Green Buildings, Birds and Feral Cats

Sometimes a noble and good intentioned endeavor can go south.

It seems Emory University is experiencing an unwanted problem from an eco-friendly "green" building they constructed some years back. Migrating birds are fooled by the reflection of the large glass windows in the building and fly into them, full steam ahead, causing a quick end to their migration, not to mention their life. The building killed approximately 60 birds the first year, and was referred to as the "wall of death" and the "bird slaughterhouse" in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The university now drapes a large portion of the building in black mesh for three months a year during migration season; the birds bounce off the mesh and hopefully go in another direction. The article in the Atlanta Journal-Constition also quotes a bird expert who claims between 100 million and one billion birds die each year as a result of collisions with building glass. That's a lot of birds!

After reading about this problem with the green building at Emory, I came across another story, this one in Texas. It seems that a bird watcher had pulled over to the side of the road and was watching some rare endangered bird through his binoculars, when all of a sudden a feral cat appeared and ate the bird for lunch. This upset the bird watcher so much that the next day he came back with a gun and shot the feral cat. Unfortunately for the bird watcher, a nearby toll booth attendant that had been feeding the cat witnessed the killing and reported the man, who was then arrested. This lead to a big courtroom drama pitting the bird people against the cat people. It seems the feral cat population is somewhat out of control and the bird population is suffering from this as they are a prime source of nutrition for the cats. I'm not sure of the outcome of the trial, but I'm not writing this to take a side, maybe just offer a combined solution to both of these problems.

What if we captured a bunch of the feral cats and attached them to the side of the green building, with say, velcro. Then, every time a bird flies into the building, if it's flying fast enough it might take out a cat, thereby reducing the feral cat population and giving the birds a better chance at survival. I thought this idea was sheer genius, so I told it to my wife. She told me it was one of the most stupid things she had ever heard. Despite this single bad review, I am moving forward and am writing to my senator, who hopefully won't be out ducking sniper fire somewhere when the letter arrives.

Lead Paint Dora

It was almost a year ago that my wife and I became members of the one hundred piece club. I had never heard of such an organization, but apparently it is a non-exclusive club that just about anyone can get into, provided you have young children.

We were at the annual family Christmas party last year when my sister in law gave our one year old daughter her Christmas gift; the "Winnie the Pooh Hundred Acre Wood" set. "Welcome to the one hundred piece club" she said as we looked down at this large box of small plastic things shaped like animals, trees and other accoutrements of the woods. "Thank you so much!" my wife replied. "The hundred piece club?" I inquired. My sister in law gave me a friendly slap on the back. "You'll learn" was all she said.

Well it's a year later, and I'll have to give my sister in law credit, for I have been to the mountain, and I have seen and become one with the one hundred piece club. Except I realize now as I survey the plastic toy minefield scattered across my home, the one hundred piece club is just a pretext to the many hundred piece club. Small, large, wheels, sounds, slippery, pokey; I've stepped on all of them at one point or another, usually half asleep in the dark, fumbling for the bathroom.

All of this came to mind a couple of months ago as I read about a toy recall. It seems a bunch of plastic toys made in China were made with lead tainted paint and sold here. "Honey, do you think any of these toys could have been made in China?" I naively asked. We took a read on the current minefield. "Sure, probably. I guess." She was probably right. So I performed my due diligence and found a web page showing pictures of the lead toys. I perused the toys and then... there she was- Cook Dora.

In addition to being ignorant of the one hundred piece club a year ago, I also was not that familiar with the cartoon and cottage industry known as "Dora the Explorer". I know all about it now; if you're not familiar it's a cartoon for young children about a latina girl that goes on adventures with her best friend, a talking monkey in red boots. There is all kinds of Dora merchandise, and we have some. In the collection are three plastic Dora dolls which my daughter named "Flower Dora" (she's wearing a flowered shirt), "Cook Dora" (wearing a chef hat and holding a loaf of bread) and last but not least, "Regular Dora" (kind of plain).

Wow. Cook Dora was on the recall list. One of the Chinese lead toys was being played with by my kids. Not cool. I sprang into action and quickly located Cook Dora. I proudly held it up to show my wife- "Look, Cook Dora. Or should I say Lead Paint Dora!". As the words came out of my mouth, I realized my daughter was standing right there watching. "I want lead paint Dora!" she said. "Oh no sweetie, you can't have Lead Paint Dora, sorry." She was having none of it. "I WANT LEAD PAINT DORA! I WANT LEAD PAINT DORA! I WANT LEAD PAAAAAIIINTTT DOOORRRAAAA!!!! ETC....."

This was one of those times where I felt I had to think like a parent and do what was in the best interest here. So I handed lead paint Dora back to her. "What are you doing?!?" my wife fumed. "She was screaming" I replied. "Listen, don't worry, I've got a plan. I'm going to get it back." I didn't have a plan, but my daughter did stop screaming. "She's had that thing for six months, another five minutes...." I trailed off, but knew by my wife's look I may have made a mistake here. I followed my daughter around the house for the next ten minutes until she dropped Lead Paint Dora and moved on to some other toy. This time I got smart and hid Lead Paint Dora in the cupboard.

I discussed this later with my wife over dinner. She jokingly suggested that maybe it was a Chinese conspiracy to slowly do us in. The idea intrigued me (not in a good way). What if they were slowly killing us off with lead paint? How could we retaliate? Should we genetically engineer our corn to be radioactive and sell it to them in tortillas? Do Chinese people eat tortillas? More importantly, do they buy anything from us? I wonder if there is any kind of trade balance; I'm guessing there's just a one way caravan of cargo ships dropping Chinese made goods off at our shores daily. This also made me think, what the hell is in the szechuan beef and other take out Chinese food I eat? I know they're loading me up with some msg, but now I suspect some other malfeasence could be at play.

I did a little more research and found out that pretty much EVERY SINGLE THING WE OWN WAS MADE IN CHINA. Really, I mean everything. I also found out there is a woman that tried to live with her family for one whole year without anything made in China; she found this pretty much impossible. She wrote a book about it; I haven't read it but it sounds feasible to me.

So what is the answer? I fear there is no simple one. Obviously some control on the quality of products being sold to us comes to mind. My daughter has since moved on from Dora; now her playing energies are more focused on Thomas the Train. But to little surprise, Thomas was made in China. My wife wisely decided we needed to test all the toys in the house for lead. All 800+ pieces. She purchased a kit that tests for lead paint, and we started the process.

All this testing seemed like a good idea until I was struck by one last thought as I tested toy number four hundred eighty-seven:

Was this lead paint test kit made in China?