Birding 2025

2/1, Kalamazoo Nature Center, Kalamazoo, MI

• pair of Northern Flickers

1/26, southern Kalamazoo Co., MI

Went birding in a Audubon Society of Kalamazoo caravan yesterday in southern-most Kalamazoo county (Schoolcraft, Vicksburg). Thanks to Amy Ranger for driving and scribing! Species listed in order of sighting:

• Red tailed hawk
• Mute swans
• Juncos
• Bluebirds: several different flocks!
• Downy woodpeckers
• Red bellied woodpecker
• Cardinal male
• Goldfinches
• Hooded merganser
• Canada geese
• Mallards
• American Tree Sparrows (a flock)
• Great blue heron (in a drainage ditch)
• Bald eagles: 2 (one a juvenile, still in dark plumage)
• Northern harrier male
• Sandhill cranes

We also saw a red fox dancing (aka hunting) in a field and loads of white tailed deer.

1/28, traveling in MI, OH

Near Galesburg and Battle Creek on I-94:

• 2 Turkey Vultures at each place

OH, along I-80:

• 2 Bald Eagles (1 adult, 1 juvenile); a 3rd one in a huge nest at the top of a tree, further along

1/30, traveling along I-80 in OH

Flock of Snow Geese flying over

Friend-enemy vs Pluralism and Peaceful Activism

French, David. "Us and Them Is All the Rage." New York Times, January 26, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/opinion/trump-maga-schmitt.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sE4.gD60.FTpUuocWWEgj&smid=url-share

Fascinating opinion essay. French quotes Carl Schmitt, a German political theorist who described "the “friend-enemy distinction.” ... "One of liberalism’s deficiencies, according to Schmitt, is a reluctance to draw the friend-enemy distinction."

I disagree - liberals' enemies are those who express hatred (verbally, physically, etc.). Liberals make it impolitic to express hatred overtly.

But French goes on to discuss the founders of the U.S.A.: a metaphor of John Adam's means that, "Pluralism requires both law and ethics to function, and without ethics the law will fail." French describes Jeffrey Rosen's book The Pursuit of Happiness by writing, "the founders envisioned the pursuit of happiness not as the pursuit of pleasure or wealth, but rather as 'the pursuit of virtue — as being good, rather than feeling good.' Benjamin Franklin, for example, listed temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquillity, chastity and humility as indispensable elements of virtue."  ... "The virtues Franklin listed...are universal moral obligations that apply to our treatment of everyone." ... "That's the social compact of pluralism. ... And in all circumstances, your fundamental human rights must be preserved." [all emphases mine]

However, the "friend-enemy" model sees kindness as immoral: "In the world of the friend-enemy distinction, your ultimate virtue is found in your willingness to fight. Your ultimate vice is betraying your side by refusing the call to political war."

French states that in the "friend-enemy" model, loyalty supercedes political idealogy: "Friends can get away with violent crimes." People who "publicly criticized Trump" are "now ... enemies who have to pay the price." ... "Any deviation from orthodoxy is perceived as evil, and evil must be utterly eradicated. ... And there’s no humility...." In this model, people see kindness as evil and cruelty as good.

In my view, thus the difference between passive resistance or peaceful activism and the "friend-enemy" viewpoint! Passivists engage others with dignity, respecting their human rights, while protesting the "enemy's" actions in nonviolent ways.