The Hungry Bear

Should We Shake off the Slumber?

Mid March is when the residents of my part of New England are supposed to take in their bird feeders. I don’t have bird feeders anymore because I keep bees and wound up with a borderline “nuisance bear” last year.

According to Fish and Game, last Fall wasn’t good for bears. There was a food dearth due in part to a bad acorn crop. The bears went into hibernation underweight. The talk at the convenience store is that they are going to wake up hungry.

We have had a long dearth on Medium too, I’m afraid. I went into the fall hungry. I woke up hungry too.

Luckily, as I started to rouse from my winter stupor, I found some good things to eat.

There was a fun exchange I had with Mark Starlin at the bottom of this post:

Thanks to an invocation by Stephen M. Tomic.

Then, this morning I found a reaction to the awful shooting in New Zealand by Christchurch resident Arin Basu. His post is everything good that Medium can offer in the face of bad events. I have followed him for a long time. I think he seldom posts on Medium nowadays, so this piece is an accomplished writer writing to write. That is pure blogging goodness. We’re all richer for it.

Not to snap your head too quickly, but I also found some funny. Grade-A lulz… and MEAN. So mean. So beautifully, wonderfully mean. This takedown of Andy Borowitz and the New Yorker by Ian Belknap is just fucking great.

These three gems are examples of things I can’t find elsewhere. When I look at them, it is clear to me that the only place where I have a chance of finding things like this is here. Add to them, Lon Shapiro’s advanced statistics informed commentary on the NBA:

Steve Bouchard’s always wonderful “This Weak in Politics”:

And Mary Holden’s “stupid poems” and that’s worth the price of admission, isn’t it?

Too bad Medium doesn’t see the world the way I see it. My “mindfulness” teacher tells me that I have to let go of things not being the way I want them to be.

OK

The reason I know that the nuisance bear will be back this spring is because I know it is hungry. Bears remember where they have found food. Once they find a bonanza, they return to the spot periodically for more than 15 years even if they don’t find food again.

So here I am. I came to see if there was anything to read and I found a few feeders. I think I’m going to hang around.