Three seconds of my life

Yesterday I was at the transit center, waiting for a bus not due for another ten minutes, and thinking my ordinary bonehead thoughts.

I was enjoying the view of the homeless, who always congregate at the transit centers. There were a dozen of them, mostly asleep, a few walking around. The awake ones are probably waiting for a bus, like the rest of us. The sleepers and drunks are just waiting to die, also like the rest of us.

Bang! A shot rang out, from where I know not, but instantly a hundred pigeons took flight. Usually you don't even notice the pigeons, but they're always there, and when startled they all go airborne at once.

And I was standing where they were flying. The pigeons flew right past me, some to my left, some to my right, and some over my head. Some came very, very close as they whizzed past me, within a yard or less. A few flew directly at my head, swerving to one side or the other only at the very last moment. They were so close, I could hear their wings flapping.

For three seconds of my life, I was in the middle of a pigeon stampede, and it was thrilling.

Do you ever notice the pigeons? I don't. They're basically fat rats with feathers, and they shit everywhere and probably carry disease, but they're also marvelous animals. Like the rest of us, I guess.

This very brief film, someone told me, explains the beauty and joy of Burning Man.

I am not convinced. The video is beautiful, sure, but it's still only a bunch of people with money to burn, burning it together, and I still don't see the allure.

And now, the news you need,
whether you know it or not

• Seattle needs a new airport.

No one wants it near them.

This is the beginning of a bullshit multi-billion-dollar boondoggle. Seattle emphatically does not need a new airport.

Exact opposite: Seattle (and every other big city) needs to start long-term planning for the dismantlement of their current airports' several square miles of concrete and asphalt, and fewer and fewer passenger air flights.

Does anyone seriously think folks will be flying all over the world once climate change makes weather disasters commonplace, sinks the global economy, and tires start melting into the concrete? Air travel will be one of the first 'modern luxuries' to go. Passenger air flights will be in decline soon, and in a very few years, only for the oligarchs.

• Crypto.com accidentally sent $400-million to a competitor

• Solar roofs are now required on all parking lots with more than 80 spaces in France

• Wingnut "Religious Freedom" amendment fails in Alabama, 50.4% – 49.6%

• Eight-billion of us stinky fuckers

• Climate change puts Cuba’s agriculture under threat