Two for the Birds

Two bird-related stories caught my attention over the past few days. First there's this from the Netherlands. A sparrow flew into a hall where a record-breaking toppling of dominos was about to be attempted. The sparrow knocked over 23,000 dominos and ruined weeks' worth of setup work. In a fit of rage, the participants shot the bird, and they are now being sued for animal cruelty.

I have to say that though I don't, of course, condone the bird's slaughter, I feel for these hapless guys, who simply lost control for a moment after seeing so much painstaking effort wasted. I'm sure they regretted their impulsive and futile reaction almost immediately. And if they acted inappropriately out of momentary fury, the animal rights activists' disproportionate response was all too calculated. If there's any special interest group out there who epitomizes the knee-jerk extremism that I recoil from, it's those guys.

The other bird-brained item of interest is the infamous "pigeon of Lebanon" incident, which was already covered nicely by Elder of Zion (read his summary first). My additional contribution is that we had dinner last night with the parents of one of the seminary girls on the trip (not either of the girls the article mentions by name). Their daughter corroborated the true story and also shared some additional details about the various claims by the Lebanese government and press. The view that it was a note from an Israeli to her Lebanese lover was actually their most benign theory; they also had accused Israel of sending bird-flu infected pigeons (which this wasn't) into their country on purpose. They didn't say whether the pigeons were also carrying bubble gum, but one can only assume...

According to our dinner companions, Rabbi David Katz, the girls' seminary rabbi quoted in the Jpost article, is supposed to be a guest on Letterman this week - apparently the story caught the host's eye. Though he's not listed in the show's on-line schedule so I don't know which night it will be. If I find out I will post an update.