Michael Ostrogorsky, Ph.D.s History and Archaeology. Parrot and Word Wrangler. Historian of a Future Past. Writer, Princess Tara Chronicles. Blue Tara Trilogy and Kālarātri or Black Night Trilogy available from Blue Parrot Books, Seattle. Masthead Photo of our Spokesparrot Princess Tara by Allyson Photography of Seattle
Our Blue and Gold macaw parrot Aboo can't visit Seattle's Sunday Ballard Farmers Market without scoring his favorite cookie from the ladies at his favorite Seattle bakery, Ballard's Tall Grass Bakery.
Aboo wide-eyed and ecstatic getting an oatmeal raisin cookie from his friend Jessica
Keeping your parrot on a short leash helps. Especially when your parrot is one of the biggest moochers at the farmers market!
If this isn't the coolest New World archaeological find of the 21st Century, it's pretty darn close. Mexico's Cultural Affairs Office announced recently (July 10, 2016) that construction work near the first prehispanic archaeological site registered in the municipality of San Francisco de Borja, in the State of Chihuahua, Northern Mexico, encountered the mummified remains of a Scarlet macaw parrot in a cave in the municipality. The parrot appears to have been buried in a funerary context. Workers say the complete body of the parrot was discovered, but only the head was collected. The remains of two human bodies were also discovered, leading archaeologists to believe the bird may have been buried with its owner. Scarlet macaws are not native to the region, but were highly prized and traded from hundreds of miles distance throughout Mexican prehistory. The exact age of the archaeological site is unclear, but appears to predate Mexico's prehispanic Archaeological Zone of Paquimé, which flourished from the 7th to 14th Centuries, A.D.
Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine. As today is #ThrowbackThursday we thought we'd throwback to our favorite movie of all time, Casablanca, which is somewhat apropos to these times since the movie deals with war, refugees, greed and corruption, and the fight against Nazism. A subplot of the movie is the disposition of the coveted Letters of Transit, documents that in wartime Europe were worth more than life itself! Well, these are actual Letters of Transit, signed by the French Consul of Constantinople, which my grandparents used in 1920 to escape the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. As an indication of how cherished these documents were, they were some of the few documents my grandparents preserved from that era. My grandparents were war refugees, the kind of people who today would be looked down upon by certain retrograde segments of American society. Grandfather Vasily is the dapper cavalry officer wearing the riding boots, front right, in his White Army uniform, and Grandmother Maria sports her White Army nurse's uniform. Grandfather was wounded in battle fighting the Bolsheviks on the Crimea during the Russian Civil War and met Grandmother in the hospital. The rest, as they say, is history:
Grandfather Vasily is the dapper cavalry officer, front right, wearing the riding boots. Tall man standing in center of photo is Baron Wrangel, the last Russian White Army general.
This would have been his officer corps in the Crimea. Grandfather Vasily was a Captain of Engineers.
Grandmother Maria in her White Army nurse's uniform
The last surviving photo taken of Grandfather Vasily (or William as his name was Americanized) at his engineering office at the old Idaho Highway Department in Boise, circa 1960
Like they say, a picture (or in this case, video) is worth a thousand words. Here's a couple that come to mind. Irresponsible. Thoughtless. Crude. Uncaring. Refusing to accept personal responsibility. Okay, that's more than a couple. But in a nutshell, nothing sums up the Republican Party like shitting and running.
