Annihilation by farting blue defiance

There sure are a lot of defiant people out there.

Or, wishing they were defiant, or admiring someone who is defiant.

I know this because my page-hit tracker tells me that the third most popular post on my blog to date is the “Last Great Act of Defiance.”

In that post, I referred in passing to the old poster of the tough little mouse, giving a giant eagle a big, defiant finger in the split second before the eagle’s talons close around him and he’s torn to bloody bits. Those words were scrawled at the bottom of the poster.

People looking for it have visited my blog from all over the United States, from England, Canada, Italy, the Republic of Korea, India, New Zealand, Australia, Hungary, the Philipines, Croatia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and others.

Blue Wren has definitely gone international – and judging from this most popular posting, the people visiting are a bunch of defiant souls.

I like that.

It’s human nature to resist authority in whatever form it takes. And it’s human nature to dissent when one’s opinions and views are ignored. When it’s mindless, unfair or corrupt authority, we resist and dissent even more, even if it’s just in the form of getting a good laugh from a silly old poster, badly drawn and mimeographed, photocopied, and now, e-mailed over and over again, passed on from person to person all over the world. Such small forms of defiance and humor bring us together and make us brothers and sisters, no matter what country, culture, color, age or political persuasion we happen to be. We’re just one, big family, living together on this great old Mother Earth.

Next on the popularity front was the post “Every day is Memorial Day now,” in which I mourned the loss of Jeremy Loveless, a young soldier from Oregon who died from a gunshot wound to the chest in Iraq on Memorial Day. Most of the searchers were looking for information about him; I hope they, too, took a few minutes to contemplate the loss he – and everyone else who’s died in that awful, illegal war -- represents to the world.

People also seem to enjoy “Sweet Cheeks,” a personal, olfactory account of marital bliss, and “Contemplating Horror,” a rant regarding the dismay I feel about my government’s seemingly casual threat to use nuclear weapons against Iran.

All over the world, along with our quiet defiance, we cry over the senseless loss of young people, laugh about flatulence and are equally appalled at the thought of nuclear annihilation, no matter who wields it or who it might be used against.

But the first two popularity slots go, far and away, to people from all over the U.S. and the world who are looking for information about blue wrens – and find my humble blog by accident.

I chose that simple name for my blog because blue is my favorite color, blue is the color my progressive political views have been assigned since my country was divided up into blue and red following the 2004 presidential election, and finally, because out of all the birds that inhabit my little part of the world, the wren is my favorite – small, jaunty, tough and possessed of a beautiful, tuneful song.

I had no idea at the time I named my blog that there really is such a creature. The blue wren is native to Australia (nice photo and info at the site). They’re tiny, also called “the Superb Fairy Wren." The genus is malurus, the species cyaneus.

It seem there are many, many bird-lovers – and specifically wren-lovers -- all over the world, too. You won’t find a lot of information about blue wrens on this site, but you’re all welcome to stop by and stay awhile.