Monday, January 3, 2011

Blackbirds Falling From the Sky

The story about Blackbirds falling dead from the sky by the thousands over Beebe, Arkansas makes me very sad.  Killed by trauma in mid-air.  What trauma?  Breathing the air over Beebe, Arkansas?  Why the huge fish kill in Arkansas?

Arkansas was the biggest producer of poultry in the US when I spent a year there living in Fayetteville, not all that far from the Tyson Chicken processing plants, surrounded with all the poultry farms that fed that enormous processing plant.  Maybe the Blackbirds were dying of grief at what we're doing to another breed of bird or they died from flying through the fumes of chicken shit that hover over all those factory farms, producing nothing but chickens and eggs and unbreathable air.  Probably produce some pretty toxic ground water as well.