, “Given the small and declining number of red wolves, losing even one wolf has huge repercussions for the species.”
“The impacts are particularly dire when a mother wolf is lost, because it not only orphans her pups and likely leads to their deaths, but also eliminates the possibility for that particular wolf to contribute more litters to the population. Furthermore, it disrupts the entire pack’s dynamics, increasing the likelihood of other red wolves hybridizing with coyotes: Although red wolves tend to form pair-bonds for life, red wolves may interbreed or hybridize with coyotes,” per AWI.
As an outsider looking in, the obvious solution would seem to be greater protections for wildlife in North Carolina, including no more killing in North Carolina of coyotes and wolves. The level of frustration with those who care about these animals and work most closely with them to save them must be off the charts – only eight in the wild and only in one state! As I continue my self-education on the state of wildlife in the United States, a picture even more troubling than I had imagined emerges from the reading and research. The red wolf story is truly shocking.
As an apex predator important to overall biodiversity, this species needs much more attention it would appear. A higher level of commitment to supporting a sustainable population in North Carolina is needed, more space and attention to captive breeding and more support for reintroduction of red wolves to other suitable areas where they could thrive. Equally important is more public education that includes ways to encourage tolerance of wolves in the world and that reinforces nonlethal approaches where there’s predator-livestock/human overlap. The maltreatment of the gray wolf, the larger cousin of the red wolf, shows how essential education is. Also taken to the brink of extinction in America, the gray wolf has been reintroduced to some areas and found footing in a few parts of the U.S. – and seemingly as soon as there’s a bit of a foothold, there are those among us all too anxious to kill the animals.
That essential education suggested should include the history of how it’s come to be that there are only eight red wolves remaining in the wild of the United States, whose 48 contiguous states have more than 3 million square miles. Like with the mountain lion, bison and other species, wolves have not escaped Man’s rapacity in eliminating nonhuman life. Wildlife advocate and author Rick Lamplugh writes that by 1970, only about 700 wolves remained in the lower 48 states, down from an estimated 2 million prior to the arrival of colonists, who quickly eradicated wolves east of the Mississippi.
Multiple organizations are working on issues related to the survival of red wolves, with several zoos and nature centers housing captive animals totaling more than 200. Kudos to them. Among them are breeding programs managed by the Wolf Conservation Center at their Endangered Species Facility. It’s great there are committed organizations, but it seems – again from the view of an outsider peeking in – that we should be much farther along in higher numbers of animals and with more animals reintroduced into the wild. Even factoring in that science may move slowly, we are talking about decades since the few remaining red wolves were removed from the wild and placed into captive programs.
A program that hopefully will prove helpful in identifying appropriate areas for red wolf reintroduction is the Gulf Coast Canine Project. Breeding occurred among coyotes, gray wolves and eastern wolves, resulting in red wolf genetics in coyotes in southwest coastal Louisiana and the Gulf Coast of Texas – the coyotes have become reservoirs of genetic information for red wolves. By tracking these coyotes with red wolf genes, researchers are assessing the genetic history to see what remains of the red wolf, looking to understand behavior and hoping to ultimately inform conservation and management of both red wolves and coyotes.
For more information and ways to help the red wolf, visit the, North Carolina Wildlife Federation, Endangered Wolf Center, Wolf Conservation Center and Gulf Coast Canine Project, and read Rick Lamplugh.
Maria Fotopoulos writes about the connection between overpopulation and biodiversity loss, and from time to time other topics that confound her.
Contact her at mariaf@turbodogcommunications.com.
Justice and power William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 2-10-22
Lzgkw lzsl cfgo, vg. Lzgkw lzsl mfvwjklsfv, lwsuz.
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Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.
Blaise Pascal
GOP Controls Senate After Luján Stroke — What might be the most under-reported political story is that the Republicans now control the U.S. Senate.
Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat from New Mexico, suffered a stroke, Jan. 27, and is incapacitated. This gives the Republicans a 50-49 majority and makes moot Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking power.
Lujan is expected to recover but it remains uncertain as to when he will return. A stroke is a stroke after all.
Lujan is 49. Yes, he was vaxxed to the maxxed.
America Competes Act Another Attack On American Workers
Nothing stops the push by Congress for more immigration – not 9/11, not the mortgage meltdown and Wall Street crisis, not dismal Bureau of Labor Statistics job reports and not COVID-19. Despite the fact that about 1 million new lawful permanent residents get work authorization each year, that about 750,000 guest workers arrive annually in a typical year and that dozens of types of nonimmigrant visas include employment permission, Congress is never satisfied.
Congress insists, predictably and tediously, that without more foreign-born labor, the economy will collapse and small businesses will vanish. These baseless claims, consistently proven false, are repeated year after year after year.
Example: In 2017, mostly at the horse racing industry’s behest, the Senate introduced the Save our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act, and the House introduced companion legislation, Strengthen Employment and Seasonal Opportunities Now Act. The bills, with bipartisan support, predicted that without more H-2B nonagricultural visas, horse racing, as fans know the “Sport of Kings,” might become extinct. But, four years later, the Kentucky Derby and smaller races at other nationwide tracks continue to draw large, revenue-generating crowds.
Example: Last year, U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Chair of the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship and immigration lawyer, introduced the Let Immigrants Kick Start Employment Act that would create a new temporary visa for founders of start-up ventures. In her press release, Lofgren said that more immigration leads to more American jobs, an often-made, but misleading claim. Although Lofgren’s bill went nowhere, Silicon Valley recorded record profits in 2021, and The New York Timespredicted that titans Google, Apple, Microsoft and other tech giants will be rolling in dough for years to come. From its July 2021 story: “The combined stock market valuation of Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook increased by about 70 percent to more than $10 trillion. That is roughly the size of the entire U.S. stock market in 2002. Apple alone has enough cash in its coffers to give $600 to every person in the United States.”
The latest assault on American workers is an immigration train wreck coyly called the America COMPETES Act of 2022. Boiled down to the bill’s most harmful elements, the America COMPETES Act would:
Under the guise of promoting American innovation, the act’s hodgepodge of vague language makes almost anything possible. One thing is certain – the America COMPETES Act will massively increase legal immigration, flood the labor market, make job searches for Americans in all sectors more difficult, and have an adverse effect on recent U.S. college graduates hoping to begin their careers.
The America COMPETES Act intentionally harms U.S. citizens, but will be a bonanza for arriving foreign nationals, employers addicted to cheap labor and Silicon Valley multimillionaires. No greater gap exists between voters and Congress than on immigration policy. The thoroughly awful, destructive America COMPETES Act is one of the most powerful examples of why the immigration chasm is so wide.
A PFIR analyst, Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joeguzzardi.substack.com.
Perish together as fools William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 2-9-22
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Scrzjv Grjtrc
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
DAR Has Modernized In Cumberland County
By Bob Small
This is the third in a series about organizations who made appearances at the 2021 Bill of Rights Banquet.
The Cumberland County chapter of the DAR (Daughters of The American Revolution, is a woman’s volunteer service organization. Projects include collecting personal care items for the Lebanon Valley DAR project andfor the DAR Project Patriot for the US Army Base in Vilseck, Germany.
They have also placed a bench near the American Revolutionary War Exhibit along the Army Heritage trail by the Carlisle Army Heritage Center. See their project page and Molly Pitcher for other examples and information.
What I never knew was that Cumberland County was formed in 1750 from Lancaster County.
The Cumberland County DAR was founded on May 9, 1895 with 12 Charter Members.
The National DAR itself had their first meeting on Aug. 9, 1890 and was founded when the Sons of the American Revolution refused to allow women to join their group.
Unlike many legacy organizations, the DAR has found ways to reinvent itself. The Christian Science Monitor elucidates this.
In 2020, the national DAR created the E Pluribus Union initiative which seeks to include previously excluded Patriots. This project, for instance, includes an exhibition titled “Remembrance of Noble Actions: African Americans and Native Americans in the Revolutionary War”.
The first Afro-American was accepted by the national DAR in 1977. In 1984 their by-laws were rewritten to ban discrimination “on the basis of race and creed”, after previous incidents of exclusion.
More than 5,000 Afro-American men served in the Revolutionary War, along with Creoles, Frenchman and Mexicans.
Perhaps the most important test of any organization is whether they can include the truth of history as it really happened, not just as previously understood.
Sometimes in football William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 2-8-22
Mu ckij buqhd je bylu jewujxuh qi rhejxuhi eh fuhyix jewujxuh qi veebi.
Cqhjyd Bkjxuh Aydw, Zh.
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: Sometimes in football you have to hold your hand up and say, yeah, they’re better than us.
Alex Ferguson
Teenage Girl Whiffs Ruth, Gehrig, Fact Or Fiction?
By Joe Guzzardi
More than 80 years ago, 17-year-old lefty sidewinder and distaff Jackie Mitchell struck out on seven pitches baseball’s powerful sluggers, the New York Yankees’ Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Historians rank Ruth and Gehrig as baseball’s most fearsome back-to-back slugging tandem. On April 2, 1931, the impossible-to-believe feat, a teenage girl whiffing the two home run bashers, happened in front of 4,000 incredulous fans. The following day, TheNew York Times in its headline story “Ruth and Gehrig Struck Out by Girl Pitcher” confirmed the accomplishment of Mitchell from the minor league Chattanooga Lookouts.
Eight decades later, the time has again come to determine whether Ruth and Gehrig were part of a hoax that the Lookouts owner and notorious prankster Joe Engel arranged—he had once traded a player for a turkey, and then served the carved-up bird to local sportswriters – or whether Mitchell had legitimately whiffed the two greats.
Readers, with history’s help, can make their own decision. Ordinarily, a 17-year-old, female or male, would be impossibly overmatched against Ruth and Gehrig. To be sure, Ruth, age 37, was approaching his career’s end. Still, Ruth hit 49 homers the previous season and Gehrig, 41. But Mitchell had impressive credentials of her own. She was an all-around athlete who starred in basketball in the winter, and excelled at baseball in the spring. More than anything, however, Mitchell learned about pitching from her neighbor, Hall of Fame hurler Dazzy Vance – called Dazzy because his opponents said that his pitches dazzled them.
Vance had developed a remarkable curriculum vitae of his own. Pitching for the consistently terrible Brooklyn Robins, Vance led the National League in strikeouts for seven consecutive seasons, 1922 to 1928, and won 20 games three times. Vance taught Mitchell how to throw the drop ball, now called a sinker.
The Yankees were traveling north for their Opening Day game against the Red Sox, and had scheduled two exhibition games against the Lookouts. With Mitchell under contract, and with game one – hint, hint – an April 1 Fools Day contest rained out, the April 2 game began ominously for the Lookouts. Starting pitcher Clyde Barfoot gave up a quick double and a single. Manager Bert Niehoff signaled to the bullpen for portsider Mitchell to face left-handed batting Ruth and Gehrig, the trusted lefty versus lefty pitching strategy at play. Mitchell’s first delivery to Ruth was a ball followed by two swinging strikes, and a called strike three. Ruth threw his bat to the ground in – hint, hint, again – feigned disgust. Gehrig went down even easier than Ruth – three atypically wild swings at Mitchell’s offerings. After Mitchell walked the third slugger in the Yankees’ Murders’ Row line up, Tony Lazzeri, her day was done; the Yankees beat up on the Lookouts, 14-4.
The Times account provides some valuable insight into the goings on. Ruth, the newspaper wrote, “performed his role very ably,” and Gehrig “took three hefty swings as his contribution to the occasion.” Unsurprisingly Mitchell recalls her performance differently. Interviewed in 1987, Mitchell said, “Why, hell, they were trying, damn right.” Then, Mitchell added testily, “Hell, better [unidentified] batters than them couldn’t hit me.”
Readers trying to determine whether young “lipstick wielding” Mitchell, as one account referred to her, struck out Ruth and Gehrig on the up and up should remember that the Bambino was to his fans the consummate pleasure-giver and crowd-pleaser. He joked with them from his right field position, waved greetings as he drove through New York’s streets, visited hospitals spontaneously, signed every shred of paper, programs, baseballs, menus and match book covers put in front of him. Ruth knew that he had nothing to gain if he hit a tape measure 500-foot home run against a teenage girl and local darling. And Gehrig, who wasn’t going to show up Ruth, had nothing to prove either. Baseball loves a good story, and Mitchell’s tale filled the bill.
In 1933, after then-MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided Mitchell’s contract, she signed with the House of David barnstorming team. But Mitchell quickly grew tired of its non-baseball antics that included playing games while astride donkeys and retired to join her father’s Chattanooga optometry office.
In the end, no one can dispute that Mitchell faced three Hall of Fame greats – Ruth, Gehrig and Lazzeri – and struck out two of them on seven pitches. No pitcher can say the same, and, best of all, Mitchell’s once-in-a lifetime story is, even if orchestrated, 100 percent verifiable fact.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
Put away childish things William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 2-7-22
Hdbtixbth xc uddiqpaa ndj wpkt id wdas ndjg wpcs je pcs hpn, ntpw, iwtn’gt qtiitg iwpc jh.
Patm Utgvjhdc
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
1 Corinthians 13:11