Bad Poetry: Small Beautiful Butterflies

(Prompted by https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/2025/08/friday-writings-191-small-but-beautiful.html ) 

The large to giant, showy Swallowtails

and Birdwings always catch everyone's eyes

yet smaller eyes find just as much to admire

on the small wings of tiny butterflies.

[photo: donated to Wikipedia by National Digital Library of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service ]

This one has orange spots to rouse desire

wherever, following scent trails, she flies

attracting plain blue-winged little males

to places where blue lupines catch her eyes.

[photo: MassAudubon.org]

Meanwhile this species' females may have blue

spots on orange wings; they use them the same way,

except that, unlike Karner's Blue ones, they

eat more than one thing; always choose "weeds," too.

Obligingly, this minuscule insect

likes several plants that humans don't protect.

At the rate we're going it'll take this web site years to get to a study of the little Blue and Copper butterflies. Just like the Swallowtails, they either ignore or actively help plants of interest to humans. They're much easier to photograph than Swallowtails. Possibly because nobody feels proud of having caught a good photo of a Blue or Copper, they are currently very under-documented on science sites. Each of their wings is, in real life, about the size of a human fingernail. They are global, with different species in different places, but scientists think the most common species were inadvertently introduced to new places as humans travelled until species like the Common Copper became almost cosmopolitan.

The Karner Blue species, in which males are plain blue and females have orange spots, is endangered. Conservation efforts have included naming it as the State butterfly of New Hampshire.

Book Review: A Lesson in Murder

Title: A Lesson in Murder

Author: Maya Wong

Date: 2023

Quote: "Alice...and Sarah...made a pretty good team."

Women as Best Friends Forever has been a popular motif in fiction for thirty or forty years now. Some people want to be different. Is Betrayal by a Best Friend from Childhood a fresh new motif? Meh. It could be part of a misogynist backlash. 

Alice is Black and, apparently, an extrovert. Sarah is blonde and an introvert. Sarah's father and brother died when she was young; Alice's father filled part of the hole they left in Sarah's heart. Now he's been murdered, and Sarah's old friend Jacob, still single and attractive, comes back into her life as the police detective who's there to help solve the murder. Alice is too emotional to work with him. Sarah is not.

Jacob arrests a murderer...but whose? Did he really have a motive or an opportunity to murder Alice's father? If he didn't, then who did? And what happened to Sarah's father, anyway? 

Meh. This novel is tersely written. I'm not saying it was written by a computer, but I am saying it lacks the strong narrative voice that would persuade publishers to read it in an historical era when efforts to market automatic "writing" (meaning plagiarism) computer programs, which are not intelligence, are making life more difficult than ever for writers. 

It is not, as Wong claims, a cozy mystery. It's a clean mystery in the sense that Sarah doesn't have to look at bleeding wounds or deal with child molesters, but it's a grim, ugly story with a lot of murder victims even if we never see the murder victims "onstage." 

Web Log for 8.20.25

If this post is short, late, etc., blame the Edge of Hurricane Erin, supposed to be pounding the Atlantic coast as I type. Outside a storm is brewing. Electricity may go out again...

Animals

Something else to worry about? (Maybe.) 

Photo by John Scalzi, who said (it's been about a year) that he found it on a window screen two storeys above the ground. 

I call'm flopworms. They are a species of earthworm, but they are to the earthworm family what the Mexican Bean Beetle is to the ladybeetle family. That is: other earthworms are good to have in the garden (as are other ladybeetles, even the dull-colored Asian kind that can be such a nuisance), but this species, like the Bean Beetle, you don't want. Instead of burrowing down to aerate the soil and help it nourish plants, flopworms stay on the surface, eating the good stuff--the humus--and often leaving the rest of the topsoil less fertile, more clayey or sandy, and thus able to support fewer plants.

They're much more often seen than other earthworms, for obvious reasons. Their segments are much less clearly marked. Where I live they're skinnier than other earthworms. Instead of trying to get back into the ground, if turned up on a sunny day, flopworms flop and thrash madly about. Presumably in Australia this mimics the behavior of something the flopworm's predators don't want to eat. They usually bounce only a few inches up into the air but, depending on how rough the surface of a building is and whether it has accumulations of humus in its crevices, they could in theory flop their way up to the second storey--without having any idea that that was what they were doing. They are very primitive organisms, no eyes, no teeth, hardly enough nerves to form anything that can be called a brain, and not enough sense to burrow deeper than their predators can. In a world of worm-eating animals, that surprising flop is their only defense. 

One of Scalzi's readers said the animal he photographed lacked the collarlike band called the clitellum that identifies the front half of an earthworm. If you magnify the photo you can see the clitellum. It's less clearly marked on flopworms than it is on our native earthworm species. The clitellum is part of a segmented worm's reproductive system and may not be noticeable on very young individuals.

Helpless and pitiful as a flopworm is, it's a kill-on-sight species in North America. No, don't try to poison it. Just chop or crush it into very small pieces. Don't leave an intact half that could regrow its other end. Grease-eating ants will eat the pieces, once they've stopped flopping and the ants can carry them. 

Microsoft 

Is this hubris, or is it extreme, unprecedented, steroidal hubris?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/servicesagreement/upcoming

Let's all demand that Congress order a revision specifying, among other things, 

*That Microsoft is not allowed to interfere with the operation of privately owned computers by allowing input from people other than the owner and the people or sites with whom the owner is interacting to be processed while the computer is in use. 

* That if you're doing something with your computer and Microsoft decides to shut down what you're doing in order to "update" some program you never even use, Microsoft owes you $100 for the first second and $100 for every second thereafter. 

* That nothing and nobody may legally "use your camera" or "use your microphone" without a specific keyboard command from you, and if companies do, you can sue the shirts off their backs. 

* That if Microsoft uses your content without your express written consent, even if you posted the content free for everyone to use and specifically encouraged everyone to share it far and wide (like Petfinder photos), Microsoft owes you not less than $1000 if it prints on one or two pages, more if it's a long document or if any living person's face or voice can be identified on it. 

* That if Microsoft sells any information about you or your content, 75% of whatever the buyer paid is your money.

* That it's none of Microsoft's business how many people use a device or program, except that, in the interests of conserving resources and making it harder to identify real people from cyberspace, the more the better. 

* That Microsoft is not allowed to store strings of nine or ten digits (in the US), for the express purpose of preventing Microsoft from asking people for Social Security numbers or, if phones survive, phone numbers; and Microsoft is not allowed to ask for your real name, home address, or date of birth, either. 

* That Microsoft is responsible for allowing, if not encouraging, people to publish content that is illegal--offering illegal products or services for sale, posting specific realistic threats, publishing libellous stories--in order to make it easier for the relevant laws to be enforced.

* That if Bing is a search engine, it must show ALL search results even if there are a million or more (it's up to researchers to narrow their searches), and if it sorts search results in a way that allows people to pay to be at the top of the search page, it must refer to itself as an advertising search engine and must not attempt to compete with serious search engines.

* That Microsoft is licensed to provide services to computer owners for so long as Microsoft is able to provide such services ethically, which includes not promoting waste by attempting to force sales of new products; so, Microsoft's license to sell its snazzy new toys depends on its ability to work with Wang, Lanier, Tandy, and other brands most people in cyberspace today can't even remember, and may be forfeited if an unacceptable number of computers--say, more than the number of floods and fires in a given State in a given year--are declared unusable. 

* That people who pay for computer programs own them in the same sense they own books or records: They can't claim to be the authors, publishers, performers, etc., and they can't republish them for profit without those people's consent, but they can use them for their own benefit for the lifetime of the software manufacturer's license to sell software. Nobody would ever dare to say that, if you still have Old Dan's Victrola and a needle, you can't dig out Old Dan's records and dance all night to the 78s; no company should ever have dared to say that, if you have a computer for which you have built or bought a program that does X, Y, and Z today, you can't use that program to do X, Y, and Z next year, either.

Music 

Content warning: Lightfoot. I actually liked Lightfoot. I know some readers didn't. Sorry. You don't have to click.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8weeAbz_4Y

Meanwhile, let's all get to know Linux. Microsoft is too big for its britches and probably needs to be broken up, like Bell or Standard Oil. 

Book Review: Jake's Grumpy Cabin

Title: Jake's Grumpy Cabin

Author: Anna Christie

Date: 2023

Quote: ""Am I tickling you?" "More like tickling my funny bone!""

If you think romances are not to be taken seriously, you might like this one. Start with the title. A cabin can't be grumpy; only the people in it can be. They're not. Jake has avoided involvement with women after an early infatuation with a woman who cheated his family out of money, but he likes "Little Miss Summertime Tourist" from the minute he meets her on one of his infrequent trips into Talkeetna. In less time than it would take real-world acquaintances to form a clear memory of each other's names, he's thinking about "love" and she's ready to move into the cabin. It's a sweet romance because the story is short and breaks off before they're actually shacked or cabinned up together. 

Early in the story Emma confides to readers that she's always told students never to go from Point A to Point B with a stranger if Point A is "safe" but, looking at Jake, she's willing to go to Point C if he asks her. That's what this story is all about. The characters know, as the reader must know, that they've not found True Love yet. They are in love with love--more realistically, with their own hormones. Acting out the feelings, at this stage, is the way people used to get into altruistic marriages with people they soon realized they'd never really liked very much. Sometimes when they got to know one another they realized they'd ruined their lives. But this is strictly a fantasy. All we really see them doing is enjoying each other's appeal as a piece of exotica. For Jake being in town, even Talkeetna, is a novelty; for Emma being in Alaska is a novelty. In Alaska summer is a bit of a novelty. Swoon.

The unreality of this story is its charm. It wouldn't sell me a series but then, rare for a Book Funnel book, it's not trying to sell a series. It did tickle my funny bone. 

Web Log for 8.19.25

Sorry, nothing really cute and fluffy turned up today...

Clue for the Clueless 

Seen chez Messy Mimi.  Lens has no idea where it first appeared. 

Poem 

Public domain, since the author's long dead: G.K. Chesterton on "planners":

"

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe decrease
By cautious birth-control and die in peace)
Mellow with learning lightly took the word
That marked him not with them that love the Lord,
And told the angel of the book and pen
“Write me as one that loves his fellow-men:
For them alone I labour; to reclaim
The ragged roaming Bedouin and to tame
To ordered service; to uproot their vine
Who mock the Prophet, being mad with wine,
Let daylight through their tents and through their lives,
Number their camels, even count their wives,
Plot out the desert into streets and squares;
And count it a more fruitful work than theirs
Who lift a vain and visionary love
To your vague Allah in the skies above.”
Gently replied the angel of the pen:
“Labour in peace and love your fellow-men:
And love not God, since men alone are dear,

Only fear God; for you have cause to fear.”

"

Politics

Should e-mail services send Republican fundraising e-mail directly to the spam folder? Afaic they should send all fundraising e-mail from any party or organization directly to the spam folder. There should be a simple setting on the e-mail screen. People sending bulk e-mail should have to identify whether it asks people for money or not, and people receiving e-mail should have the option of not even seeing the bulk e-mails that ask us for money. But if Google's doing it without asking the people who receive the e-mail, and doing it selectively to one party, I think that's illegal...

https://pjmedia.com/bryan-s-jung/2025/08/19/google-accused-of-sending-gop-fundraisers-directly-to-spam-n4942682

Book Review: Kidnapping Leads to Family Secrets

Title: Kidnapping Leads to Family Secrets 

Author: Ashleigh Collins

Date: 2023

Quote: "I started to hear multiple voices."

A woman with "psychic powers" called Sarah works with a police detective called Isaac in the ser'd es of which this mini-book is the short volume used to attract readers to longer ones. Sarah feels "positive" emotions in a house one minute, sadder voices "crawling through the walls" the next minute, as they search for clues to a kidnapping. Finding the victim will lead to some unpleasant revelations. It's a cozy mystery in the sense that everyone, including the victim, is still alive at the end.

In real life "psychics" who volunteer to help solve cases don't have a higher success rate than people who admit they're guessing. If you'd like to read a series of cozy mysteries in which psychic powers are real, you'll want this series.

Books I Read in School and Liked

As Virginia school terms begin, this week's Long & Short Reviews prompt asks reviewers to list books we read at school and liked. Should be some nice long lists...

They were "suggestions" or "recommendations" at least up to grade nine, and I didn't read all of them at school. Beginning at the beginning of memory makes this a list of books I liked as a child. I liked some of these books later in life, but I read them for the first time in or before grade four. (That's where I reached number ten.) So this blog post doesn't get into high school and college lists, and even recommendations from John Holt, who was a family pen friend and recommended some delightful books. 

1. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey 

I read English prose translations for children. I think that's an acceptable way to read these stories. They are more the sort of action-adventure stories six-year-olds enjoy than the sort of poems adults write or read now. Pre-literary oral tradition and all that. Homer may have been a real individual, and as he was blind someone may have written down lines of poetry he dictated. Still, these stories were written to be read aloud, probably chanted, memorized, recited, by the town book collector, to a crowd of little gigglers and wigglers clustered around him.

2. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales 

First I read the Little Golden Book Encyclopedia article that explained about Chaucer's spelling. Then I read, at relatives' home, somebody's old literature book that had a revised-and-simplified version of the Nun's Priest's Tale (Chauntecler and Pertelote) in it. A poem about chickens! My pets were chickens, at age six, so I liked that. So then in high school and college I worked my way slowly through the rest of the book, being old enough by then to appreciate the other Tales, which are not about chickens. 

3. Louisa May Alcott's Little Men 

 And then, through it, her other children's books. Little Men was one of a very few chapter books we were allowed to read in the classroom in grade three. 

4. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress 

Robert Lawson had just illustrated a beautiful kiddie version that all the libraries had when I entered grade four. Some time that year I read and liked that book. In grade nine I spent my own money on a paperback copy of the original book. I liked it even better than the picture-book version, and that's saying a lot because Lawson did excellent illustrations. 

So then in college I read Bunyan's other books. Well, he was writing to Christians only and I don't blame the non-Christians who don't like Bunyan, but a good case can be made that they ought to have to read him anyway because he was a good writer. 

5. Norton Juster's Phantom Tollbooth 

At the school where I did grade four, homeroom teachers taught all the other subjects but reading classes were divided by ability and rotated among teachers, so each student got to work with each teacher for part of the year. One of the teachers used The Phantom Tollbooth as the textbook, and had the whole classroom decorated with references to that book. I appreciated her more than some kids did. I reported to Mother at home, "The Phantom Tollbooth is like The Pilgrim's Progress, only about school stuff instead of religious ideas." 

6. Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote 

In English of course. What does it say for US culture that most public libraries don't have the original Spanish text of this book? I read a twentieth century translation but it's worth mentioning that an earlier translation, widely circulated in England and colonies, was the origin of dozens of phrases that sound as if they came from the Bible or Shakespeare but didn't. Anyway, I read the story with the windmills in it in another old high school literature book, when I was in primary school, and read the whole book as an adult. It should have been required in college, but wasn't. 

7. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods, et seq. 

The complete set with Garth Williams' illustrations was still new. Every library wanted it. One of my teachers read the first chapter aloud to the class. There was a new TV series based on the books. Then Rose Wilder Lane died, and her heirs turned the TV series into something different. In the books, as in real life, Laura grew up and married Almanzo in South Dakota and she admired him because he made the difficult trip to bring the wheat to his hungry townsfolk during The Long Winter. The books Laura actually wrote don't even mention the family's moving back to Missouri after The First Four Years. Rose was born in South Dakota. In the TV show, Missouri looks more like California, so it was easier to do shows set in Missouri, so the Ingalls and Wilder family were moved back to Missouri before Laura and Almanzo were married. And even though some of the TV episodes were based on family memories from Missouri, others were clearly fiction about 1970s issues spliced into the Ingalls family's history. So my parents weren't really keen on the TV show, though they did let us watch it when we were near a TV set. But when my grandmother, Texas Ruby, read On the Banks of Plum Creek she said to me, "This is a good book; it's about the real Wild West." 

8. Marguerite Henry's King of the Wind (and dozens more) 

Marguerite Henry was an industry in the mid-twentieth century. She wanted to learn about horses, so she wrote a first book about horses from research. It sold. She wrote a book about horses, or donkeys, or dogs, for children, I think every year after that for the rest of her life. The one that won the Newbery and was recommended by a third grade textbook was King of the Wind, the story about the smaller Arabian horse who showed English horse breeders that slightly smaller horses could run faster than the huge ones they'd been breeding. If there was a book Henry wrote about publishers started printing her stories as coffee-table books, with illustrations, some in color, by Wesley Dennis, my brother and I had to read it and competed to find it first. I think we may have succeeded in reading them all. All of them deserve reprinting, with all the original illustrations, please. My brother credited his ability to draw recognizable pet portraits to his diligent copying of illustrations by Wesley Dennis. 

9. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels 

I saw a kiddie version of this and was underwhelmed, in primary school. In grade six or seven I found a copy of the original book and liked it much better. 

 10. Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl 

Mr. Ed., who taught everyone in my fourth grade class all the arithmetic we'd ever need, also taught us about the World War. He'd been in it. Anything he didn't like reminded him of Germany though he seemed to have served in the Pacific. I didn't like Mr. Ed. and thought there might have been something to be said for the Germans. My parents didn't say anything about this directly, but Dad brought home a copy of Anne Frank's Diary, translated into English. It gave me an understanding that Dad and Mr. Ed. had enlisted in the same army to fight the same war, and if I'd been alive at the time I would have been on their side too. 

Of course there always was some controversy whether Anne really wrote it or her bereft father did, but the Diary itself describes how Anne started keeping it as a war memoir, how her parents helped her edit her handwritten diaries in hope of eventual publication. It reads like something a teenager would write with lots of adult help; compare with Helen Keller's Story of My Life, Ellen White's Early Writings, Rahul Alvares' Free from School. I believe it's mostly Anne's.

Web Log for 8.18.25

Butterflies, Even More 

Alana Mautone spotted a Giant Swallowtail! I wonder how it strayed into upstate New York? This web site may get to it some time next year.

https://ramblinwitham.blogspot.com/2025/08/giant-swallowtail-wordlesswednesday.html

"Find the hidden picture" of the well camouflaged English butterfly called the Grayling:

http://eastsussexwanderer.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-grayling.html

Health News 

Have you had, or known someone who had, an unexplained chronic skin rash? 

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/28779/whistleblower-dr-marvin-rapaport-exposes

Mental Illness, Underdiagnosed in Males 

What goes on in many dysfunctional families: Man starts a quarrel, possibly as part of the Anger Addiction that is a very common part of male cardiovascular disease and a very rare part of any disease females get. (Granted, a small number of women do get those diseases--but that's beside the point.) Man keeps up the quarrel, dragging in old unrelated issues that "push buttons," until both parties are yelling angrily and making no sense. And then man makes the quarrel public in some way, whether by physically running out onto the street or by recording or even broadcasting it. Woman can tell when this is happening because man suddenly pulls himself together and tries to sound like the Voice of Reason while woman is still yelling and "paying back." Witnesses or recordings will then be called in as evidence associating this woman with that "unstable because female" stereotype. 

We need to stop enabling these men. Even if there is anything wrong with this woman beyond her frustration with a relationship of economic dependency, and probably cravings for "love," with a man who hates her; even if she feels that she has emotional problems when this man is off the scene. Those things may be true but they're not relevant. What we need to say loudly and clearly is: "Stereotyping women in this hateful way is not acceptable. If the man said anything that suggests that he thinks he's in any way qualified to evaluate the woman's competence or intelligence, he is a MadMan and must spend a week in psychiatric evaluation, from which the best outcome he can ever hope for is a year of probation with mandatory counselling." 

The MadMan in this X video said the C word. That's it. That's all. Noel Martin (she published her name on the Internet when suing the man who made the video) may or may not want, or need, or actually be receiving, psychological help for herself; that's not made clear. What is made clear in the video is that a MadMan was intentionally provoking her with a sexist hatespew. He is the one who needs a few months of psychological help before he can be allowed to return to the park.

https://x.com/PDXReal1/status/1955021827920761196

Politics, Philosophies of 

Shared by Neithan Hador at the Meow. X shows @EndWokeness to people known to follow "conservative" content. That's not much of a recommendation for @EndWokeness, but this particular comment seemed worth sharing. 

Bad Poetry Limerick

(Written on Monday, going live on Tuesday.)

This limerick was suggested by several sources:

1. Today is "Bad Poetry Day."

2.  "Write a limerick that begins with the letter I."

3. "Write a poem or short-short essay on the subject of 'Power'."

If criticism's stolen your power

(Saying your verse is bad) for an hour,

Proclaim, "Yes, it is Bad!

I admit it! I'm glad!"

To reclaim your own poetic power.

Book Review: Donna's Detour

Title: Donna's Detour 

Author: Jo Huddleston

Date: 2016

Publisher: Forget Me Not

Quote: "It was definitely the perfect guy she feasted her eyes on."

Donna's always had a crush on Tommy, but never made herself a pest about it, because he was her brother's best friend. Tommy's always felt sweet on Donna, but never wanted to intimidate her with his feelings, because he was her brother's best friend. Donna has moved to the town of Needles, California, which can still be perceived as a wild and dangerous place with all those riffraff driving through on the highway, because it's 1956. Can this couple get together?

Well, it's 1956, so the first step is to move Donna back to the town where Tommy works. Of course, Tommy asks her paternalistic employer for permission first, promising to take care of her. Then Tommy finds her a job in the company where he works. They are officially "just" friends, but co-workers buzz about the erotic tension between them. Distracting, barks the boss. One of them has to go and, this being 1956, it has to be the woman who's fired. On a Friday the boss orders Tommy to tell Donna not to come to work on the Monday. But of course, this being 1956, this only speeds up their romance.

When young women express ingratitude for the feminist movement (pointing to the extremists in the movement), this book may serve as a corrective. It's cringe, cringe, cringe, but it's historically accurate. If anything Donna is less harmed by 1950s misogyny than the average girl was/

Petfinder Post: Sunday Was Black Cat Appreciation Day

Once again we celebrate the black cats and dogs who tend to fade into the background in a traditional shelter, and are so hard to photograph. Good clear photos of black animals deserve celebration.

Because melanin bonds chemically with adrenalin, it makes logical sense that animals with black coats are often especially lively, energetic, entertaining pets. There's no such obvious reason for the observed tendency of animals with black coats to be especially cuddly pets. These two observations may explain the old saying that black cats bring good luck; having an entertaining and affectionate pet surely qualifies as good luck.

What about the other old saying that black cats bring bad luck? Well...in the past France and England did a lot of bickering about the balances of power and trade, and in the nineteenth century England was clearly ahead. If the English thought black cats brought good luck and tried to keep one on every ship for that reason, people who didn't think victory for the British Navy was good news...I don't know. That's speculation. 

Anyway the only scientific validity in either of these superstitions is that black cats tend to have what it takes to be what many people consider especially good pets. No generalization is always true. If black cats are sick they won't be very amusing, and if they've been mistreated they may not want to cuddle up with humans...but most of them are and do.

This week's bonus was suggested by an e-friend who lost a parrot. Many parrots don't particularly like their humans, and make it obvious, but when they like a human they make that obvious too. Green parrots are usually favored as decorative objects; gray ones, a different species, seem "smarter," more likely to learn enough words in a human language to carry on actual conversations with humans. Like the apes who've learned to converse with humans in sign language, parrots don't do a lot of abstract or theoretical thinking; they do make intelligent comments on what's going on. My e-friend wrote that (maybe) parrots shouldn't be kept as pets at all. "They're too smart. They love too much." Wild parrots live in flocks and don't relate to humans, so if parrots weren't kept as pets we wouldn't know how intelligent and devoted they can be, but...

Anyway, he said, he wasn't looking for another parrot unless someday he heard of one that needed rescuing. This I can understand. When you've lost a pet you loved it can be hard not to compare other animals with it, unfavorably, and some animals are intelligent enough to be hurt by this. If the next animal who shares your life was not part of the family along with the departed pet, the next best thing may be for it to belong to a different species, or at least have a completely different look, so that those comparisons don't leap to mind so easily. Of course it's not the animal you miss. It's just a poor creature that needed a home.

At a Cat Sanctuary it's hard to rescue birds, but it is about time we recognized that birds are some people's beloved pets too. Birds--chickens--were my first pets. So this week's post will include some adoptable birds.

First the cats...

Zipcode 10101: Beatnik from NYC 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/beatnik-76930256/ny/new-york/harlem-cats-ny1437/

He's described as a mellow cat who doesn't mind sharing a human with other pets. He is an adult neutered male who's had some veterinary care.

Zipcode 20202: Pandora's Kitten Chaos from DC 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/pandoras-kitten-chaos-77447015/dc/washington/city-dogs-city-kitties-rescue-dc22/ 

His brother (Havoc)'s web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/pandoras-kitten-havoc-77447013/dc/washington/city-dogs-city-kitties-rescue-dc22/

And Pandora herself: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/pandora-77447016/dc/washington/city-dogs-city-kitties-rescue-dc22/

They're described as a fairly typical cat family. Calm, friendly, even cuddly mother and two frisky kittens who need a playroom. If separated the little guys must be adopted by people who live with another friendly feline, because kittens need someone to play with. 

Zipcode 30303: Silky from Atlanta 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/silky-elegant-black-young-female-needs-a-home-74288635/ga/atlanta/a-welcome-home-animal-rescue-ga662/

Part Abyssinian, so with decent care she should remain slim, silky, and just a bit "special" (in a good way--you'll be able to pick her out in a crowd of black cats). Silky is described as a stereotypical black cat, frisky and snuggly.

"Jellicle Cats are white and black,

Jellicle Cats are small,

Jellicles jump like a jumping jack..."

The dogs...

Zipcode 10101: Frankie from Puerto Rico by way of NYC 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/frankie-i-love-to-cuddle-76771594/ny/new-york/miracles-for-satos-rescue-ny1518/

They think he's mostly Chihuahua with, obviously, some other kind of small fluffy dog in his unknown family tree. He's a lucky mix! No super-long facial hair to abrade his eyes, but enough super-long body hair to satisfy anybody's needs for fluff to cuddle and comb. He is said to love to snuggle. He is even said to like other dogs. Why was he listed for adoption long enough for his photo to slide off the front page? Because he's still in PR. The shelter staff want to know about you before they pay for him to be brought to the mainland. So you'll use discretion in answering questions and make no payments in advance.

Zipcode 20202: Tassels from Alexandria 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/tassels-76935597/va/alexandria/operation-paws-for-homes-va600/

Tassels came to the shelter in need of veterinary care. Apparently they've focussed on curing treatable diseases rather than on teaching her tricks, but she seems to be more poodle than anything else and should be able to learn. Her full-body photo is not clear enough to be a contest winner but she does have an adorable black and white fleck bib. 

Zipcode 30303: Bingo from Houston, Texas 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/bingo-77841784/ga/atlanta/waiting-under-the-willow-foundation-wuwf-rescue-tx2467/

Nothing is known and nobody is even trying to guess about this dog's ancestry. He is just a dog, and apparently a fine one. Not even a year old yet, he's reported to be crate-trained, potty-trained, good at walking beside a human or riding in a car, well behaved around cats, other dogs, and children, and able to "sit" on command. They're sure he'll learn other conmands as quickly as he's learned all of this. He weighs about 40 pounds. 

And the birds...

Zipcode 10101: The Four Friends from New Jersey 

Their web page: https://www.petfinder.com/bird/4-friends-77654885/nj/cream-ridge/kind-heart-rescue-nj86/

The black one is an Easter Egger; she doesn't have the distinctive lethal-gene look of an Araucana but she lays blue-shelled eggs. The other three are Barred Rocks, not very easy to tell apart. Barred Rocks are considered a meat-producing more than an egg-producing breed but they do lay eggs and can become pets. These four hens have bonded; they stick together, will follow a human around the yard, and will let themselves be picked up or led back to their pen. The adoption fee for the four birds is just $50. 

Zipcode 20202: Veronica from Upper Marlboro 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/bird/veronica-77639910/md/upper-marlboro/prince-georges-county-animal-services-division-md247/

Just a stray hen nobody's claimed, but what a pretty one! The patterned feathers are typical of Sebrights, one of the most popular breeds bantam fanciers keep as pets, and the thick upper neck feathers are typical of Easter Eggers, which I think (I admit some bias) may be the best all-around breed to keep as pets. My guess would be that the Animal Services Division won't ask a lot of money for taking her off their hands, either. 

Zipcode 30303: Rooster from Lawrenceville 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/bird/rooster-77659832/ga/lawrenceville/gwinnett-county-animal-control-and-welfare-ga357/

He's just another stray bird nobody knows what to do with, or say about. The New York and Washington Petfinder pages list other adoptable birds besides chickens, parakeets and cockatiels and such, but this is the only homeless bird listed on the Atlanta page. 

Web Log for 8.17.25

I spent Friday out in the real world, away from computers. Saturday, my day of rest, was spent reovering from Friday. I didn't do a lot of link hunting even on Sunday. The link that really stood up and begged to be shared slipped away into the backlog of links I was trying to follow. Finding and posting links seems like an easy job, doesn't it? Nevertheless I managed to post only one link this weekend:

Economy, the, Canadian Edition 

While I once spent about half an hour on a solar-powered crosstown bus with a cold battery, waiting for a gas-powered bus to come out and rescue us fare payers, and the idea of most Canadians being caught out in solar-powered cars with their batteries frozen arouses appropriate dismay...THIS guy happens to be growing glyphosate-poisoned canola. And can't even sign off without sneering at those who are trying to teach him that he's doing something evil. Hello, Karma, can you send him out into a snowstorm with a frozen battery? Pleeease?

https://pipelineonline.ca/qdm-where-do-my-elbows-go-canadian-canola-tariffs/#/?playlistId=0&videoId=0

Regretful Book Review: Perspectivas de Mujeres

Title: Perspectivas de Mujeres en Direccion de Proyectos en Latinoamerica

Author: Angelica Maria Larios Arias

Date: "Si bien la ultima decada mostro un aumento constante en las mujeres gerentes de proyectos, todavia hay mucho espacio para que mas mujeres asumen estos roles y desarrollen su carrera profesional." 

When I reviewed the English edition of this e-book I noted that what I'd received was more of a book proposal than a book, and looked forward to reading the rest of the original Spanish version. It is a sad duty to report that what I received in Spanish is still a book proposal not a book. 

The policy of this web site is not to reward writers who promise readers e-books and send us book proposals. It's understandable that, before investing a lot of time and money in researching and writing a book, writers want to know that the book will be published, sold, and read. However, if writers want to enlist reviewers to help market a book proposal to publishers, they need to pay for our time--and frankly they'd be cheating themselves; a reviewer has a different job and skill set from an agent. 

Butterfly of the Week: Graphium Latreillianus

We can blame my aging eyes for an apparent omission from the list of Graphium species. There is no such species as Graphium laboranus. There is Graphium taboranus, which we shall consider in a few more months. For now, we proceed to Graphium latreillianus.

Graphium latreillianus, the Coppery Swordtail or Swallowtail or Lady, is found in central Africa. It has neither swordlike nor swallow's-tails-like tails at the rounded corners of its hind wings. It is at least equally as likely to be a "lord" as to be a "lady." It does have a nice coppery brown color scheme. 

Photo by Nikborrow, taken in February in Cameroon. Yes, this is another Swallowtail species where the males are part-time composters and help break down the pollution in tire tracks. The mineral salts they need are also abundant in human sweat and urine, so male latreillianus can be "too friendly" to campers in its territory. They are good-sized butterflies, wingspans three inches or more.

Photo by Stefaneakame from Gabon. In some lights some individuals, especially male, look black and white as shown. 

Photo by Mlanguy, also from Gabon. This dark and light brown effect, where the upper side of the wings matches the under side, seems to be more common.

Sometimes the pale patches even iridesce apple-green. In early literature this color pattern was identified with the subspecies potamonianus but it may be more of an individual variation than a feature identifying a true subspecies. Most sources no longer list potamonianus as a subspecies. One writer observed that the greenish color was typical of theorini.

There are two subspecies distinguished by slightly different color patterns. Representatives of each pattern are shown on page 76 of this PDF: 

https://metamorphosis.org.za/articlesPDF/1040/009%20Genus%20Graphium%20Scopoli.pdf

G.l. theorini is better documented on the Internet than G.l. latreillianus is.  Theorini has a larger territory; see the map on page 77 of the PDF above. It is a larger butterfly and, since its territory doesn't overlap with Graphium latreillianus latreillianus territory, it is sometimes considered a subspecies of a different species, the very similar Graphium tynderaeus. It has been found all the way from Libreville on the west coast to Dar es Salaam on the east coast, and at points between. 

Five additional subspecies have been named but are rare enough to appear on most lists as aberrations rather than subspecies.

This butterfly's image has been used on postage stamps.

Along with many other butterfly images, it's been preserved online as an example of a nonviolent ecological protest. Of all the butterflies this web site has considered so far, Graphium latreillianus is the only one in this photo essay about a place that's especially rich in butterflies. We have the Horrible Swallowtail, as well as the Giant African Swallowtail, to look forward to...

https://www.lepidigi.net/liberia-jan-14

Nobody seems ever to have documented anything about the early stages of Graphium latreillianus. Opportunities for African students to become famous still abound.

Summer Camp Spooky

Prompted by the Poets & Storytellers United...

Big Jimmy Boolahan

Lived in the woods,

Without any clothing

Or worldly goods,

In the 1880s,

Or so they say.

Didn't live very long,

Anyway.

A hundred years later

Children were told

"A Wild Man might still be there!

Don't be too bold!"

That's when the stories 

Began to get

Bigger and hairier,

From the Internet.

The most tiresome tourists

Ever seen

Camped in the park

Where the Wild Man had been.

The seven Jones brothers

Liked their fun.

Two went out piggy-back

In a bearskin coat--one.

They hooted and hollered.

They pounded on trees.

They threw rocks at the camper-van,

Just to tease.

They kept up their shivaree

All night long.

All seven brothers

Were young and strong.

A storm had knocked over

A tall poplar tree.

With muscles and leverage,

Soon you could see

The tree upside down in

The tourists' sun-roof car.

Sasquatch believers

Those tourists now are.

Sasquatch believers come,

See how they fly,

Bring in good money...

Is the story a lie?

HISTORICAL NOTES:

There really was a legend about a "Wild Man" who, apparently after suffering some brain damage, lived a feral life in the woods for a few years. He was born into a human family and brought up in a house. At some point, some say after his parents died, he left the house. The last few times he was seen alive, he was said to be covered only in the kind of heavy body hair a few White men have. He was said to reject offers of adoption by roaring and making threatening gestures. He was said to be big and strong enough that, when he made threatening gestures, people backed off. I have read credible accounts that gave him a name, but I've forgotten the name. "Boolahan" is not the name of any real family I ever heard of. If there is a family who use that name, I apologize.

"Bigfoot" jokes and stories started circulating in the 1970s. They were about the Cascades or the Himalayan mountains, never supposed to be local. Then the stories got mixed up with the mostly forgotten story of a feral young man who lived in the woods, and now Sasquatch believers seriously look for the cryptid in the National Forest. They hold conventions in Gatlinburg!

Well...it's like the quarry being 400 feet deep and inhabited by six-foot-long man-eating catfish. More reliable sources say the quarry is 180 feet deep and may contain a few fish big enough to be legally cooked. Most towns have legends like that about local attractions. Often the stories are propagated by emergency responders, and serve the purpose of keeping the emergency responders from having to rescue local idjit boys from the local attraction.

I know for a fact that what I've heard about any local "Bigfoots" has been jokes, pranks, and outright lies. But I don't know for a fact that there may not be cryptids. Anyone who climbs the High Knob is guaranteed to see a Bigfoot--the statue--and there's no proof that no one will ever see more.

Book Review: The Book of Merla Meadows

Title: The Book of Merla Meadows

Author: R.C. Mogo

Quote: "It was  a dark secret to doubt their people--the Catari..."

The Catari, or Cathari, or Cathars, were one of several Christian dissenters that were stamped out by the Catholic Church before the Reformation. They were neither Catholics nor Protestants but I'm not sure whether Mogo is justified in saying their beliefs were "fundamentally at odds with Christianity." They did teach that celibacy was more virtuous than marriage, that abstinence from any kind of pleasure was more virtuous than enjoyment, but so, at that period, did the Catholic Church. Their "heresies" were, from what I've read, which isn't enough, more a matter of theology; specifically, they didn't think the Pope was infallible and did think that adhering to the vows they took would make them "perfect." 

The Lollards were a different sect, in England, less distinctive, more easily suppressed, and more easily forgotten. 

Margery Kempe was an interesting historical character in England. She was called a Lollard, but denied being one. She is remembered for writing (more strictly speaking, dictating) a book in the extravagant theological language of her time, which is likely to impress modern students as evidence of religious mania. She was just a bit heretical: she dressed all in white, which was seen as pretending to be a nun while married, and preached and prayed as if she believed she was a saint. She always claimed to hate sex, though she seems to have had rather a lot of it; after producing more than a dozen legitimate children she petitioned for permission to take a vow of celibacy and go on pilgrimage in Europe, but on her pilgrimage she somehow or other became pregnant again. Given contemporary attitudes toward women, I find it just barely plausible that Margery wanted to go on pilgrimage just to catch her breath in between births and may have been raped while on that pilgrimage. She dictated a book about her spiritual life and the opposition she met from male authoritarians. How many children she had, altogether, and how her life ended, are unknown; there were at least fourteen children and she lived more than sixty years, from the early 1370s to at least the late 1430s..

Now you're prepared, more or less, to read this short "novella" intended to motivate you to buy more novels the author has written about Margery Kempe's children. Very little is actually known about them. In this novella James Kempe meets an English girl called Merla Meadows whose parents joined the Cathars in Italy, who is not sure what she believes but is sure she wants to enjoy life and not take the Cathar vows of abstinence even from most foods. (The Cathars practiced extreme frugality, probably to support themselves in the face of social persecution.) The Cathars don't want to lose the precious soul of a young virgin (who would be obligated, of course, to care for the elders in an aging community) and punish her for even dreaming of going back to England with James Kempe, so harshly that James feels he has no alternative to taking her back to England. 

I don't think it's especially well written, and observe that most historians judge the Cathars less harshly than Mogo seems to do, but after all Mogo seems to have seen the Cathars first through the censorious eyes of Margery Kempe. The historical story is interesting. I'd like to know how much of this fictional series is based on facts, even the biased reporting of facts by a well-known eccentric like Kempe or, well, just about any of her contemporaries, before I read more of the fiction. If this chapter of history interests you (and it's said to interest enough people to generate major tourist attractions in Europe), you might want the whole series.

Book Review: Mystic Treasure

Title: Mystic Treasure

Author: Ada Bell (also known as Laura Heffernan)

Date: 2021 

Quote: "Today was the perfect day to win a fortune."

But Aluminum "Aly" Reynolds is not fated to be the heir of the fortune. In the fictional town of Shady Grove, New York (in no way confusible with the real Shady Grove, Maryland), many people have some sort of magical power, though it may be weak and confusible. Aly sometimes sees visions associated with objects but they're usually not clear or complete enough to be really useful. The town is holding a treasure hunt. The treasure is the title to an abandoned house. Aly could use a house, so she's hunting, but what her powers will help her find is the rightful heir to the house.

This short, mildly funny, whimsical fantasy comes somewhere in the middle of a series of longer novels, having been added when Amazon's analyses reported that the most successful marketing technique was to have a shorter volume in a series that could be given away as an introduction to the rest of the series. It didn't leave me longing to own the whole series. If you enjoyed "Charmed" and "Bewitched," it might have that effect on you.

Web Log for 8.13.25

This one's late because the electricity was off between about 3 a.m. and about 9 p.m.  

Economy, The 

When big corporations get hubristic and crash down, this is called a market correction. In a healthy, free-market economy it makes room for smaller, more efficient, more customer-appreciative companies to prosper. What concerns me is that the corporations going down are not the ones that most need and deserve bankruptcy--not Blackrock, not Microsoft, not Bank of America, not Bayers or Lilly or Merck or even Pfizer. Granted, they fell behind their competitors because their products or services or prices, or all of the above, were inferior. Still...

Big Lots

Brooks Brothers

Brookstone

Burger King

Butterick

Contadina

Del Monte

GNC

Hemper

Hooters

Hudsons Bay

JC Penney

J Crew

Joann's

Kohl's

Lake Shore

Lehman

Lord & Taylor

Macy's

McCall's

Modell's

Monster.com

Neiman Marcus

Party City

Pier 1 Imports

Publishers Clearing House

Red Lobster

Rite-Aid

Sears

Simplicity

Sunnova

...may have been yesterday's stores that will never be missed, but are their failures opening room for leaner, cleaner, better businesses, or are they feeding the bloated giants? Will Sears and JC Penney stores be replaced by stores with policies Mr Sears and Mr Penney would have respected, or merely by Amazon?

Electricity 

Trump promised to cut the cost of electricity by encouraging more use of costly, unsustainable fuels--more use of coal, for instance, meaning more strip mining and/or deep mining, and more encouragement of merely stupid ideas like fracking and nuclear reactors. He needs to focus on what will actually cut the cost of electricity to private people--putting solar collectors on the outbuildings, covered walkways, bus stop shelters, etc., of customers  beginning with the ones whose electricity has been disconnected or threatened with disconnection for non-payment. Those people need to be promoted from beleaguered, reluctant, discontented consumers into respected producers. People who have had to choose between electricity, medication, or meals should be the first to start getting monthly checks, instead of bills, from APCo or PEPCo or Dominion.

What do youall think? Is this a good enough song to be a theme for this issue? Has anyone Out There found a better one?

https://www.frank-turner.com/tracks/blackout/

It's late in life for Trump to learn new negotiation skills...He did try to deliver what he promised, at a fast'n'furious pace, didn't he? He failed because the US government is set up to be different from the sort of private business with which he has experience: under the Constitution, our President has to recruit a critical proportion of our Congress (and their electorates) to support any big sweeping policy changes he wants to make. Trump needed to make haste a little more slowly by negotiating with Congress; he needs to keep hammering out those issues and not just go into a sulk and use the rest of his presidential term to indulge in personal vindictiveness. He is old, and he is male, and it will be hard for him to wrap his mind around this concept, but I believe he's capable of it if he's guided by people who are patient and mindful of his built-in challenges to new learning.  We need to be those people, Gentle Readers.

(Am I saying that old men are more resistant to new learning than young women are? I am. Am I saying that this is necessarily always a reason to have young women making decisions? I am not. Young women absorb new information quickly--sometimes too quickly. Sometimes we follow along with ideas just because falling in and following feels comfortable to us, when we ought to be resisting and asking more questions. I think it's actually good to have decisions made by a mix of diverse people, which is why we have the US Congress.)

Federal Budget Cuts 

Today's (Thursday's, the day when Wednesday's links go live) "main feature" post is about a topic raised in the Appalachian Voice, which most of our local lurkers also read. The Voice also discussed a list of federal programs Trump wants to defund or cut back "that have a disproportionate impact on the air, land, water, and local economies" in the Appalachian Mountains. (Note that the Voice only ever considers the Southern Appalachian Mountains--well, counting the Illegitimate State, which ought strictly speaking still to belong to Virginia and thus to count as Southern, but who wants it back?) Some of these are still being kicked around in Congress so this web site will weigh in on them:

Trump wants to eliminate something the Department of Energy calls the "Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations," which tests new energy technologies in rural areas or on mined-out land. Why do we have a federal Department of Energy at all? Do we want it testing, say, nuclear reactors on abandoned mines where the land is likely to sink?

Trump wants to halve the budget for the Economic Development Administration this year, closing it next year, paying it just enough to administer "already awarded grants" to local governments to "build the necessary public infrastructure that can lead to private investment." To what private investment has this increase in local government size and expense led? To what gain to the local communities?

Trump wants to halve the budget for the EPA's "Brownfields Program," which is supposed to clean up and redevelop polluted sites like abandoned factories or gas stations. Well? How many of those sites have been cleaned up and redeveloped, and by whom?

Trump wants to eliminate the EPA's "Wetlands Program" development grants, whose goal is to increase the amount of land grabbed by government, removed from private owners, under the pretext that it is "wetlands." What good can land grabs possibly do? Should government be allowed to own more land than a severely limited number of government offices sit on?

Trump wants to eliminate the "Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program," which pays part of the "energy" bills for welfare-dependent families. "This program helps prevent deaths...related to hot and cold temperatures," its advocates chant. If its funds were reserved for low-income working people, withheld from welfare dependents, would those people still want to keep it in the budget?

Trump wants to halve the National Park Service's budget. A suggestion: If the Park Service showed the ability to trim the fat and work with a smaller budget, We The People might be more willing to let the federal government continue to own the National Parks.

Trump wants to cut the budget for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation & Enforcement...from $116 million to $101 million. Trust me, I've worked in federal offices; most of them could only benefit from that sort of tightening. And, if one round of budget cuts does not motivate them to trim the fat, fire the people with whom the most efficient workers "just don't fit in" rather than the more efficient workers e.g., cut'm again, deeper. Cry me a river, heirs of the federal employees who hated me so in my contractor phase. The nation needs you in jobs where your sluggish brains aren't doing anyone any harm or costing anyone any money. I don't know, maybe street cleaning.

Trump wants to cut funding for the USDA's Rural Utilities Service, whose original job was fairly well done in the 1970s, by letting them coast through next year on "carry-over funding" from previous years with no new funding. Should they complain? Is that better than no funding at all?

Trump wants to let the Fish & Wildlife Service's "State and Tribal Wildlife Grant Program" coast to a halt, similarly, on $59 million in fees and carry-over funding. Likewise the Forest Service's "State, Private, and Tribal Forestry Program," which supposedly helps "protect communities from wildfires"--hello? We're not the ones having the wildfires...yet...but California does not sound as if it's being protected.

Trump wants to cut the Forest Service staffing budget, and the US Geological Survey Water Resources Mission Area's budget, by about a third. I'd be surprised if any federal office couldn't survive having its budget cut back by only a third.

And, Trump wants to cut FEMA's "Building Resilient Infrastructure Communities Grant Program" waaay back, from $256 million to $50 million. Hello? This is the FEMA that deliberately failed to help citizens who supported the Trump administration. They're not falling on their knees with gratitude that they're still in the budget at all? I think Trump needs to be a good Christian and resist temptation to act out private vindictiveness, but objectively, speaking as a person who is not partial to Trump either, I think the FEMA's behavior in North Carolina was despicable and merits deep cuts. You don't get funding for humanitarian work if the humanitarian work you do shows partisan political bias. A valid request for funding for humanitarian work wouldn't show bias against people who were still supporting Lyndon LaRouche (who died in 2019, but who cares? Clueless people are human too).

I love this glorious nation,

And its government, I do,

Just as I love my own body;

I keep that the right size, too.

The good that some of these federal agencies are doing could be done by states or localities, or by charities. I'm in favor of these budget cuts. Please tell me, Gentle Readers, if any of you benefit from any of these agencies and if you believe they need to continue to be funded by tax dollars rather than by private funders.

Safety 

What a sad, sickly, puffy, pasty, prematurely "old" face. 25 going on 95. This is the look I call UGLY because in my family it indicates illness. I don't think it's natural for her either, and I see it as UGLY. And it's likely to be a direct result of listening to, and believing, years of "We can't LET you go out and play, dear, because you might get HURT." I see that sad, ugly woman as a victim first and a perpetrator of abuse second...but she is both. Take a good look at her, Gentle Readers. This is what too many of us are doing to children, especially girls, in the name of "protecting" them. Stop doing that. Children, especially girls, need to be outside for as much of every day as they're willing to be, climbing as high and running as far as they want to, short of violating other people's rights. The function of adults is to stop holding them back and start letting people, even grubby little boys who want to pick fights, know that nobody is allowed to interfere with our children, especially the girls, even by speaking to them if not recognized by full eye contact. If it feels "unsafe" to let the children run and play outside all by themselves, get out there with them. 

https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2025/08/12/its-for-your-safety/

Because who wants to have to look at this around the table every morning...

(Photo from Twitter, presumably a CBC TV clip)

when the same genes could as easily produce this?

(Photo from Google, which credits Getty Images)

Writers, Hazards of Being 

Should we pray that Anas al-Sharif "rest in peace"? Perhaps. In the sense of "may his soul be found unworthy of resurrection into destruction, and be dead and forgotten forever without having to burn in Hell." If our beliefs have room for that option. Because this is what he wrote:

"Better unborn than fool.

If born, spare Earth your breath.

Don't wait. Go straight to Hell"

(attributed to St Hildegard of Bingen)

...but, if one must be born a fool, one should try to avoid being a writer. It's too dangerous. For Sharif, and for any decent human beings who may happen to be writing for Al Jazeera. May they be guided to dissociate and protect themselves, and not share in the human or the divine punishment he has earned.