Lucked out this week. I had an encounter with what must have been thousands of snow geese, as close as I’ve ever gotten to them, who were eventually spooked by a bald eagle and took off with a cacophony of noise. It was, honestly, breathtaking. I could feel the airwaves from their flapping wings on my face.

My first serious encounter with geese, other than the real life variety honking their way through my childhood village, took place in a first grade classroom. Called Dumme Gans! (stupid goose) – a typical condescension towards young humans of the female variety in 195Os Germany – by a teacher irritated by yours truly, I had the nerve to reply: “I might be a goose, but I am NOT stupid,” something I was convinced of at age 6. It did not end well.

My second encounter came later during endless years of Latin. The teacher was obsessed with Livy’s History and so we learned about and translated among other things the attempted sacking of Rome by the Gauls (390 BC), all prevented by a gaggle of attentive geese…. here is the translation by Bohn (Book V, ch. 47-49)

The Capitol of Rome was meantime in great danger; for the Gauls had remarked the easy ascent [to it] by the rock at the Temple of Carmentis. On a moonlight night, after they had first sent ahead a man unarmed to test the way, by alternately supporting and being supported by one another, and drawing each other up, as the ground required, they gained the summit all in silence. Not merely had they escaped the ken of the sentinels, but even the dogs, sensitive as they are to noises at night, had not been alarmed. But they did not escape the notice of the geese; for these creatures were sacred to Juno, and had been accordingly spared [by the garrison] despite the scarcity of food.

Thus it befell that Marcus Manlius, who had been consul three years earlier, and who was a redoubted warrior, was awakened by their hissing and the clapping of their wings. He snatched his arms, and calling loudly to his fellows, ran to the spot. Here he smote with the boss of his shield a Gaul who had already gained a foothold on the summit, and tumbled him headlong. The fall of this man as he crashed down dashed over those next to him. Manlius also slew certain others who in their alarm had cast aside their weapons and were clinging to the rocks. By this time the rest [of the Romans] had rushed together, and crushed the enemy with darts and stones, so that the whole bank, dislodged 32from their foothold, were hurled down the precipice in general ruin.

Lesson one: don’t eat geese, they might protect you. Lesson two: remember your history – maybe the keeping of geese could have prevented the real destruction of Rome in 1527 by mutinous troops of Charles V, head of the Holy Roman Empire — pretty much ending the Italian Renaissance. Lesson three: superfluous facts crowd your brain into your late age….

Thoughts of fighting off invaders led, unfortunately, to associations with another bit of news from more recent history: the deployment of elite border agents (BORTAC) to sanctuary cities by the Trump administration.

From the NYT: “…members of the elite tactical unit known as BORTAC, which acts essentially as the SWAT team … With additional gear such as stun grenades and enhanced Special Forces-type training, including sniper certification, the officers typically conduct high-risk operations targeting individuals who are known to be violent, many of them with extensive criminal records.”

We are clearly seeing a militarization of civil society and I wouldn’t bet the bank on the attempts of public figures, like Elizabeth Warren, for example, to get to the bottom of the motivation for these deployments. Now where have we seen the establishment of special (secret) police forces before? Need I spell out a reminder?

 Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol agent turned civil rights activist, reported a conversation (it was on Twitter, 2/12/2020) she had with a former senior agency official:

Border Patrol does not believe they are a civilian law enforcement agency. They believe they are kin to the Marine Corps. They do not believe they are accountable to Congress, which is why they have no issues lying to them even while under oath.

They believe they are only accountable to … presidents like Trump. Border Patrol believes it is not required to answer to local police, FBI, CIA or any other law enforcement agency. They claim to be the “premiere” law enforcement agency, superior to all others. They say they will become a “national police force” to be used by a president to enforce laws even among citizens. (Italics are by John Stoer of the editorial board at RAW story, my source for the details here.)

Marching in goose step, proceeding in front of our very eyes. Goosebumps not far behind.

Let them all fly away

And be gone

And in my eternal attempt at balanced reporting – balancing emotionally crappy with pleasurable stuff, that is, here is something in the uplift direction:

One of the highlights of House House’s Untitled Goose Game, the “slapstick-stealth-sandbox” game in which you play a terrible goose wreaking havoc in a lovely English village, is the adaptive soundtrack of Debussy’s Preludes. The playful piano music almost provides a kind of insight into the goose’s mind — the melody plays in quiet, short bursts when it’s up to no good, creeping up on its next victim. When the goose is in full chaos mode, waddling away from the gardener who just wants his keys back, the piano tune plays out in full, encouraging the player to keep up the shenanigans.

Here is the real thing: