I See Your Bird, and Raise You One Siege

So I guess there really is important work happening in Afghanistan.   I’m always a little conflicted with these kinds of stories in a place like this, and by “place like this,” I mean, well, Earth.

While I do believe that this kind of research probably has some long-lasting effects on us environmentally over the course of time, I wonder if there aren’t other things that could be funded by government monies that might have a more immediate effect on what we’re facing on a global scale.

I’m not just referencing global warming, but world hunger (which, apparently is tied to warming), air quality (again, tied to global warming), and the overall impact of non-regulated labor in developing countries (some of which, like ship breaking in places like Bangladesh, also have an environmental impact)…all of these seem to me, a layman without several initials after my last name, to have a greater impact on our world immediately than some bird.

I know, I’m thinking short-term, and these folks are all big-picture types who are looking far ahead to the future for all mankind, but again, it goes back to my current emerging concept of usefulness.

If we’re going to be in Afghanistan, and I believe that we should be here for the good of the Afghan people and the region’s stability, then we should be sending useful people here to do useful things.

People who can build things, move things, plan things, provide care.

Not people who are looking for birds.

I understand birdwatching is a sign of normalization, but at the end of the day, do I need some scientist with binoculars and a mist net, or an engineer with a broad plan for water purification? 

That there’s one of them rhetorical questions, y’all. 

Update:  not long after I finished the oh-so-interesting draft of my thoughts on Afghan ornithological endeavors, this kicked off.  Not to worry, all of this is a few miles away from where we live and work, so nothing came even remotely close to us, but it did cause a little jump in the step while I was working here at the desk. 

Not sure what the end result will be, but we did hear a few explosions a la suicide bomber doing what suicide bombers do, and one of them was loud enough to be more than a little startling. 

We’re wondering if it’s some kind of extended MLK protest gone awry.  Figured if we had a better line of sight, we could sell popcorn, peanuts, Cokes…make a day of it.

Biggest pain out of all of this?  Even though it’s pretty far away, and by the sounds of it, it’s no longer lighting up downtown, we still are locked down here and as a result will most likely not get to go to lunch on time, if at all.

It’s the little things that keep me entertained, here. 

Update to the update:  lunch is being served, but pushed back a half hour.  I’m trying to cope.  

Oh, and according to CBS, we just outlasted a siege.  Not sure that a few guys with guns over the course of a couple of hours constitutes a siege, but there it is.