Maggie's Farm

I have the expert word on the diagnosis of the hawk Gwynnie captured on camera the other day: "Cooper's vs. Sharpie? Impossible to tell from the angles of the photos. Nice photos, though."

Two males and a female, in their breeding plumage already. A reader in CT took this shot on the 31st on a stream-fed pond in southern CT. (No idea why it isn't frozen over. Maybe brackish.)

You can read about the fine Hooded Merganser here. I don't shoot Hoodies, but I know folks who will shoot the males for mounts. I think a photo is better.

From guest poster Bruce Kesler:

There are better states of “peace” and lesser ones.  A better peace is one that leads to or allows increases in mutual safety and respect; a lesser peace increases the security risks and leads to or allows more or larger conflict and suffering.

If that critical distinction is not understood, dictating decisions, then by default a lesser peace will result as actions are taken that undermine the focus and measures necessary for a better peace.

The primary element needed for a better peace is recognition by all sides that it is preferable to the alternatives.  This may require one side to lead the other to this thinking, and that thinking to be reinforced.

Sometimes, either sooner or later, or more usually as a last resort, this will require the side desiring a better peace to take forceful action, including armed ones.

That has always been the regretful but necessary course by Israel since its founding.

Successfully and decisively fending off repeated attacks by neighboring Arab states, soundly defeating them, Jordan and Egypt finally accepted the sense of a better peace with Israel.  The intervention of Iran and Syria into Lebanon’s nascent better peace with Israel, via their Hizbullah proxy, destroyed that better peace.  But, although Israel’s 2006 incursion into Lebanon was far from decisive, and Hizbullah has rearmed to more lethal levels than before, Hizbullah was severely bloodied and has restrained armed and missile attacks on Israel longer than most expected.

Within, Israel has tried to neutralize the enmity of Palestinians through raising their economics and education above that in Arab countries, succeeding in that but it failing to prevail against the power-lusting thuggery of almost all Palestinian leadership from 1967 to now who see greater personal advantage and profit from encouraging the hate that entrenches their position.  Even exiting Gaza, trying to have constructive trade and relations with it, failed to create a better peace as the most extreme of major Palestinian factions – Hamas – forcefully took control and destroyed all facets of external cooperation and internal development, further endangering Israel by thousands of terror missile and mortar attacks moving deeper into Israel till now about 700,000 in Israel are within range.

The West, particularly the US, has properly labeled Hamas as the primary culprit in Gaza’s downward spiral, and its targeting by Israel’s restrained and focused retaliations.  But, at the same time, the West has insisted on allowing flows of “humanitarian” food and medical supplies to enter Gaza, including from Israel.  This relieves suffering, but both through waylaying by Hamas for its own benefit and through reducing Gazan’s need to demand compromise or have hostility toward Hamas, it has contradicted the quest for a better peace.  Even now, during active hostilities, this Western demand continues.

It is harsh but necessary that all supplies to Gaza be cut off during present circumstances.  That is war.

Israel, it is said by all observers, cannot realistically afford to nor hope to eradicate Hamas.  But, it – with the West’s support – can at least hope to so bloody and weaken Hamas as to possibly – not probably, but better prospects than any other alternative – create conditions for a better peace through so weakening Hamas’ stranglehold on Gaza as to allow the opening for Gazans with Arab states’ active involvement to develop a better peace of security and respect under the realistic deterrence of facing a sharp sword of retaliation.

Along with a complete cutoff of external supplies, it may be necessary for Israel to launch a short land offensive into Gaza to further uproot Hamas strongpoints and infrastructure, to drive the point home that Hamas dare not face Israel’s purposeful and firm deterrence measures.

Stopping now, especially when the point is not sufficiently driven home, and appearing to kowtow to misled pacifist demands from the West, will only accomplish a disrespect for Israel’s deterrence and lead to another shorter-lived lesser peace.

Although, according to the latest Rasmussen poll, only 31% of Democrats back Israel’s choice to take military action in Gaza (75% of Republicans do), ironically soon to be president Barack Obama can right now provide the voice that can lead to a better peace.  Obama’s coy silence fosters Hamas’hope or expectation that a soon less resolved US will, in effect, save its necks by demanding Israel halt its attacks on Hamas.  If Obama would forcefully speak out now in favor of Israel’s measures and express his determination to continue to do so until Hamas assuredly ceases its missile attacks upon Israel, Obama could both prevent the necessity of Israeli troops having to enter Gaza and persuade Hamas that it can only lose more by its intransigence.  A better peace could emerge.

That would be real hope and change all would welcome.

Finally saw Shawshank Redemption. Very sorry I hadn't seen it before, but I don't see very many movies.

Best lines from Red (paraphrased):

"At first you hate these walls, then you get used to them. Finally, you get dependent on them. It's called institutionalization."

One good clip:

From 2006, with the above title. Linda Kimball begins:

There are two misconceptions held by many Americans. The first is that communism ceased to be a threat when the Soviet Union imploded. The second is that the New Left of the Sixties collapsed and disappeared as well. “The Sixties are dead,” wrote columnist George Will (Slamming the Doors, Newsweek, Mar. 25, 1991)

Because the New Left lacked cohesion it fell apart as a political movement. However, its revolutionaries reorganized themselves into a multitude of single issue groups. Thus we now have for example, radical feminists, black extremists, anti-war ‘peace’ activists, animal rights groups, radical environmentalists, and ‘gay’ rights groups. All of these groups pursue their piece of the radical agenda through a complex network of subversive organizations such as the Gay Straight Lesbian Educators Network (GSLEN), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), People for the American Way, United for Peace and Justice, Planned Parenthood, Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), and Code Pink for Peace.

Read the whole thing.

Today, the Jokerman seems like Father Time.

Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers
In the smoke of the twilight on a milk-white steed
Michelangeo indeed could've carved out your features
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face.

Audio only. Full lyrics here.