Grackles are a type of blackbird, aggressive and loud and sometimes distinctly stupid and hostile. As in Houston, where they've been dive-bombing pedestrians because one of their own fell from a nest.

Grackles must be Democrats, playing the victim card that way, and failing to take responsibility for their own mistakes.

Grackles are also all over the place in Fort Worth, but wait, get this: it's probably Wal-Mart's fault.

Even if so, they're irredeemable louts. Purdue University tells us that grackles...

....when they flock together and roost in trees near homes, parks or other public facilities...can often pose a public health hazard or nuisance. Several diseases, particularly the respiratory ailment histoplasmosis, are indirectly transmissible from birds to humans. Many of these diseases are spread from the accumulation of bird droppings under the roost site. The droppings also will damage the finish on cars and kill grass and other ornamental plants. Grackles are noisy birds, often making a disturbing and obnoxious racket. Grackles may consume or destroy farm crops such as citrus, tomatoes, watermelons, cabbage, lettuce, grain, corn, peaches, figs and cantaloupes.

Here, we learn that grackles are no treat to hear. Their sound is:

Obnoxious, repeated, liquidy, nasal screeching and squealing...

In addition, the grackle:

...will crown other birds away from feeders. (Will) Also eat baby birds from nests.

Wow! Grackles are not just responsibility-averse Democrats; they're cannibalistic, plundering socialists. Myself, I'm about ready to endorse a government-funded grackle eradication program.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at May 18, 2005 08:49 PM

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