Before the Hurricane, We Are Already Blasted -- by Acorns

10/1/2015

The ostrich is unscathed -- but every acorn represents a concussion right over our heads.

We are waiting for Hurricane Joaquin on Long Island, but meantime we are being blasted by the worst barrage of acorns I can remember.

I know, if we lived in the city, it would be car horns and construction noise. But this is like nothing I have ever heard.

The massive oaks over our heads are dropping acorns, which clatter on first impact and then skitter all the way down the roof and land with a thud on the deck.

Why this year? Is it another sign of the Apocalypse -- like the joker with the orange mop braying at us?

Nobody around here remembers such a crop of acorns. I went to the Web and came up with an article that said acorns are not necessarily cyclical – or even a direct reaction to drought or dampness – but rather an intricate computer-tree response to predators. Very impressive.

http://northernwoodlands.org/articles/article/woods-whys-acorns-weather

If I read this right, oaks drop their seeds (noisy little missiles) in years when birds and squirrels and other perceived threats are least hungry. This gives seeds a chance to survive – in lawns, flower beds and open space.

There are worse things to worry about right now, but meantime, a few feet over our heads, the acorns are obeying the law of gravity.

Now if the oaks stay put during Joaquin….

Brian Savin

10/1/2015 10:49:05 am

Excellent research. We talk about this very subject every year in the rural area where we live and generally have gone with the cold winter coming theory. I have never found such an explanation before. The author, Michael Snyder, I hope gets the Secretary of the Interior position in the Bernie cabinet. By the way, love your Art Deck-o, George.

George Vecsey

10/1/2015 05:34:20 pm

Brian, nice pun. The explanation makes sense. Do you think Bernie has his cabinet chosen? Who is his VP mate? -- Can't be Eliz. Warren, can it?
Glad you like the ostrich. You should see the penguin inside.
GV

Brian Savin

10/1/2015 09:58:12 pm

In terms of animal art, I'm not nearly as creative as you are, but nonetheless appreciative. We have two pink plastic flamingos that appeared in our front yard a few years ago when I reported on the local blog a visit by a large black bear. Our late neighbor put them there one very late night and claimed on the blog that they scare away those critters. We kept them and now put them near our underground propane tank in the winter so our fuel folks can find the tank in the snow. They enjoy them.
p.s. Are you sure your ostrich isn't an emu? Check the eggs.

George Vecsey

10/2/2015 11:50:08 am

Brian, I did better. I asked it., GV

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Before the Hurricane, We Are Already Blasted -- by Acorns

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