Shade (whom I miss terribly, most days), for a time, lived in a townhouse in Virginia with my parents. It was a nice place, if you like Tidewater. The back door faced out onto an open green which dad planted with tall flowers and a couple of very nice bird feeders, including a hummingbird feeder. Shade used to go out and watch the activities, and occasionally hunt wild bunnies, but she generally didn't try to catch the birds. They were just a moving part of the scenery to her.
After one tough winter, the hummingbirds returned with attitude. Every time Shade went outside to sit on the sunny deck, the hummers would buzz her from behind, chasing her from her comfortable spot. Sometimes, the birds would even splash her from the puddle in the clogged downspout. There were even times when the other birds knocked over Shade's food and water dishes, causing her to go without (we never did invest in those silly stainless steel, balanced things. Shade got good Corelle.) She put up with the pests for almost three years.
Then, one day, while Mom was entertaining a close friend for tea, Shade, from her comfortable perch on the deck, started getting strafed once more, and, as Mom and her friend Judy watched, Shade leaped straight in the air without any sign of a warning. When she returned to the ground, she had a dead hummingbird in her mouth.
Mom says she had never seen a cat look more satisfied in her life. Judy seemed horrified by the entire event. After all, Judy had not been around to observe the relentless attacks by the birds, day after interminable day. All she saw was the cat kill a pretty little bird.
But the rest of us understood. There was an appropriate, measured response.
But I can see some of the same elements going on in the Mideast. For fifty years and change, the Israelis have been attacked and attacked and attacked by all the Arab neighbors, and, by and large, they have shown remarkable restraint. Recently, they've seen an increase in the numbers and strength of the bombs lobbed across their borders from the Palestinians. And this recent taking of captives is just the last straw.
The response is swift and sharp and not at all random.
And, since it is Israel, it's scolded by the Euros for standing up for itself in a "disproportionate" fashion.
Okay, so the Beeb didn't actually come right out and say it last night on their news show (which I catch on our local PBS station), but they might as well have. The silly little man beind the desk said, "the massive military response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers"... Which pretty much amounts to implicit agreement with what Blacque Jacque Chirac said about "disproportionate" responses.
I'm always impressed by how little respect the Left's mouthpieces have for reality. Damned hummingbirds.
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