Another mindfulness moment from the stoop

As regular readers will be aware, I've been trying to make a bit of a course correction re my news-junkie habit. To that end, I've been working hard at tamping down laptop hours and ramping up stoop time. I would say I've been having some success over the past little while, but now that the UNGA is on... ay yai yai... that's getting really really tough! I took a break from my ruminations on the stoop yesterday to watch the Leader of the Free World wax wise on the world stage for an hour and 47 minutes, and realized immediately that wasn't helping my mental health. So back to the stoop! A week ago there were two hummingbirds fighting over end-of-season dregs at the bottom of the feeder. One would come in from one of the pines around the yard and before it got it's beak in the feeder the second would zoom in and bunt it out of the way. Then they'd reverse roles and do it all over again. This literally went on all day. That was the 15th. Next morning I mixed a fresh batch of feeder food for them, so they wouldn't have to fight over it. I haven't seen a hummingbird since. Obviously the order came through from Hummingbird Central Command that it's time to head for Costa Rica, so I guess I can put the feeder away. Mind you, that would stress out some of the other living creatures who frequent the hummingbird feeder, mainly wasps and ants. Not hard to understand how wasps get there - they fly in just like the hummingbirds do. The ants are a different story. The feeder hangs from a shepherds hook a good four feet off the ground . First, the ants have to smell that stuff when it's roughly ten thousand body-lengths away. That's like me being able to smell what somebody's cooking for dinner twenty miles away. If that isn't awesome enough, at least some of them always manage to actually find their way into the feeder! Water doesn't leak out but ants can get in? Not all of them; there's heavy two-way traffic all the way up and down that shepherds hook, and I must say I woulda been way better off watching that for an hour and 47 minutes. It's that time of year. The Canada geese are doing their practice flights. Those typically start in late August in these parts, and generally involve heavy-metal-decibel-level honking, and flight formations that look like pretty much every letter of the alphabet except the "V" they're aiming for. But by now they're flying by in exquisite V-shaped silence. It's a beautiful thing to see. This evening, as the sun was fading, a lone straggler was passing by honking plaintively. Must have been napping while the rest of the crew flapped off. Every other wingbeat was accompanied by a plaintive honk. I felt sad for it. Then, as its sad honks were growing fainter, I suddenly heard response honks coming from the marsh across the way. The very tone of Lone Straggler's voice changed. I could hear the joy! That Canada goose had found her people!

Israel busts domestic ISIS terror plot

This story is remarkable for at least two reasons.

First, let's look at what is unremarkable. The gist of the tale is that Israeli Arabs, ie citizens of the Jewish State who are not Jews and therefore are not real Israelis, have been conspiring to introduce ISIS type terror into the Holy Land.

No surprises there. The Likudniks have been working overtime for at least twenty years to disenfranchise Israeli Arabs. After all, how can a non-Jew be a full citizen of the Jewish State?

That's what is unremarkable.

The two salient points that are remarkable are these;

1. This story comes out on the very day that Netanyahu makes his annual presentation at the UNGA. He put on quite a show this year. Perhaps not up to the precedent-setting bomb-cartoon episode, but nevertheless quite impressive. I'm sure those dramatic pauses had a great impact in the Marshal Islands and Canada. But that's not why it's remarkable; everything Netanyahu ever says is considered "remarkable" by the government of Canada. No, it's remarkable because it comes out on the very day that Netanyahu claims his "Arab Peace Partners" are all aboard with his anti-Iran agenda. Those would be the very "Arab Peace Partners" who have been sponsoring ISIS all along. That's remarkable.
2. The second remarkable fact about that story of Shin Bet busting an Israeli-Arab terror cell is that the word "Iran" does not make even one passing appearance anywhere in the story. Not once. That is REALLY remarkable.

I suspect there's a serious rift between the intelligence apparatchiks and Netanyahu's speech-writers. The speech-writers are reaching out to Netanyahu's base; American senators and congressional representatives.

The speech-writers wrote almost exclusively about Iran, as you heard in Netanyahu's address to the UN General Assembly.

Unlike the speech-writers, the intelligence folks are obliged to engage with the real world.