For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said, “Think!” The many have said, “Believe!”

— Robert G. Ingersoll

Cool!  “Astronomers have discovered 28 new planets outside of our solar system, increasing to 236 the number of known exoplanets, one of which is a hybrid Earth-Neptune object with a rocky core surrounded by a shell of ice.”

Isn’t the Salvation Army supposed to be Christian?  Then explain to me why, when hundreds of millions of dollars were bequeathed to various charities, that organization was the only one to sue everyone involved in order to get more than their allotted share of the bounty.

Birds in the News 85 (v3n12) Memorial Day Edition: Where you can find all your avian news from around the globe.

Don’t forget to visit Carnival of the Dogs.

Sharpen your claws and cough up a hairball at Carnival of the Cats #166.  There’s too much feline fun to be contained—even by a baseball team.

For even more kitty antics, head on over to Weekend Cat Blogging #103.

There will be no children for this pair of mockingbirds.

Their diligent parenting notwithstanding, the last small voice of a new generation has altogether been silenced.

Where once four were birthed, there remains none.

Nature saw fit to dispatch the brood in methodical bloodletting one life at a time.

Tempestuous weather danced winds about their perches until their grasps were weakened, then upon these feeble holds was thrown rain to make even the most secure branch slippery.

Like trees felled by the woodsman’s axe, innocent lives were cut down each in turn.

I stood against the fence and beckoned to those small mouths to call out one more time.  I hoped beyond logic for at least one to have survived.

But it is not so.

Instead, day by day the lights were extinguished by whatever means could be wielded by forces more powerful than even the strongest of technologies.

I weep lamentations upon the ground where still bodies once rested.

My tears wet the spaces beneath verdant cover that once offered its protection.

My lungs grasp at the air and heave it to and fro as if to contain within them its total agony now unheard and unseen except by my mind’s eye and my spirit’s heart.

Yet the two visit the tree still.  At least from time to time.

In the hollows of their eyes I see hunger to see the child that is no more.

In the emptiness of their ears I hear the desperate listening for a demanding voice pleading for one more meal.

In the stillness of their being I feel the unspoken cry for what has been lost, what can never be replaced.

Beckon to the sound of an ancient heart as it beats like a drum the rhythm of life.

For that rhythm can both inflame the passion of existence and extinguish its light with brutal finality.

So these two—these two stricken with the severity of parenthood desperately seek one moment more.

That time will never come.