Black Swans

    “May you live in interesting times.”
     This is a curse, purported to be of Chinese origin, although that, like everything on the internet, is debatable. Let’s at least agree that these are interesting times. Within the last two years we have experienced, in biblical proportions, droughts, floods, fires and pestilence. Now there is a bloody war, started by a man intent on reconstituting a fallen, unlamented empire and threatening nuclear war to get his way.

An unexpected event with massive, catastrophic consequences is called a “black swan.” They used to be rare as hen’s teeth. Now they come in flocks.

This post hearkens back to the days of Close Encounters of the Bird Kind, when avian conflict (and avian flu) were all we had to worry about. The photo is by Dorothe Wouters.