International Vulture Awareness Day

Drop everything! Today, Saturday, September 2 is International Vulture Awareness Day!

Without vultures, the world would be awash in putrefaction. If only they could clean up politics the way they do festering carcasses!

There are vultures in the Old World and vultures in the New World. They are not closely related genetically. They evolved in parallel manner because there's always a nice supply of rotting meat out there, no matter what (temperate) continent you fly across.

Here's Floppy, one of my favorite vultures! See the bald head? It's a cleanliness thing. No feathers to get all matted up with gore as the bird feeds. Ah, evolution! Magnificent.

So, why do we need to be aware of vultures? Well, in both Africa and India, massive vulture populations have been killed off catastrophically. What kills something that eats festering carcasses? The medicines or poisons those carcasses ingested while they were alive. In the wake of plummeting vulture populations, some countries (especially India) have seen a rise in rabies, wild dogs, and other diseases that vultures shrug off like a walk in the park.

Fortunately, there are vulture rehab programs out there. The San Diego Zoo has spearheaded a modest but significant return of the California condor to the wild, wild West. In Africa, Vulpro is working with several species of African vulture. Due to their reproductive behavior, vulture populations are hard to restore. Here's hoping for success, though. Who wants to slog to work through dead skunks and fly-covered garbage?

So, happy International Vulture Awareness Day! Salute the next buzzard you see! I'm talking about a bald bird, not a political boss.

The word of Vulture for the people of Vulture. Thanks be to Vulture.

Lemonade

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," bringing you tragic news today ...

There will be no East Coast Vulture Festival in Wenonah this year.

I have not gotten the flurry of emails that I would have gotten in the past. I have not rented the vulture costume. This is a day that no one looked forward to more than me, and it is not to be.

My guess is that the vultures have moved on. Since Spare filmed "Momma Bird," it has been very hard to find the huge flocks of turkey and black vultures that were descending on the town in droves. I think it's that way with vultures. They stay awhile and then they go.

However, just because there's no East Coast Vulture Festival this year doesn't mean that we, yes we, you and I, can't create one!

"The Gods Are Bored" hereby declares Saturday, March 2 East Coast Vulture Day!

Contribute your favorite vulture pictures, stories, or comics to this blog, all to be published on March 2, 2013!

All you have to do is email your submission to   luvbuzzards at yahoo dot-you-know-the-drill. That's me.

We can turn this happy space into a Vulture Day and have some laughs doing it!

Who is with me?

The Great, Grand, Griffon Grab!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," practical buzzard worship for the new millennium! If you're not knee-deep in rotting carcasses, thank a vulture!

We're pleased to announce a fabulous contest, exclusive to "The Gods Are Bored!"

It's called The Great, Grand, Griffon Grab.

Here's how it works:

You know those quarters they've made, one for each state, with a little patriotic scene on the back depicting the best things about that state? Of course you do. Every time you find one from your home state you stuff it in your pocket to keep.

Did you know that the California quarters have a condor on them? Yessir, there, engraved in whatever it is they make quarters out of, is a soaring scavenging bird. One that's still teetering on the brink of extinction but has made enough of a comeback to warrant the coin honor.

So, here's how you enter the Great Griffon Grab:

1. Every time you get a California quarter, save it.

2. On December 31, 2006, take your accumulation of California quarters to the bank and cash them in for real money.

3. Send the money to the Rare And Endangered Species Trust (RESTAFRICA).

4. Tell me the amount you sent, via email. My email is in my Profile.

5. (You can just send them a hefty donation and pretend it was produced by saving quarters.)

Here's what the winner gets!

GREAT, GRAND, GRIFFON GRAB GOODIES!

1. One brand-new t-shirt from the East Coast Vulture Festival 2007, in the size you designate.

2. One brand-new turkey vulture stuffed animal (adorable).

3. One set of 6 vulture all-occasion cards (perfect for birthdays and sympathy).

4. One turkey vulture key-chain.

5. One East Coat Vulture Festival kerchief.

Wow! That's a first-class buzzard package if ever I saw one!

So, get busy saving those quarters, and you'll help save the Cape Griffon Vulture!

I'll be posting this from time to time to remind you. Tell all your friends! The more the merrier!

Kayak Dave has already entered. He's setting a fast pace. Good luck!

Zoroaster Explains Everything

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," official sponsor of the National Day of Maypole! Pish tosh on that so-called "ecumenical" National Day of Prayer! We don't hear any Parsis or Rastafarians offering prayers at those things. So, until true ecumenicalism (? is that a word?) is established in America, we of this site will fly around with bright ribbons in our hands.

Today we at "The Gods Are Bored" are pleased to welcome the ancient prophet Zoroaster to our studio. Unlike most of the bored gods and goddesses we interview, Zoroaster still has a praise and worship team. He comes to us deeply troubled today. Please give a great big "Gods Are Bored" welcome to Zoroaster, sacred prophet of the Parsi peoples!

Anne: Zoroaster, you've been rather vilified by the philosopher Nietzsche, who more or less put the words "God Is Dead" in your mouth.

Zoroaster: I was the victim of a misquote. In fact I know God. All of us deities more or less know each other, though we're careful never to talk about religion when we get together at barbecues. God's not dead. He's multi-tasking out the wazoo, that's all. But the shareholders are happy with his performance, so there's no possibility of a hostile takeover or anything like that.

Anne: Zoroaster, in your opinion as an ancient prophet, what creature represents the pinnacle of evolution?

Zoroaster: The vulture. Top of the food chain. Nature's purifier. My praise and worship team comes to me by allowing their decomposing flesh to be consumed by vultures.

Anne: Which puts you pretty high in my estimation, Z, let me tell you. Now, honored prophet, please tell the "Gods Are Bored" audience what has happened in India and Pakistan in the last 10 years.

Zoroaster: Ninety percent of the vulture population has died in a massive extinction event. Some estimates are as high as 30 million birds. Scientists have found the culprit that killed the vultures: a steroid-like veterinary medication called diclofenac.

Anne: Yes. I've just been reading about this in the February, 2007 issue of Smithsonian Magazine. Apparently, even though only about 10 percent of the animals that have died in India and Pakistan had diclofenac in their systems, that was enough to stop 30 million healthy vultures in their tracks.

Zoroaster: The people of India and Pakistan might not agree about much else, but they never would have used this anti-inflammatory in their livestock if they'd known it would kill all the vultures.

Anne: Because ...

Zoroaster: Because in the vultures' place, wild dogs have been bingeing on carcasses, breeding, spreading rabies. Anthrax is spreading, because vultures don't get sick if they eat Anthrax-killed animals, but they're not there to clean up. And my praise and worship team members ...

Anne: Lie rotting on top of your temples, unvisited by vultures. Z, I understand that India and Pakistan have banned the use of diclofenac, but it might be too late for the larger Gyp genera of Old World vultures.

Zoroaster: Some people might say, "Who cares about vultures, anyway?" Well, people who are stricken with rabies might be just a little bit miffed to know they could have been saved by a buzzard.

Anne: Especially since rabies is 100 percent fatal if not caught in time, and a nasty death to boot. But really, Z. People dying of rabies in the 21st century?

Zoroaster: Your magazine says there were 30,000 human cases in India in one year.

Anne: Nature abhors rot. All that noxious bacteria, all that contamination. Vultures clean up the rotten world. Without them...

Zoroaster: Without them, you'll see just how important Homo sapiens is in the great, grand scheme of things.

Anne: Don't get me started. Well, Zoroaster, now I'm as blue as you are. No one loves buzzards more than I do. A documented report of a cataclysmic buzzard kill-off can turn a bright May day into an abyss of gloom.

Zoroaster: Now, Annie, don't fall into the trap of your fellow Homo sapiens, thinking that all evolution has ground to a halt with your species at the pinnacle. There will always be a place in the evolutionary process for scavenging birds. They are remarkably intelligent and resourceful.

Anne: You know what I saw just now, Z? Over by the strip shopping center, across the street from Staples, there's a nest of turkey vultures on top of the Subaru corporate center!

Zoroaster: Do you think they'd allow Parsi funerals on the roof of the Subaru corporate center?

Anne: I doubt it. But let's walk over and visit with the vultures. I'm serious. We can walk there from here. Might lift my spirits a little.

Zoroaster: That sounds like fun. But aren't you the person I've been hearing about who has 1,283 snapshots of the La Brea Tar Pit fossil vultures? I can't tell you how much I'd like to see those.

Anne: You're the first one who's ever asked -- human or otherwise. Here they are, right at my fingertips!

Excuse me, audience, but how often do you find anyone who wants to look at your vacation photos?

The moral of this dialogue: Vultures are superior to humans. Awk Awk.

WHAT? Support a Missionary? ME?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," now scoring a trifecta! Three posts in less than 24 hours! That's a flea market deal, you'd better scoop it up.

This amazingly beautiful creature is the Cape Griffon Vulture. It lives in Namibia. There are only 11 individuals left.

Yes. (Anne wipes copious tears.) A vulture on the brink of extinction. One thinks immediately of the way statues of Zeus and Venus were desecrated by early Christians.

Okay, so it's not a glam animal like the polar bear or the Arctic wolf. It's a buzzard. Can't Namibia get along without this particular species of buzzard?

We at "The Gods Are Bored" say that the Cape Griffon Vulture must be saved.

Fortunately, we have recently become acquainted with a vibrant young missionary, Lyndsey Stafford, who plans to spend at least a year in Namibia on a project designed to help the remaining Cape Griffon Vultures survive while raising public awareness of the dangers facing this magnificent creature.

There are no primates we've dissed more on this site than missionaries. But this young lady is a missionary we want to support. She believes this species of vulture can be saved.

Ah, belief in salvation! Finally we can endorse it!

Alas and alack, Lyndsey, we at "The Gods Are Bored" have only a handful of readers. We suspect that many of them are struggling as we are just to keep the roof patched and the "sheriff's sale" sign off the lawn.

However, we pledge to you what support we can. We at "The Gods Are Bored" will chart your progress as you fight for a Sacred Thunderbird. And we'll encourage our three readers with disposable income to make a donation to save the Cape Griffon Vulture!!!!

Hard as it is for us to believe here at TGAB, we actually have a highly intelligent and recommended reader in South Africa who might be able to mobilize some support there.

If you're in love with polar bears and wolves, can't you find it in your heart to love Cape Griffon Vultures as well? If so, dig into that trust fund (or change purse, it really doesn't matter) and send some moo-la-la to an extremely worthy cause.

The cause is REST AFRICA. Stands for Rare and Endangered Species Trust.

Now close your eyes and imagine that there really is only one God, and it is the Sacred Thunderbird. How are you disposed toward this deity? Are you going to wind up on that Big Savannah in the Sky, only to be judged by the Sacred Thunderbird and found wanting? Run scared, you who are indifferent to vultures! Here's your only chance for salvation! Are you really going to turn your back on the saving grace of the Sacred Thunderbird?

We want everyone on their knees. We want everyone to pray: "Oh, Sacred Thunderbird, we have fallen short! We want to do better! Sacred Thunderbird, we pledge our hearts, minds, and pocketbooks to your salvation! Awk Awk!"

(We at "The Gods Are Bored" know how to make the hard sale.)

Beannachd leat from

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

Rantidote

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where today we pause briefly to be serious.

Don't worry. It's a passing thing.

Today I was substitute teaching in an English class for high school juniors. The textbook was on the teacher's desk. It was American literature.

During my prep period, I thumbed through the Table of Contents. And what to my wondering eyes did appear...

Song Concerning a Dream of the Thunderbirds

Origin: Teton Sioux

Friends, behold!

Sacred I have been made.

Friends, behold!

In a sacred manner

I have been influenced

At the gathering of the clouds.

Sacred I have been made.

Friends, behold!

Sacred I have been made.

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

It's Hard Out There for a Hillbilly

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your foul-weather friend! Through storms large and small, we'll entertain y'all!

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy:

You know you're a hillbilly when you don't need a sled. You've got a car!

(Now, don't forget the rule. If you are a hillbilly, you can use the word "hillbilly." If you aren't and you say it in the wrong company, you must not value your teeth too much.)

We had a bruiser of a sleet storm here where I live on Friday night. Actually the sleet started around noon and kept pelting everything until about 10:00 at night. It never did change to snow.

The storm left behind three inches of white concrete, slippery as a mortgage banker. But hey. If it's white, a hillbilly will drive on it.

I learnt to drive in the mountains. In those parts, you don't drive in snow you're pretty much housebound for three or four months of the year.

Okay, yes, it's tom foolishness. I've got a cousin, for instance, who got his Ford Bronco stuck in a snowdrift on an untraveled road in the wake of a blizzard. He had gone out for a quart of ice cream. That's it. A quart of ice cream.

It's hillbilly thinking like this that leads to 50 mile backups on interstate highways, like the one on I-80 in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago. Gridlock on a massive scale, through the Poconos and beyond.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the morning after the sleet storm I scraped off my fabulous 1994 Ford Escort (no snow tires) in order to go pet cats at the animal shelter. My daughter and I volunteer. What's a little weather, eh?

So today I thought nothing of driving to Ridley Creek State Park for my Druid group's equinox celebration. Off I tootle, proudly displaying my "Appalachian Pride" and "I Love Turkey Vultures" bumper stickers.

There was only one problem. The celebration had been cancelled. The cancellation was there, plain to see on the message board, but heck. I'm a hillbilly. I think like a hillbilly. I didn't check the message board. I drove the 45 miles to the state park and was surprised when no one else showed up.

Once I got there, did it matter to me that all but one road in the park had been blocked by orange cones? Naaah. I figured my fellow Druids would find me by the visitor's center.

By the way, the park was sheathed in ice to the plimsol line. And there were people out jogging in it. They just weren't Druids.

So, after figuring out that I'd been foxed by my hillbilly brain, I gunned the Escort for the trip home. After a few spectacular skids and a spinning tire or three, my Escort and I returned across the Delaware to hearth and home. At which time I checked the Llyn Hydd Grove message board. Wiser urban heads prevailed.

All was not lost on the day. I watched a perfectly spectacular turkey vulture do its aerial thing over the woods in the park. Who could ask for anything more?

In closing I will let my readers know that if they ever need a quart of ice cream during a sleet storm, they need only call upon someone who grew up in Appalachia or who has lived there through one winter. White precipitation is part of the package, you let it slow you down a little. Not a lot.

FROM ANNE

STAR 14 APPALACHIAN

Another Year, Another Number

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," helping you to connect with your inner god or goddess, or sacred animal, or hallucinatory mushroom! (Well, actually you have to find your own mushrooms.) We don't care how you reach the divine. Just don't stain our furniture while doing it.

Today is my birthday! Yippee! Mr. Johnson treated me to a massage. No, I mean a professional one. It's the first one I've ever had. Imagine that, me being more or less from a spa town.

If you look at my life as a Greyhound bus ride, here's how it would go:

I've already passed through Traumatic Childhoodville and Puberty City (both very hilly). Changed in Puberty City for Youthful Follyton, lots of furniture stains in that burg. From Youthful Follyton it was only a skip and a jump to Learning Land, a pleasant place to spend 4 years despite all the red brick buildings. After Learning Land, Greyhound took me through a series of little towns all known as Jobton. Final destination (or so I thought at the time): The Motor City.

Sadly boarded Greyhound in Motown. Destination: New Jersey, where I've been esconced in Maternity Borough for many years. Side trips to Mid-Life Crisisville, which I prefer to call Paradigm Change City.

The bus is rollin' on. Next stop, Pay4College Point, which you can only get to by taking residence in Suck City. By the time I'm through with Suck City, my feeling is that Greyhound will move me on down the line to Bad Knee Geezerville. I can see the high towers of the orthopedic ward off in the distance.

It's been a long ride, but since I found this blog and all my friends out there in the sphere, it feels like I'm with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters instead of those boring earnest moms in the PTA.

I've also made friends with a Monkey Man and a bunch of people who like to dress up like vultures. So I'm happy enough on the bus.













Thank you for going Greyhound, the energy saver.





FROM ANNE
OLDHEN (Today's stupid Pagan name)

The Buzzard Shaman Prepares to Suffer for Her Faith

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," the only place on the World Wide Web to find dancing vultures, cats that blog, and any and every god or goddess ever to grace the prayers of mortal humankind!

Is it a secret around here that Anne worships vultures? Ahem, you must be new to this site. Hey, welcome! Want a piece of pie?

We all know that to be a good missionary and proselytize properly, one must suffer.

I am ready to put my life and limb on the line for the Sacred Golden Purifier.

Two days ago I introduced you to the Buzzard Mascot outfit I plan to wear to the sold-out East Coast Vulture Festival. Isn't it fabulous?

Today the doggone thing arrived in the mail. It looks even more awesome in person (or I should say, "in buzzard"), but ... ah, you religious folks ... be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

The head is made of fur. I can't breathe and see at the same time. The "feathers" weigh at least 40 pounds. Whoever made this thing was certainly creative. But that person must also have foreseen no indoor use for a buzzard costume. Once I get to the indoor activities (including the spirited shamanic dance), I am gonna collapse with heat stroke.

Yo, I'll deal, yo. Cuz u ain't 4 yr religion if u can b psyched.

If ancient Native Americans could go on Vision Quests and fast and suffer while awaiting a sign from their deities, I can honor the Sacred Golden Purifier by donning The Suit.

Yo, bring it on, yo.

FROM ANNE

THE BUZZARD OF WENONAH

In Which Anne Swears

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored." If you're already having a bad day, better click off here and go see Dora the Explorer or something.

There's a book I haven't read, but I love the title. It is:

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, by Nick Flynn.

Inspiring. Because there are days, let's face it, when all of us pull up to the curb in Suck City, park our cars, hit the sidewalk, and get flattened by a nearby bulldozer.

Today was one of those days for me. It was a day in which I contemplated the rest of my life and saw a one-way ticket to Suck City as I stepped onto Platform #9.

Regular readers know that such bouts of self-pity don't wash around here. Tomorrow we at "The Gods Are Bored" will be back to our sassy selves. Sort of. Maybe. Oh hell, who knows?

We're betting on "maybe." Because tomorrow night at the ungodly hour of 8:00, I travel to Wenonah, NJ to rehearse a Buzzard Dance.

The following is just to cheer myself up. Go directly to Dora if you want sure-fire happiness and light.

Anne at East Coast Vulture Festival, 2006

Anne at East Coast Vulture Festival, 2007

If those people in Akron don't mail me this Shamanic Vulture Garb, I'm gonna get on a plane, fly out there, and escort them to Suck City to keep me company.

FROM ANNE

CORNER OF DAMMIT AND ALLTOHELL STREETS

SUCK CITY, USA

RU Raptor Ready #2: Free at Last

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," or, if you prefer, Buzzard Central. We just can't understand why anyone would refuse the life-changing opportunity to worship vultures.

And yet, day after day, we go knocking on doors, spreading the message of hope and purity, and people just look at us like we're weird. We even wear nice clothes and offer free vulture feathers. Not one convert. It's disheartening.

We guess Buzzard Heaven is going to be one wide-open playground. A few Egyptians, a few awesome Native Americans, and lots of magnificent aerial bliss.

Go ahead. Sit on your old cloud with your harp. We'll buzz right past ya. (Pardon the pun.)

This just in from Buzzard Central:

The East Coast Vulture Festival will feature a moment of worship that will kindle a flame in the coldest heart.

Last week a wounded vulture was found in the vicinity of the festival. The sacred bird was too weak to elude capture. It was taken to a wildlife rehabilitation clinic. There it has improved day by day. It is almost well.

On March 3, as part of the Vulture Fest, the wildlife rehab people will release the restored vulture so it can return to the flock. It probably has pair-bonded with a mate who has been searching frantically for it.

In the great grand scheme of things, one rescued vulture doesn't amount to a whole lot. That is, of course, unless you worship vultures. Then it's nothing short of a miracle. Who says miracles can only happen to people? Anything done for a Sacred Golden Purifier is an act of worship!

A quick note: It is illegal to keep vultures as pets. If you find a stranded baby vulture, leave it alone. Its parents are probably close by. If you see a wounded vulture, call Animal Control.

Another quick note: I guess it's a damn good thing it's illegal to keep vultures as pets, at least from my point of view.

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

RU Raptor Ready #1

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where snark is a lark! When life is dark, kindle a spark.

Yeah, I know it's easier said than done. My life is dark too.

Every year between Imbolc and Equinox, we at "The Gods Are Bored" examine the sadly under-utilized religion of vulture worship. We are gearing up for the East Coast Vulture Festival, the only collective Buzzard Appreciation Event east of Hinckley, Ohio.

If you missed our series on Buzzard Worship last year, we invite you to check out the old archives and ground yourself in buzzard basics.

Just a quick "for instance": Wouldn't you be honored to worship something called the Golden Purifier? That's what turkey vultures are called in their Latin nomenclature. I don't know about you, but Golden Purifier sure sounds celestial to me.

My beloved grandfather was a lifelong Southern Baptist, very devout. When he died and was laid out in the funeral home, the pastor of his church came to talk to my dad and my uncles about the service. As always seems to be the case (or curse) at funerals in my family, this good Baptist pastor was a young fellow who hardly knew Granddad at all. The pastor did not know my father or my uncles, not even a little bit.

So the pastor gathered Dad and Uncle Superior and Uncle Diaspora into a little office. It must have been crowded in there, because they left the door open. I could hear every word.

And of course the pastor began as all pastors do. "What would you like me to say about Mr. X?" he asked. (Can you believe it? Damn pastor didn't even know that everyone always called Granddad "Zeb.")

There was a pregnant pause, which surprised me. Both Dad and Uncle Diaspora are great talkers. Uncle Superior could engage in a conversation on any topic under the sun and know more about it than the experts. But for a moment all three were at a loss for words.

Then my dad said: "Well, emmmmm. This is what I think. Human beings model their understanding of God upon the relationship they have with their parents. I have always felt that God must be a great deal like Pop."

(At this point my dad choked up and had to wait a moment before pursuing his philosophical statement.)

Dad added: "I've read the Bible all my life, and really you don't get a clear picture of God from reading it. He seems different in different parts of the book. But I've always felt in my heart that He must be kind, and gentle, and slow to anger, and eager to figure out vexing problems, and quick to forgive. Because that's how Pop was."

A silence descended in that room. You could have cut it with a knife. If I hadn't been sitting wake by my dearest granddad's coffin, I would have burst out laughing. To this day I wish I could have seen that Baptist pastor's face when confronted with the heresy that people base their worship of deities on the behavior of other people around them, especially their parents.

If pastors were allowed to say WTF, I think that one might have uttered it.

Anyway, I waited for my uncles to chime in with their opinions, but neither one of them said anything. And I took that as silent consent. Because as I say these weren't men of few words when they got going.

My dad was a very intelligent man. I mean, look around at the various pantheons of bored gods. Look at the behavior of the popular modern gods. Look at the way they're drawn or painted or sculpted, for the love of fruit flies. Most of them look a heck of a lot like people, give or take an extra set of arms or some horns and a tail.

So, if I might be so bold as to say so, it takes a true leap of faith to be an animist and worship some creature that isn't a thing like a human, in looks or behavior.

Ack, forget you read this. I was probably just a vulture in a previous life or something.

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

They're Baaaaack! Praise the Bird!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your drive-thru dive with gods for you! Go ahead. Supersize 'em.

We've had a tense few weeks here in Wenonah, New Jersey, waiting to see if the Sacred Thunderbirds would indeed return to their winter roosting sites in the town limits.

Tonight it's confirmed. Both black and turkey vultures are flocking to Wenonah, finding the big old white pines and enjoying the view from the water tower. Oh happy day! When buzzards washed my blues away!

Here's the latest shot, hot off the press:

You too can embrace the Sacred Thunderbird, Golden Purifier! Come to the second annual East Coast Vulture Festival, and experience the inner joy only buzzard worship can bring.

You will not all weep, but you will be changed.

Our operators are standing by to take your call.

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS