Learn before you speak, Miss PETA

This is an open letter to PETA and Miss PETA person, a.k.a. Debbie Downer, who wrote The Montgomery Advertiser to decry the use of eagles in Auburn University’s pre-home game Eagle flight ceremonies, an inspiring tradition that’s been called one of college football’s best.

Lindsey Pollard-Post of the PETA Foundation in Norfolk, Va., wrote: "The crash of a bald eagle named Spirit into a window during a forced pre-game flight at the Auburn Tigers' stadium on Saturday is a sad example of how animals suffer when we drag them into human celebrations.

“The screaming fans, air horns, music and booming sound systems of sports games can be stressful, terrifying and disorienting for animals. If given the choice, bald eagles make their homes near lakes, rivers, and quiet forests, far away from human disturbance.”

Pollard-Post wrote the letter the week after Spirit, AU’s bald eagle, made contact with a luxury box and slightly buzzed some excited fans before Auburn’s game against Mississippi State. Debbie Downer, I mean the PETA person, then said the school should retire the birds to sanctuaries.

First, I’ll just say leave our eagles alone and mind your own.

Secondly, know what you are talking about before you talk or write, comment, exaggerate or advise.

Some points for the letter writer and PETA:

• Spirit, the American Bald Eagle, and Nova and Tiger, golden eagles, live at Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine’s Southeastern Raptor Center, the oldest and only medical and surgical wildlife rehabilitation facility in the Southeast dedicated solely to raptors.

One of the first War Eagles, circa 1977, Photo by Gordon Bugg

• The eagles have been cared for and loved and have been flying for fans at Jordan Hare Stadium for more than 10 years.

• No Eagle has ever been hurt in the making of this War Eagle tradition.

• Spirit was not hurt by the contact with the luxury box. Spirit is not forced to fly anywhere, and could fly away if he wanted. However, Spirit could not survive in the wild.

• Spirit was found injured in Florida in 1995 and was brought to Auburn in 1998. Spirit made his first flight in Jordan-Hare in 2001. He is not releasable because of his damaged beak.

• Southeastern Raptor Center works in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rehabilitate and release injured and orphaned raptors, educate the public about their role and importance, and to research raptor-related issues.

• At SRC, raptors are admitted with a variety of injuries and ailments. Many birds are rehabilitated and released. When release is not possible, the bird may become a permanent center resident or transfer to another educational facility.

• In addition, Miss Animal-Lover-with-No-Common-Sense, Auburn University is a vet school and agriculture and animal science research institution with strong schools and a history of innovation in agricultural, animal science, forestry, fisheries and wildlife studies. Auburn is so closely associated with the land and animals that some among our cross-state rivals call us the Cow College. (And, for the record, we don’t think that’s an insult.)

You see, Miss PETA, places like Auburn and the SRC do the work that you and PETA only talk about.

Because of land-grant, research universities like Auburn -- where researchers and students concentrate on the science of animals, wildlife, trees, plants, birds and raptors – animals and people are better off – and FALLEN EAGLES, THEY CAN FLY.



Picture of the day:



Mary Claire Walburn with AU eagle in the early 1990s.
This may be Tiger, who is now 31 and retired.

Song of the day:

When Fallen Angels Fly

by Billy Joe Shaver

There's a story in the bible about the eagle growing old

How it grows new sets of feathers, then becomes both young and strong

Then it spreads its mightly wing span out across the open sky

We will have the wings of eagles,when the fallen angels fly

Remembering Auburn then, now, and Dylan singing "Here Comes Santa Claus"

Saturday was a good day.

Auburn University won a football game -- after a three-week losing skid of twilight zone proportion -- and my copies of Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the Heart came in the mail.

Auburn won, again.

The good Auburn University football team showed up for Saturday’s game, and we won. The confused, dispirited Auburn team of the three-game-losing streak was replaced by the prepared, determined Tigers who made the Ole Miss game as exciting as any this season.

I think of Auburn, too, after viewing a Facebook photo album by fellow Auburn Plainsman alumni and photographer Gordon Bugg, who has worked as an engineer and soldier since then. His pictures of Auburn in the late 1970s, when we were there and publishing the student newspaper each week, ignited memories and reminded us how much the campus (and we) have changed since then. One of my favorites from his “Auburn evolving” photo album, is this shot of Auburn's War Eagle, from 1977.

Must be Dylan singing Christmas carols

My two copies of Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the Heart arrived Saturday. I’ve listen to all the selections once, and a few twice. As a Dylan fan, I know I’ll like the CD even more with subsequent listens.

But what’s so cool about this Christmas album from the coolest of the cool singer-songwriters and American legends is that he really means it.

First, all the proceeds from the sale of Christmas in the Heart go to Feeding America. Overseas sales will go to similar charities which feed the needy. This guarantees that more than four million meals will be provided to more than 1.4 million people in need in this country during this year's holiday season; plus the Feeding America and the international charities benefiting from the album receive all future royalties, in perpetuity.

Secondly, Dylan sings holiday standards with enthusiasm and, well, heart.

The whole deal is like a gift, really. Dylan's gravelly, wise and time-worn voice is wrapped in his precise arrangements of well-known Christmas songs and packaged with his always-on-the-mark band members and studio musicians and “mixed voice” back-up singers.

America’s best songwriter didn’t write any of the tunes, even though he’s written albums full of Christian songs. But, he put his masterful talent to arranging popular standards and traditional hymns like The First Noel and O Little Town of Bethlehem .

Christmas in the Heart is a treat for folks who love holiday music, Dylan fans, and, I suspect, most others who bother to listen. For needy people in our country and abroad, Christmas in the Heart is what it's name implies. And it is a concrete, WWJD act of Christmas kindness.

Early favorites from  my early listening are Here Comes Santa Claus, Little Drummer Boy, and Must Be Santa (a fun sing-along and what could be the only polka-beat song from Dylan).

I say I got two copies of Christmas in the Heart. One is mine, and it is already being enjoyed, even as I pack away the electronic flying bat and rake into the trash what’s left of our shrinking carved pumpkin.

Christmas in the Heart will be the soundtrack for my Christmas 2009, and if people will take a listen, and remember the reason for the season, it will become a Christmas music standard.
As for my other copy, it will be one of our presents for the family Dirty Santa present swap at my husband’s mother’s house, where we draw numbers and gleefully fight over gifts, some good, some not so good. I hope whoever gets Christmas in the Heart doesn’t get it snatched in Dirty Santa before they can listen to it, and listen to it again, and appreciate the effort and intent of my musical hero’s holiday gift to us all.

Interested in Christmas in the Heart or ordering a copy? Go to http://www.bobdylan.com/#/news



Song of the day: Gotta Serve Somebody, Bob Dylan