You'll have to click on this photo to make out the detail blending into the road. This Heron is not likely to make it through it's first winter if it keeps up the behaviour it evidenced when I took the photo. First sight of it, it was wandering through a plastic culvert. Wandering is not really editorial. Not an apparent care in the world. Stumbling, squawking, and noisily flapping. Trying, in my opinion to attract every coyote within half a mile. Sheesh!!! After I snapped the photo I walked up to within about four feet, at which point the bird flapped and croaked and then took to the air. Natural selection looking for a place to happen.

It is pretty cold outside these days, at least by west coast standards. Pretty tough times for the homeless who live in our midst.

There is a petition going the rounds at church these days calling on the government to decriminalize prostitution and to criminalize the actions of the Johns who pay for the services of prostitutes. It does seem to me like knee-jerk thinking. The social conditions that foster and sustain the sex trade will not be significantly challenged by changing the laws. As a society we seem incapable of engaging with the underlying conditions that lead men and women into prostitution. Even more incapable of changing the mindset that sanctions the actions of those who use prostitutes. The petition being what it is it is pretty hard to say no to the request to sign. The implication in a no is that one either supports prostitution or sanctions the status quo.