Of Birds and War

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), an ultra-conservative right-wing think tank, is about the last place I would expect to find an article on birding (to see why I would make such a statement, check out AEI’s pro-business perspectives on environmental issues that have appeared in their Environmental Policy Outlook series, an in-house bimonthly newsletter on “environmental policy”).

But here it is, a review of Jonathan Trouem-Trend’s Birding Babylon blog (and now book of the same name) by Christopher Griffin that was originally published in the Blogs of War section of the Armed Forces Journal.

My favorite treatise on the folly of warfare (and, very indirectly, birds) is Farley Mowat's And No Birds Sang, an account of "the terrible reality of war" based on his own experiences as a combat infantryman in Europe during World War II. This is one book that should be required reading of any gung ho boy or girl contemplating joining the military. The other is Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo.