MUSINGS

Reveries and rants.  Mickey Friedman has made films about Edith Wharton, Nicaragua, GE and PCBs, breast cancer, and the Iraq War. His non-fiction book “A Red Family” was published in 2010 by the University of Illinois Press.  He is at work on a series of mysteries set in the Berkshires.  He writes a column for The Berkshire Record, Great Barrington’s weekly newspaper.

Owl vs Owl (and Us): Fair or Foul?

Every once in a while in our on-going, seemingly inexorable march to eliminate large swatches of nature’s bounty: the inland glaciers of Montana, Chile, China, Europe, the rainforest, the ice of the Arctic and Antarctic and a multitude of species, a story comes to the fore to stop us for a short moment.

For me it was the story of the owls that a friend posted on Facebook. A NPR report about “killing one owl species to save another.”

I’ve got a thing about owls. From the time as a boy I rescued an injured baby owl from Van Cortland Park in the Bronx and my Mom took care until it healed enough to fly.

Click here to read the entire article.

Memorial Day 2011: They Deserve Better

I’m writing on Memorial Day 2011, a particularly confusing Memorial Day for me.  I’m experiencing a shifting mixture of pride and bewilderment.  Yesterday, I was out with my peace sign again as I have been these many years, glad of the appreciative honks, accepting of the occasional curse and upraised finger.  This is the third generation of signs.  The snow and rain and the odd angle it rests in the back of my car obviously takes a toll.

Click here to read the entire column.

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