Steve and Judy's Travels!

So the dance isn’t as delicate as I first observed.  It’s more serious.  Russian access to banking has been curtailed.  Russian oil has at least been partially embargoed.  As western companies withdraw, modern conveniences like fast food brands, banking, and the value of their currency, are evaporating for Russia’s citizens.  Sanctions continue to escalate.  A unified West is taking this Ukraine invasion seriously.  Not seriously enough to go to WWIII, but enough to send a message.

So I wonder.  Will this message be effective?  Can sanctions stop bullets and bombs?  Perhaps they can trash a currency or an economy.  Sanctions might not be fast acting enough to save Ukraine, but if Russia wants to remain a world player in the long-term, it’s going to have to work its way back into the world economy over time, or figure out how to go it alone without engaging the west.  Can sanctions stop bombs and bullets?  Certainly not in a day or a week, and that totally sucks for Ukraine and all the people there, but if it turns out an invading country destroys its own well-being for generations to come in the process, the next time a country wants to be an unprovoked aggressor it might have to weigh the risk to its own survival that would entail.  Maybe economic sanctions can’t stop these bullets and bombs in Ukraine, but if the sanctions are persistent, they might right now be stopping future bullets and bombs.

He stuck the landing.

The snake bird.  When he swims, from a distance he looks like a water snake.

If you haven’t seen one before, that’s because it’s a southern bird.

It’s a Gulf Fritillary!  This is what it looks like on top.

(Not my photo.)

Kind of like a Monarch, only different.  Who knew a fritillary was a thing?  Well actually, one person.  Not counting me.  I had to look it up.

Can you name this kind of butterfly?

There is not much to go on.  All we can see are the underwings and a touch of the orange topwing.