The best squirrel yet (compared to these two, anyway), plus a subpar photo of a butterfly. The butterfly happened to fold its wings up a split-second before I took this. Stupid bug.
The squirrel at least had the sense to hold still. It even held still after my flash went off. (Note the glowing eye. I'm trying to pass this off as if it was due to Pure Evil on the squrrel's part, but really it's just the flash.) That's what happens when you have no natural predators, I guess.
The title of this post is not to be confused with "Dog & Butterfly", the old Heart song (& album). Nor should it be confused with "Moose & Squirrel". If you came here looking for "Iron Butterfly", I don't have much to offer you here either. You also shouldn't confuse it with "Butterfly & Panda", supposing there was a reason to.
Do you get the sense that I'm stalling here? That I'm playing for time by sticking to the very lightest & fluffiest of subjects? Like there's something I ought to say but I'm not looking forward to saying? You'd be right about that, and I'm very reluctant to go there, so let's try to get this over with. I'll try to keep it to a paragraph, or at most two paragraphs, and then I'm done talking about it. (I hope.)
I'm concerned about the current Israel-n-friends vs. Hezbollah-n-friends conflict. I honestly don't see any solution to it. The status quo ante bellum was unsustainable. The fact that it eventually broke down is all the proof we need about that part. In the current conflict I see no viable way for either party to "win", or to reach a stable ceasefire deal. When it's not hardline apocalyptic rhetoric, it's tired decades-old ideological slogans. And they all mean the same thing: Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people will die for no good reason. Maybe another generation or two or ten down the road they'll finally get sick of killing one another. Or at least stop enjoying it so damn much.
You wouldn't think the preceding paragraph would be controversial stuff, but any mention of the Middle East, no matter how innocuous, always attracts the psycho crazies. Sometimes you get bloodthirsty Nile-to-Euphrates neocons who want the US to nuke Iran right this minute, and maybe Syria too, and the Palestinians, and Saudi Arabia too while we're at it, and you're a goose-stepping Nazi if you disagree even a little. (Curiously, these people only seem to exist on the net, and on talking head shows on TV, and in a few magazines nobody reads outside the Beltway.) Other times you get apocalyptic Bible-thumpin' fundies who know for certain that the End is near, for real this time, honest, not like last time around, and you're going to Hell if you disagree even a little. I haven't gotten any wild-eyed crazies from the other side here just yet, but I know they're out there, squatting in their caves, plotting to behead every infidel on the planet, or at least as many as they can before their arms get tired. So basically we're replicating the current war (well, the nutty, pointless rhetoric of the current war) in the blogosphere. I'm on nobody's side. I really, really have no interest in "debating" any of these people, so I think that for the first time I'm going to check the "No" box for "Allow New Comments on This Post". If you fall into any of the above categories, go get your own damn blog. It's so easy these days, even you should be able to figure it out.
There. I'm done now. Rant over. Maybe you'll want to scroll back up and look at those cute animal photos again. I know I will.
