

It’s about time ravens and vultures are no longer seen as bad omens.
BY TERI WEBSTER
Perched among mist-covered leaves at the Fort Worth Zoo, the jagged black silhouette of a raven is a ghostly shadow in the morning light. He is quiet, watching. Next to him, a chocolate-brown cinerous vulture stares, unbothered, as she keeps watch over their habitat.
The peaceful scene hardly fits the macabre stigmas often associated with these beautiful and majestic birds.
Long before social media gave us trolling and disinformation, ravens and vultures were caught in what is — for lack of better term — a public relations nightmare. From ancient mythology and Edgar Allen Poe to popular culture and scary movies, harmful stereotypes have plagued these birds.
Around Halloween, images of ravens and vultures are often tacked onto cardboard haunted houses and tombstones. Other decorations show the birds looking over the shoulders of greenskinned witches stirring cauldrons.
Keepers who work with ravens and vultures at the zoo hope to show a different view of these often-misunderstood birds.
“People find them kind of spooky or scary, especially vultures, because they do eat dead
things,” said Annabelle Decker, a bird keeper who works with the zoo’s raptors. “And I think that’s where that comes from, because that can be seen as something that’s gross or scary. In reality, they are some of the cleanest birds, and they can ingest pathogens, and they don’t get sick with them.”
A group of vultures is one of the most efficient
sanitation crews on the planet. Their stomach acid neutralizes deadly viruses and bacteria, including botulism, rabies, and even anthrax. They effectively stop the spread of disease at its source.
“They do a critical job of cleaning up dead animals that nobody else wants to deal with,” said Brad Hazelton, bird curator for the Fort Worth
Zoo. “They do a great job of keeping disease down. Because obviously, if we had those dead animals all over the place, that would lead to some issues.”
While vultures are deep cleaners, ravens are intelligent scavengers who also play a key role in cleaning up carrion.
“Even though they all play a similar role, they’re all special,” said keeper Olivia Northrup. “They’re specially designed for their role in the environment, and they’re really good at what they do.”
Ravens are known for their intelligence, and the zoo’s white-necked raven, housed with the cinereous vulture, is a good example. Decker describes him as “a character” and “fun to work with.” During the scorching Texas summers, keepers provide a fan for the birds to help them keep cool.
The raven uses the fan as a karaoke mic.
“One of his favorite things to do is sit in front of the fan and yell into it like a little kid would, and he likes to hear his voice vibrate back at him,” Decker said. “One day, he made every variation of a raven call. He wanted to hear each sound come back at him in a different way.”
His playful curiosity is a hallmark of corvids.
“They are extremely intelligent,” Hazelton said. “That’s probably the most intelligent bird we have at the zoo. They are capable of mimicking speech and working out amazing puzzles. They figure out things so quickly.”
So why are vultures and ravens so feared or even loathed?
In some versions of Greek mythology, Zeus sends vultures to torture Prometheus as punishment for stealing fire from Olympus and giving it to humanity.
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continued from page 5
A century ago in Europe, bearded vultures were hunted to near extinction along the Alps due to the mistaken belief that they were after lambs and small children.
In Norse mythology, Odin turned a raven from white to black after the raven reported bad news to him.
Edgar Allan Poe famously penned “The Raven,” further cementing the bird’s reputation as a harbinger of grief and misfortune.
The scariest story, though, is the threat that some species face in the wild.
In parts of South Asia, for example, anti-inflammatory drugs like diclofenac are used to treat cattle. The drugs are lethal to vultures that feed on the carcasses of cattle that die.
In Africa, poachers will poison elephant and rhino carcasses to kill vultures, Hazelton said. This is done to eliminate the circling birds because they serve as a natural alarm system that alerts wardens to the location of a dead animal.
of the world’s largest flying birds, faces lead poisoning from spent ammunition in animals killed by hunters, according to the Peregrine Fund, a birds of prey conservation group. Lead poisoning also impacts other scavengers.
remain at the forefront even as the zoo leans into the Halloween season. Around this time of year, birds, gorillas, rhinos, and elephants are among the animals that will have the chance to play with, dismantle, and devour pumpkins as a form of gourmet enrichment.
enrichment games for the raptors throughout the year, like hiding food so the birds can exercise their natural scavenging instincts.
put away, ravens and vultures will remain a vital, beautiful, and vulnerable part of our ecosystem.
yond stereotypes and see them as essential, helpful parts of nature.
sure,” Hazelton said.
When it’s time to water your lawn, think 1, 2…zero. Once a week if it needs a little water. Twice a week if it’s dry and hot. Zero if it’s been raining. Make sure your sprinklers aren’t leaking or pointing the wrong way. And try drip irrigation for flowers and shrubs. Visit Water is Awesome.com for more tips.
A new faith-based organization has the tools to give old guns new life.
In late August, during a week when the nation experienced its 339th mass shooting, a new faithbased coalition in Tarrant County announced that it was taking action. From 9am to noon on SatSun, citizens can bring unwanted (and unloaded) firearms in the trunk or rear of their car to the inaugural Guns to Gardens Safe-Disposal Event at two locations. Saturday’s location is in Fort Worth at the New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church (2864 Mississippi Av, 817-966-7625), and Sunday’s will be in Dallas at the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration (14115 Hillcrest Rd, 972-233-1898).
Both events are part of a new movement — a voluntary effort among citizens in about 25 states to reduce gun violence by disposing of unwanted guns in homes and communities. The goal: to
reduce the number of unwanted firearms found by children and youth; or used in a moment of personal or family crisis; or stolen and funneled into the illegal gun market or into the hands of a mass shooter.
“The transformation of a gun into a garden tool is a moment of healing for those in our community who have survived shootings or had loved ones die from gun violence,” said Rev. Allison Sandlin Liles, vicar of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Hurst and a leader of the project. “Over 43,000 deaths a year is not the way we want to live. We can do better, and we must do better.”
The U.S. Surgeon General indicates that gun violence is now the No. 1 killer of American children and youth. It has been the No. 1 killer of children of color since 2006. This coalition would like to change that.
“Anyone may bring unwanted and unloaded guns to be dismantled and made into garden tools,” said New Mount Rose pastor, Rev. Kyev Tatum. “For Christians, to follow Jesus is to work hard for healing. We are seeing far too many tragic suicides with guns, too many stolen guns, and far, far too many young lives being destroyed by the oversaturation of guns.”
Guns to Gardens provides a way to dispose of unwanted firearms without returning them to the gun marketplace, where they could be used for future harm.
Then what becomes of the donated guns?
Skilled personnel and volunteers will dismantle the weapons according to the rules of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, then the leftover parts will be transformed by artists and blacksmiths into art, jewelry, and garden tools.
Your donation will be anonymous. All guns must be unloaded, and no ammunition will be
accepted. Thank-you gift cards will be provided for working guns while supplies last in the amounts of $250 for semiautomatic AR platform-style assault weapons, $150 for semiautomatic handguns, and $50 for all other types of firearms (single shot, rifles, revolvers, pistols, and so on), plus there’s even a $25 gift card available for BB guns. For more information, follow the organization at Facebook.com/GunstoGardens.
By Elaine Wilder
on Fri, Sep 12, from 4pm to 7pm. This free celebration of German culture will feature cheerful music, delicious bites, and a chance to discover new favorites inspired by Deutschland’s rich culinary traditions. To fully embrace the spirit of the event, guests are encouraged to wear festive German attire. Attendees will receive a special coupon and commemorative shopping bag.
Little revelers are invited to attend the Kids’ Kinderkarneval Stroll on Sat, Sep 20 from 10am to 1pm. This free celebration is designed just for kids, with festive costumes encouraged to bring the spirit of Kinderkarneval to life. Along the stroll, children can enjoy hands-on activities, like designing their own shield, decorating a traditional Lebkuchen heart, completing a Germany map scavenger hunt, and painting a pumpkin. Each participant will receive a special coupon and commemorative shopping bag to take home.
Savor the Culture of Germany at Cooking School
The Central Market Cooking School is offering an exceptional lineup of Passport Germany
luck and fortune.
7.) Sauerbraten is a tangy-sweet, marinated beef roast, slow-braised in rich German tradition.
8.) As always, be sure to pick up a themed Shopping Tote. Central Market’s exclusive tote for Passport Germany – A fun play on “Hello” in German with a Texas twist.
A division of H-E-B, Central Market opened its doors in 1994 and now has ten store locations across North Texas, including Fort Worth (Chapel Hill Shopping Center) and Southlake (Shops of Southlake). A bountiful produce department with unmatched quality and variety, an 80-foot seafood case, hundreds of cheeses, 2,500 wine labels, and extensive specialty grocery aisles make the Central Market experience unique. For more information, follow us on Instagram (@ central_market), Twitter (@centralmarket), or visit us at CentralMarket.com. #CentralMarket #ReallyIntoFood.
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What’s going to happen to late-night TV in an age where time has no meaning?
BY DANNY GALLAGHER
Change is inevitable, especially with people’s media-viewing tastes and habits, but we seem to live in a weird time, when time itself no longer matters.
Late-night network television has had to contend with this phenomenon more than any other TV genre. Streaming services, including YouTube, Paramount+, Disney+, Hulu, and social media platforms, allow viewers to watch their favorite parts of their favorite late-night shows anytime they want. You don’t have to stay up late to watch your favorite late-night shows anymore.
I’m guilty of the same viewing habit. Every late-night show I watch regularly is in bits and pieces on my phone or computer. Daily shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and The Daily Show regularly post their hosts’ news monologues on YouTube just before airing each new episode. The rest of the nightly comedy segments, celebrity interviews, and musical performances pop up on YouTube and social media the following morning, just in time for my morning coffee. Even long-running Saturday Night Live posts nearly every portion of its weekend sketch show in separate chunks on YouTube.
This rising trend in viewing has pulled some viewers away from their televisions, but YouTube views aren’t empty calories for late-night shows’ Nielsen ratings. Nielsen measures who’s watching what on TV, cable, and online channels with its Total Audience Measurement data system. Even if literal TV viewing has dropped because of the internet, it’s still factored into ratings.
Still, streaming as a whole is clobbering its competition. As of July, a little more than 47% of adult viewers spent most of their time watching streaming services, according to Nielsen. Meanwhile, just 22% mostly watch cable, and 18% mostly watch broadcast or network television, including recorded shows on DVRs and TiVos. (Yes, they still exist.)
Now we find ourselves in a timeline where late-night network shows and maybe even cable late-night shows could be canceled without replacements. Late-night host-turned-hit podcaster Conan O’Brien, who returned to TV last year with HBO Max’s comedy travel show Conan O’Brien Must Go, said during his induction speech to the Television Academy Hall of Fame that late-night TV “as we have known it since around 1950 is going to disappear, but those voices are not going anywhere.”
First, CBS decided not to renew its late-night
panel show @After Midnight when host Taylor Tomlinson chose to leave the podium last year after building a sizable and younger following with her charm and wit and a crack writing staff led by comedian Jo Firestone.
Then, the unthinkable happened. Stephen Colbert announced last month that the network not only decided to cancel his Late Show but to kill its entire late-night schedule.
CBS won a massive bidding war in the 1990s to build its late-night timeslot, starting with The Late Show’s David Letterman in 1993. Letterman lengthened CBS’s late-night shelf by hiring Tom Snyder the following year to host the new Late Late Show, a timeslot that would turn from one-on-one conversations to late-night comedy starting with Craig Kilborn in 1999, followed by the brilliant Craig Ferguson from 2004 to 2015, and finally with James Corden from 2015 to 2023.
Do Colbert’s cancellation and @After Midnight’s conclusion mean that we’ll just see a test pattern from 10:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Central Time when we tune into CBS? No, it’s worse than that.
So far, CBS has been airing Bryon Allen’s Comics Unleashed, an unfunny syndicated
Now we find ourselves in a timeline where late-night network shows and maybe even cable latenight shows could be canceled without replacement.
roundtable talk show where Allen forces comics to tell their jokes by feeding them obvious setups. The network plans to run a second hour of Allen’s nightly promptfest once Colbert leaves his timeslot next May.
The late Norm MacDonald said Allen’s comedy show was where “you couldn’t be more leashed.”
The decision to cancel Colbert’s show was shocking due to its proximity to a merger with Skydance that required approval from the Federal Communications Commission. Trump’s tendency to weaponize every aspect of government to go after anyone who ever made a joke about him just made the decision more suspicious. CBS executive George Cheeks provided some perspective in a press conference, citing declining ad revenue and operational costs.
Cheeks’ response doesn’t clear the air. It just made things more confusing. Even if viewership was down, Colbert was still No. 1 in his timeslot, averaging more than 3 million views per week with a 12.51% audience share, according to TV Insider.
The most logical answer doesn’t lie in what’s leaving CBS’s timeslot. The answer lies in what’s replacing it. LateNighter reported shortly after the news of Colbert’s cancellation that CBS is leasing its late-night timeslots to Allen’s Entertainment Studios production company.
NBC’s late-night shows are still going fairly strong, especially Seth Meyers in his late timeslot, and Jimmy Kimmel regularly goes viral for baiting the president and his people with jokes.
The concept of late night can survive in this streaming climate, and its voices are still needed to preserve TV’s waning interest in holding leaders to a higher moral standard than comedians and keeping alive what little amount of satire we have left. Their presence in late-night time slots, however, probably won’t. Otherwise, it’ll have to start paying rent to the networks.
Also, if you’re thinking about writing an email or anonymous comment asking why Greg Gutfeld’s nightly and painfully unfunny comedy simile marathon on Fox News wasn’t factored into all this, don’t bother. His show starts a full hour in primetime before the agreed-upon late-night time block starts.
Time still has to mean something these days. l
By Living Local
Step into a diner on the edge of Fort Worth or a café tucked off a Dallas side street, and you’ll hear the same sort of talk. A cousin who’s left her job in retail and enrolled in a nursing program. A neighbor who’s trading construction shifts for a hospital floor. These conversations don’t come dressed up in slogans, they’re casual mentions between bites of pie or sips of coffee. Yet they mark a shift happening across Texas, a turn toward nursing that’s gathering quiet momentum.
What used to be a path chosen by a small fraction of people is now drawing in waitresses, ranch hands, recent graduates, even those eyeing second careers. Education is no longer a locked door. With Texas certified nurse midwife programs and other nursing tracks available online, the qualifications can be earned from the spare room of a rented apartment or a desk in a farmhouse. For many Texans, that means they can stay put, keep their family rhythms intact, and still carve out a future in healthcare. The distance between a dream and a license has narrowed, and that’s made all the difference.
Texans have always valued work that feels rooted in necessity. Nursing speaks to that in a way office jobs often don’t. It’s hands-on, visible, useful. Patients remember your name. Families look at you with a kind of raw gratitude that lingers long after the shift is over. The pull is strong because the rewards aren’t abstract. They’re lived and seen in real time.
This isn’t to say the choice is only about calling. It’s practical too. The population of Texas has surged, and with it the demand for healthcare. Hospitals aren’t shrinking. Clinics aren’t vanishing. When other industries dip and sway with markets, nursing holds steady. The promise of work tomorrow matters to people who’ve watched industries in their town dry up overnight.
One of the barriers that kept people away from nursing was the training itself. You couldn’t always pick up and move to study. Families, jobs, mortgages made it impossible. Online programs began to change that, offering coursework that fit around a person’s life rather than replacing it. A single father in El Paso could take classes after his kids went to bed. A retiree in Waco could log in from her kitchen table.
The shift in accessibility has been compared, sometimes jokingly, to when VHS first let people rent films and watch them at home. You no longer had to catch a showing at a specific time. You had control. Education in nursing has taken on that same shape: rigorous, yes, but flexible enough to slot into the working lives of ordinary Texans.
Another reason nursing attracts so many is the spread of options within it. You don’t sign on for one role and stay frozen there forever. You can work with children, focus on emergency care, or specialize in maternal health. Rural nurses often wear several hats in one day, while city nurses might hone in on a narrow specialty. That range means people see a career that can grow with them rather than lock them into a single mold. It also softens the fear of burnout. When one role wears thin, there’s room to shift into another. For a state the size of Texas, with its mix of urban bustle and rural isolation, that adaptability is a draw.
In the Panhandle, in the Hill Country, in the valleys close to the border, healthcare can be thin. A nurse in those regions isn’t just filling shifts. They’re often the backbone of care. Towns with small clinics rely on them in a way cities sometimes forget. Without them, residents drive hours for a check-up or go without care altogether.
Texans notice this. Many who step into nursing aren’t only chasing stable pay, they’re aware of what’s missing in their communities. They’ve watched relatives struggle to see a doctor. They’ve known neighbors who delay care because it’s too far or too costly. Nursing becomes not just a job, but a way of closing that gap.
Economic swings are familiar in Texas. Oil prices rise, fall, and with them go jobs. Technology firms hire in bursts, then cut back. Nursing sidesteps much of that volatility. Demand doesn’t disappear because people will always need care. For those who’ve lived through layoffs or industry collapses, the steadiness of nursing is compelling. It’s not glamorous, but it’s dependable.
The paychecks come, the benefits accumulate, and the career ladder stretches further than many expect. Nurse practitioners, midwives, specialized roles all add rungs for those who want to keep climbing. For Texans wary of uncertainty, the structure is appealing.
Nursing aligns with Texas values in ways that make sense once you see it up close. It’s service without fuss. It’s work you can take pride in, even
if nobody’s clapping you on the back for it. It’s practical, steady, tied to community. It doesn’t force people to abandon their homes or families. It lets them grow while staying rooted. There’s a scene in Friday Night Lights when Coach Taylor tells his team that it’s not about winning every game, it’s about showing up with clear eyes and full hearts. Nursing in Texas feels a lot like that. It’s less about glory and more about presence. Being there when people need you, holding the line when others can’t. That’s the appeal, plain and simple.
Read more at FWWeekly.com. For more promotional information, use the QR below or visit OnlineNursing.Baylor.edu/Programs/ DNP-Midwifery.
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