As England’s Deer Population Explodes, Some Propose a Mass Cull
A pandemic-fueled expansion of the herds threatens the plant life that many species depend on for survival. But will the public accept killing many more deer?
That’s an amazing photo, a photo that will draw you in. It did. There were two additional stories in a side bar, one in reintroducing the Eastern Cougar in the U.S. “The idea of being killed in a car crash with a deer just doesn’t scare people the way the idea of a cougar leaping on your back in the woods does,” which was like “the final word” on that 2016 idea.
And then there was a 2019 story with a link to this video which did make me cackle.
Lol. Reminded me of my family’s boyhood dog Rusty. Damn Rusty. My youngest brother and I would take him up to the woods behind Red Rock, so we called it in Barnesboro, and let him loose for some exercise. We’d hear him yelping away and sometimes had a bitch of a time getting him back. A few times we didn’t and left the hill without his ass. He’d come straggling back on his own time, his tongue dragging on the ground. Another time the dumb ass didn’t come back all night. Next we saw him he was chasing a goddamned deer down the middle of Chestnut Avenue. Mum was outside sweeping the front door stoop or doing some other mum thing when here came a deer and ol’ Rusty on his tail. Just about gave mum a heart attack. Damn dog. Loved that dog to death but damn him what a pain in the ass.
Anyway, that was my internet rabbit hole this morning. I fell down a bigger, deeper one yesterday into late night on a tangent in that sublime Guest Essay on Rummy. Allard Lowenstein. "Allard Lowenstein, who was he again?" The name was only vaguely familiar. Looked him up on the Wikipedia. There it was,"best friend of Donald Rumsfeld in Congress." Be damned. "Really liberal guy, right?" I didn't remember. "Yeah." "Did Rummy go through a lib-con metamorphosis?" No. "So how?..." I didn't get into it; I didn't get into it at that point. "Wow, he was only fifty when he died." Lowenstein. Didn't remember how he died. "How did he die?" "Some guy SHOT him?!" I hadn't remembered that. A young guy who he had mentored at Stanford the brief time Lowenstein was there. "Was Lowenstein a Mo?" No. "What's the story here?" The Wikipedia article didn't have the killer's name, Dennis Sweeney, highlighted in blue, so there wasn't a separate page for him. They had a friend's name highlighted. Which pissed me off, 'cause now I had to google "Allard Lowenstein murder" "Allard Lowenstein Dennis Sweeney", etc.
Google is nonpareil for anything that happened post-Google. 1998 is the cutoff. Everything prior is B.G.; after is A.G. I've run into this many times before, especially on Stella Elizabeth Williamson, to my exasperation. Something post-1998 has to be written on a subject for Google's creepy crawlers to find it. If nothing has been it's like the thing never happened. So it was on Williamson, who died in 1980. "When was Lowenstein killed?" "Oh great, 1980."
I was able to find like TWO pictures of Sweeney. ONE of Lowenstein. "What happened?" Long-short Sweeney went nuts, thought Lowenstein was sending him messages through his teeth, was out to get him, had killed his stepfather (who died of a heart attack in 1980), had sued Gerald Sweeney (he hadn't), was subsequently diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, walked into Lowenstein's office one day and fired seven times, hitting him four (or five, the stories conflict) times killing him. "Geez, that's terrible!" What happened to Sweeney? Found NGI. "Like Hinckley! Reagan's assassin!" "NGI's were a fad in the '80's?" Committed to a psych institute, released in, from memory, 2005. "GEEZ!"
"Where was Sweeney now?" "What did he look like now?" Nothing. I google imaged him, there was one guy who if you do age regression on could be the Dennis Sweeney but it was a Radaris photo, got on Radaris, scroll, scroll, scroll, through three pages of ten, Dennis Sweeney's a common name, "The motherfucker didn't have a middle name?" Only "Dennis Sweeney." Bitter nettles. Gerald died in Portland, googled him and Dennis Portland, googled Gerald with date of death, February 24, 1980. End Dennis Sweeney murderer hole.
"Who was Lowenstein?," like the details. Freedom ride in Mississippi, Dump Johnson, worked for Bobby, Dump Nixon, number seven on Nixon's enemies list, so really good guy. One term congressman. Eulogized by William F. Buckley, Jr.! Get out. Yeah! Watched about two-thirds of a 'Firing Line' episode devoted to Lowenstein. Eulogized by Ted Kennedy and Buckley at his funeral. Ah. That's a really good guy. "When you can touch people at both extremes..." Said about Bobby Kennedy. Both Tom Hayden in his militant red beret and old Richard M. Daley wept at RFK's service. The 'Firing Line' tribute was a cut-and-paste of Lowenstein's several appearances on the show. Lowenstein was so impressive, so intelligent, so empathetic to people on the extremes, left and right, Black and white, committed full 100 to his causes but always "reached across the aisle" to get to know his opposite number and where they were coming from. "Real loss" was my takeaway and the only thing I intended this post to be before the deer in England and Rusty. Lowenstein had a rigorous intelligence, meaning he interrogated himself, he would admit when he was wrong, would concede his opposite's point if it should be conceded. Listening to him I was reminded several times of Sam Harris. (Are you kidding me, his full name is Samuel Benjamin Harris?) Harris is so reasonable. He'll frame a point, "I know we agree on this," whatever his point is. It's very congenial. Shows your respect for the person. Lowenstein did the same thing all the time with WFB. Always searching for common ground. A reasoned, respectful discussion, not two people yelling at and over each other.
Buckley endorsed Lowenstein every time he ran for Congress, including in 1974 when Lowenstein ran against the incumbent Republican. WFB's brother James was a senator by then. Long Island Republicans were furious and the endorsement put James in a tight spot. You can tell by James' comments at the time he was exasperated with Bill.
"But what about Rummy?", how this whole rabbit hole started. Rummy appeared on the victory platform with Lowenstein when he was elected his first and only time to Congress in 1968 and criticized Lowenstein's Republican opponent's attacks in 1970 when Lowenstein ran for reelection. But Rummy crumbled like a $3 suitcase under pressure from Long Island Republicans and the Nixon White House. He disavowed his criticisms and endorsed the Republican. That was Rummy. Lowenstein lost and that was the end of the bromance.
"Real loss," Allard Lowenstein. Real loss.