Thought For The Day

     If you are thinking you can’t say something “without coming off as a racist SOB,” that means it’s a deeply racist thing to say, and you might not want to say it; maybe you should examine your reasons for thinking it.  They're almost certainly nonsense, driven by emotion rather than fact.

The Hit Dog Yelps

      As predicted, supporters of Mr. Trump's version of events from the 2020 Presidential election through the attempted coup on 6 January 2021 are sending in comments.  I may publish some of them as comments to yesterday's post, but lights as inflamed and throbbing as these should hardly be hidden under a bushel.

      The simplest complaint first.  Bruce writes:

5 deaths: a stroke that happened later, 2 heart attacks, and an overdose. Only one person died by violence at the hands of the Capitol police. Counting the other deaths is the same as counting every person that died during the pandemic as a covid death even if they fell off a ladder.[*]

Threats should have no place here, but neither should lies.

      "Lies?"  All five deaths occurred -- as I wrote and provided a link with further links to sources -- as a result of the riot.  There's some room for argument that Rosanne Boyland, the woman who died of an overdose, apparently of her prescription medicine, would have made the same mistake had she stayed home, but the stress and excitement of involvement of events of the day most likely caused it.  Ashli Babbitt chose to commit "blue suicide:" when a law enforcement officer points a gun at you and shouts "Stop!" while you are making unlawful entry, not stopping is the same as pulling the trigger.  The coroner's report on USCP Officer Brian Sicknick's death concluded, "all that transpired played a role in his condition."  That leaves two other rioters, Kevin Greeson and Benjamin Philips, well-padded men in their 50s with histories of high blood pressure and/or heart disease.  While we cannot be certain they would not have suffered fatal heart attacks if they had stayed home watching television, the stress and exertion of participating in the assault on the U. S. Capitol building is the most probable cause.


      Mike SMO appears to have adopted Mr. Trump's habits of giving people demeaning nicknames and sneering at sworn testimony:

"We see you" is only a threat in so much as "someone" will be keeping an eye on what you publish, but you already knew that going into the blog "business". Big deal!

"Investigations" turn up all, kinds of "hear say". A real investigation would have balanced "Sweety" Hutchinson's fantasy against other evidence such as the sworn testimony of Secret Service agents, who were actually present at the incident, or photographs. Presenting a mass of "hear say", suppositions and fairy tales from a single perspective is known as a show trial. Stalin, Hitler and the East German Stasi were good at that. Congress and cameras is a show trial, assembling innuendo against a political opponent. An investigation would assemble verified and tested information about an incident or person.

Grow up!

     I was all growed up, last time I checked -- adult enough to look reality in the eye even when it was unpleasant.  "We see you" is a particular kind of threat with a particular kind of history, redolent of "Invisible Empires" and fools lighting up crosses in other people's front yards.  I'm not cowed by it.

      The Secret Service agents are quite likely to be subpoenaed and I look forward to hearing their testimony.  Many higher-ranking members of the former Trump Administration have resisted testifying under oath before the committee or taken the Fifth.  Odd behavior for men and women who might provide the "balance" you claim to desire!  Even more odd, those who have testified have confirmed a President enraged by defeat and determined to resist our Constitutional requirements and traditions.

      Congressional Investigative Committees, a long-established function of the House and Senate, are not "show trials;" among other things, they cannot hand down punishment.  Nobody's getting strangled with piano wire or hauled off to the gulag as a result of their deliberations. 

      As for "verifiable and tested information," if that's not exactly what sworn testimony and audio/video recordings constitute, what does?  Do tell; I'm all ears.

      Here's a funny historical coincidence: do you know what else Stalin's USSR, Hitler's Germany and Communist East Germany all had in common?  No provision for  the peaceful transfer of power!  Gosh, what other now-former world leader has recently opposed that silly little tradition?  


      Pigpen51 -- who I have always found to be a level-headed Trump supporter, as such people go -- has his own complaint to make:

My first comment is that any threat, even online, is never proper, and I have been on the receiving end of such, and I do not like it. So you should never have to put up with that from anyone, and a copy of said comment should be sent to local authorities, just to protect your interests.

The only other comment I will make is that is this investigation is similar to a grand jury hearing, it should not be run like a circus, complete with hiring a ringmaster, in this case a former television producer, to put together a smoother production package to not keep the hearing a secret as most grand juries are, but to have it run in prime time, to sway as much of America to their side as possible. The ones that they must convince is not Americans, but rather the DOJ and AG Garland, who I would think is the one to decide to bring charges against anyone being investigated.

      I don't know how old the commenter is, but at my age, I have seen a lot of House and Senate hearings and impeachments on TV, and they've been poorly-produced snoozefests even when the subject matter is compelling, with a lot of dead air, awkward silence and chair shuffling.  Commercial TV networks have a history of cutting away when the pace drags.

      Because of the extensive news coverage and security-camera video of the events at the U. S. Capitol on 6 January 2021, the committee sought expert assistance in presenting it.  I will point out that only the first hearing was scheduled during TV "prime time."  The remainder have been during the work day.  Other than matters of national security, committee meetings are necessarily public; making them more readily accessible serves the public interest.

      While a Congressional Investigative Committee is akin to a grand jury rather than a trial, it is not a grand jury and cannot compel the Department of Justice to act.

      The 2020 Presidential election is the first time a U. S. President has resisted the peaceful transfer of power and the first time the U. S. Capitol has been entered by force in an attempt to interfere.  If this doesn't rate a highly public Congressional investigation, what would?


      Guys, you can keep on chasing the ever-shifting fantasy football of a "stolen election" (newsflash: it wasn't) and a stainless, blameless Donald Trump, or you can rejoin reality, where Mr. Trump's egotism and manipulation has gutted the Republican Party and came perilously close to wrecking Constitutional government in the United States of America.  It's the Fourth of July.  Come back!  Come back to the light of reason, of fighting fair in the arena of ideas and policy, and leave the torch-lit parades, bluster, bombast, blunt instruments and threats in the dead past, where they belong.
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* That's not how COVID-19 deaths are or have been counted in the ongoing pandemic. It's been thoroughly debunked, and yet the buncombe lingers in the air like a ripe fart.

I Receive A Threat

      What kind of man believes it is appropriate to threaten elderly women?  I'm not being rhetorical: would-be commenter "Chris Adams" was so incensed by Wading The Rubicon: Yesterday's Hearing that he sat down at his keyboard and banged out this missive:

The whole "hearings" thing is just a show trial designed to impugn a man without having to go the the trouble or proving actual facts. It's the sort of thing that Communist and Fascist dictatorships have traditionally done and anyone who supports it being done here in America needs to be watched with suspicion. We see you, Roberta.

      Ooooooh!  I'm skeered now, you betcha.

      Taking his points in reverse order, "We see you" is a classic veiled threat, and rather a thin veil at that.  In this context, it carries overtones of night-riding intimidation -- preposterous deployed against a sixty-four year old woman with a blog, and downright foolish when she has a good supply of pepper spray, is a fair shot, has a lodger who is even better, and lives in a state with a very strong Castle Doctrine.  But such is the emotionally-fragile nature of bullies.  I am not minded to coddle them.

      "...[J]ust a show trial...anyone who supports it (the 1/6 Committee hearings) being done here in America needs to be watched with suspicion," riiiight.  I have news for you, little man: The U. S. Congress has been conducting hearings for as long as there has been a Congress.  There are several types.  The very first Investigative Hearing was in 1792, after Native Americans commanded by Little Turtle and Blue Jacket handed the U.S. Army their worst defeat at the hands of Native Americans.  The Federal government was more than a little agitated at this, and the House of Representatives set up a committee to find out what went wrong.

      The insurrection and attempted coup of 6 January 2021 merits investigation, too.  Only the second time the U. S. Capitol building was broken into by a force of men,* it resulted in five deaths, multiple injuries, millions of dollars in damage and a lengthy interruption in the tally of electoral votes, a core function of the Federal government.  Was it merely spirited excess by overly-enthusiastic followers, or a serious effort?  That's the kind of thing Congress ought to find out about, and they set out to establish an independent, bipartisan commission to look into it.

     Senate Republicans voted it down.  So the House voted (222 to 190) to establish a select committee, to consist of eight members appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and five selected by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in consultation with her  This is pretty standard as such things go. The Speaker announced her intention to appoint one Republican in her picks, which would put the committee at seven Democrats and six Republicans.

      It would have.  Kevin McCarthy's picks included three Congressmen who had voted against certifying 2020 electoral results from Pennysylvania and Arizona.  Two of them (Jim Banks and Jim Jordan) had gone on to make intemperate public statements about the 2020 Presidential election and the events of 6 January.  Speaker Pelosi rejected those two, while approving the remaining three Republicans.  Rather than naming replacements, Minority Leader McCarthy then picked up all his marbles and went home, announcing he would not appoint anyone on the committee unless all five of his original choices were approved.  So much for "in consultation" as provided in the bill establishing the committee -- and so much for the Republicans getting to choose any of its members.  They preferred not to.  The Speaker did add Republican Adam Kinzinger of Illinois to the committee

      The GOP had the opportunity to name five members to the Select Committee and rejected it.

      But a Congressional committee hearing is not a trial.  It's got more in common with a Grand Jury or a Preliminary Hearing, which happen before a trial.  Those don't determine guilt or innocence, only if there is enough evidence of wrongdoing to merit a trial.  And a committee hearing simply hauls the evidence into the light, including sworn testimony.

      Which gets us to the hearing having been, "...designed to impugn a man without having to go the the trouble or proving actual facts."  "Or" is probably a typo for "of."  I suppose it's hard to hit the right key in a fit of partisan rage.  "Proving actual facts" is precisely the work of an Investigative Committee.  It's why they have subpoena power and why witnesses testify under oath.  Separation of Powers has created a certain tension between the Executive and Legislative Branches over this from the very first hearing, but a remarkable number of high-ranking former members of the Trump Administration have dodged the Committee, refused to appear (often citing Executive Privilege), or taken the Fifth Amendment, even over questions as innocuous as "Do you believe in the peaceful transfer of power?"

      If there's impugning going on, look to Mr. Trump's own Cabinet and staff, who are doing his reputation no favors by their behavior (including asking for Presidential pardons in the days after 6 January 2021).  The Committee is, after all, just asking questions.  I'm sure they'd welcome sworn testimony from Mr. Trump himself, who has yet to offer any.

      Going into the hearings, I had expected Donald Trump's role to have been no more than a demagogue, heedless of the damage his words might cause and largely indifferent to the riot and attempted insurrection once it was underway.  The facts -- sworn testimony, timeline, actual video and audio recordings -- are much darker, revealing a raging, emotionally-weak man unable to admit defeat despite honest counsel and willing to resort to violent, lawless means to retain power.

      It is no surprise to me that such a man has attracted to his defense blustering bullies who threaten old women.  Men like "Chris Adams," who I hereby invite to go piss up a rope.
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* The first time was in August, 1814, when the British took Washington, D.C. for their King.  They set Federal buildings on fire rather than try to keep it.

Busy Again

      Helping with the neighbor's cats.  More later, maybe.

I Had A Blog Subject All Picked Out

     It would have taken only a little research and been interesting.  I remember that much. 

     Darned if I can remember what the topic was; I was distracted by one of the more dimwitted aspects of the Culture Wars: people making up childish variations on the names of candidates and politicians, complete with semi-obscene speculation on their personal habits.

     Look, I have no doubt this kind of thing goes way back; read the graffiti at Pompeii and Herculaneum to remove any doubt, or look up some of things people from Pharaohs to workaday scribes wrote about enemies from the guy next door to foreign invaders in the various Egyptian kingdoms.  If we could read cave paintings, we'd probably find more of the same.

     Grow up: either politics is serious business, worth the intelligent attention of mature adults, or it's a tribalist exercise in playground-level name-calling.  You can't have it both ways; there's no calling the politician you don't like "Mr./Ms. Poopyhead" and claiming the intellectual high ground.

     I'll give you one or two; even Buckley and Vidal resorted to name-calling and threats of fisticuffs when they first crossed swords.  But for all they disagreed and loathed one another, they managed to figure out that scuffling like schoolkids meant they both lost the debate together.  --All right, Gore and William F. were indeed unusually smart.  But it shouldn't take a self-styled intellectual to figure out (after a mulligan or two) that names like "Drumpf" and "Fauxahontas" don't add anything to our understanding of the issues involved -- or even of the personalities.

All Growed Up, With Cats

     Dinner cooked and eaten; dishes in the dishwasher and I started it at bedtime.  In the meantime I ran (and folded) a load of laundry, collected all the trash and set the big collection bin at the curb, and put new bags in all the the trash containers.  And washed Rannie-the-cat's tail with dish soap!

     That last calls for explanation.  I often keep a saucer of olive oil for Rannie Wu in an out-of-the-way corner of the kitchen: she likes olive oil, it's good for her, and there's never much in the saucer unless I've just added more, usually by request.

     But Huck was in a rambunctious mood and had cornered the venerable (and slow-moving) Random Numbers Wu in the olive oil corner; she had panicked, struggled, turned, and ran her tail through the half-full saucer several times.

     I heard the spat from the basement.  By the time I limped up the stairs, Tam had broken it up.  I went back to sorting and folding and it wasn't until dinner was ready (it had been simmering while I folded) that I noticed dark, crescent moon-shaped stains on the hardwood floor and figured out what had gone on.  Wiped those up, found more, found blotches on the ceramic tile in the kitchen and realized the Rannie needed found and cleaned up.  She objected mightily to having her very oily tail wiped down with paper toweling; I turned down the stove burner under dinner -- Eggs Pomodoro in a thick, ragout-style sauce that had plenty of meat and vegetables -- and asked Tam, "Can you wait five minutes?"

     She said, "Sure," so I got a folded square of paper towel damp with dish-soapy water, told the robot, "Alexa, set a timer.  Five minutes," ("TIMER SET.  FIVE MINUTES.") and shut Rannie and myself in the washroom.  There was a lot of pathetic complaint, most of it from her, as I scrubbed her tail in both directions, worked up a lather, and rinsed her off in warm water under the tub spout.  Now I had a wet, unhappy elderly cat and the air-conditioning was running -- so I dried her with a hand towel.  She was still damp and complaining, so I took a bath towel and made a cat burrito.  The timer went off right as I opened the door, the swaddled cat in one arm like a baby.

TAMARA KEEL PHOTO

     You'd think they'd hate it, but a wrapped-up damp cat being cuddled and fussed over is usually a not-unhappy cat.  Tam was so charmed she got her camera out and took a series of snapshots: dinner could wait another few minutes.

     The Eggs Pomodoro was good; there was a new episode of The Expanse to watch while we ate and Rannie curled up on the couch between us, leaning into my hip, grooming desultorily and occasionally reaching out to rest a paw on Tam and blink up at her, oil-free in the tail department and at peace with the world.  Mr. Huck sulked on his fancy cat-perch in the corner the entire time.

Locked And Loaded

     I remain convinced that the phrase, "What's all this, then?" and its various regional permutations is the single most powerful weapon in the policeman's arsenal.

Gosh, I Should Have Posted Something

     But I didn't -- it got all briefly exciting early this morning when Tam's range partner* showed up, reported there was a minivan driving around the block slowly that eventually parked and, "Three men got out, all wearing gray T-shirts and wandered down the block looking at houses.  Maybe they're casing them."

     So Tam went out the garage door and met her pal, and they circled the block again and went off to breakfast, from where I got a text, "The guys were contractors, trying to find their client; they did and they're setting up tools." 

     Look, sometimes it is monsters, and you don't wanna just put on blinkers and be oblivious; but usually it's not.   Hang back, observe and find out.  Which is what we all did.  (I did get chided for stepping out on the porch to look.  Hey, either they wuz Pure Evil and I was already dead; or they wanted the element of surprise and I spoiled it; or they were lost workmen and used to gettin' the hairy eyeball.)
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* I was thinking about tagging along last night.  Picked up a "blue gun" inert trainer and took up a nice Weaver stance -- ouch!  Nope, won't be doing that until the rotator cuff thing is sorted.

It's Easter

    Go spend time with your family.

The Cardboard Box Office

     So, you've got 1. A new baby, 2. A just-moved household, 3. A few zillion cardboard boxes and 4. You're spending a lot more time at home (see item one).

     Do you do as generations of parents before you have done and A. Go quietly crazy -- or do you B. Restage famous movie scenes using whatever's laying around?

     Yeah.  I'll have some more from Column B, please!

On The Internet, Nobody Know You're Really A Cat

     Or maybe a cockroach typing by leaping up and down on the keys.*  (Title reference explained for the history-impaired.)

     Been a lot of snark and blather about Bradley Manning's long-telegraphed ("bombshell"?  Puh-leeze)  announcement that he would far rather be a she, much of it altogether crude.

     Let's step back a moment, shall we?  Like you, I'd just as soon so much recent history didn't read like Jerry Springer transcripts, but in the case of Pvt. Manning, a guy that small and that young was going to be in serious risk of rape in a heavy-duty Federal pen even if his nickname was "Spike" and he could punch though walls bareknuckled.  Going public -- and probably getting sent to the "sexually-different prisoner" unit you'll find at nearly every large prison, official or not -- is Manning's safest possible course.

     I have repeatedly opined that a sworn member of the military in particular has a price to pay for breaking security, no matter how morally motivated their actions or how trivial the official secrets revealed.  He took an oath to serve and then broke it, and now the piper must be paid.  In this case, the bill is 35 years in prison.  --It's not 35 years of sexual abuse.

     The kinds of abuses prisoners inflict on one another, and particularly on the most vulnerable among them, are no joke.  It's just another way in which prisons become finishing schools for crime and bent minds; it doesn't punish in any proportional way and it doesn't do a darned thing to reform criminals.

     Is the whole call-me-Chelsea thing kind of, well, tacky?  Yes.  Is it discomfiting?  Damn skippy.

     That doesn't make it a very funny joke.
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* archy wants you to know that computer keyboards have solved his problems with the shift key.  And there's an odd connection, here, too: the original illustrations of archy the cockroach and his pals were drawn by George Herriman, better known and much loved for Krazy Kat -- and from behind a drawing board, nobody knows you're black.  For all his talent, for all his work was enjoyed by millions, he spent his whole life hiding his hair under a hat, talking about Greek ancestors to explain his dark complexion, "passing" lest he be despised for his true ancestry.

Like Daylight Savings Time, Only With Police Officers

     The Mayor of Indianapolis has a Bold! New! Plan! to address what's shaping up to be a violent summer: he's taking cops out of Community Resource work and putting them in squad cars! 

     Yes, that right, the LEOs who have been doing the Officer Friendly bit, standing in for the beat-walking policemen of yore (which the city can no longer afford and hasn't had for years), are gonna be responding to crime now, showing up in a blaze of light with sirens screaming--

     After the crime has been committed.

     Okay, if this was a comic book or even a Sherlock Holmes story, we could expect the crime rate to get way better once Moriarty or the Joker had been rounded up.  I'm not so sure applying a bigger bandage is gonna work here.

     The city has no plans to hire more police; the policeman's union thinks they're nearly, oh, 700 patrol-persons short.  They might be high -- no, numerically, I mean -- but they've got a point.  You don't get more police by shuffling around the ones you already have.

     And you sure don't get better or happier ones that way.

Officer Safety Meets Teen-Aged Idiots

     Madcap Hijinks do not ensue: the headline reads, "Columbus Police face battle against BB guns," and I was expecting to read a hand-wringing piece featuring one of Indiana's few "Illegal Mayors Against Guns."  Nope; Columbus fixed that problem at the ballot box and good for 'em.

     There's still lots of hand-wringing.  The problem now is that modern-day BB guns look a whole lot like the real thing -- especially after the choirboys go to painting the Federally-mandated orange tip black.

     Still, you're saying, kids, small city, BB guns, what's the big problem?

     Parents, as near as I can tell.  It boils down to one kid using a BB gun in a manner extremely contrary to the Four Rules -- pointing at cars, people, et stupid cetera -- and his buddy who'd amassed 8 to 12 of the more-realistic examples, at least two fathers who'd done apparently zero safety training of their little gems and now wanted the po-lice to come remove those Implements of Destruction, and this jewel of logic:  "...police are trained not to hesitate when confronted with a weapon."

     Somehow, I'm reminded of this. Which, fraught though it is, stops short of Dillinger-outside-the-Biograph levels of "not to hesitate."  Ahem.

     See, there's a way to avoid all this, and it is called the Four Rules.

1.  All guns are always loaded.
2.  Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
3.  Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
4.  Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

     You'll notice that "don't point guns at cops" (or anyone else) is implied quite strongly in Rule 2.  If more fathers (and/or mothers) were teaching all four rules to their offspring -- and that it applies to bows & arrows, slingshots and BB guns as well as firearms -- there'd be a whole lot less "Please come to house and remove Junior's soft-as-airgun collection."

     But I suppose that would be way too much work.

     Hey, now that those baaaaad BB guns are gone, how long do you suppose it will take before Junior points a more or less gun-shaped stick/board/PVC pipe at passers-by?

Don't Tempt Me

     It's 7:30 in the ayem and I'm already low on patience.

Good Advice If Properly Followed

     Hint: Step one is listed at the top.

     Seen during the Great Peru Roadtrip, and could be yours for a low, low $30.  I passed but I may post a copy of it.

Uh-Oh

So, I successfully returned to the good old interface at Blogger, hey-ho, back to normal.

Not so fast. Tonight there was a message for me:Okay, then.

I quite dislike the new UI. I'm no good at real HTML and formatting in the new near-WYSIWYG editor baffles me.

When Blogger pulls the rug out from under for good, I am not going to mess with it if it becomes too annoying. I have a WordPress backup -- which I kept updated until Google/Blogger, as is their right, decided to pull the plug on that -- and I'm not happy with WP's UI, either.

Once it stops being fun, I'll stop doing it.

Maybe I'll suck it up and adapt; maybe I won't. This is a hobby, after all, and I have plenty more.

It's 2012

...Do you know where your Mayans are?

Changes Around Here

There are a few.

- Comment moderation is enabled. My judgement is harsh and cannot be appealed. (John B, if you have to apologize "for abusing your sensitivities" when you use a euphemism for a briefly-popular comedic expression, count on not getting your comment posted).
I'm saving all comments but a few (4 so far) are not getting published; one has been published as an image. The author of that one, "Bill," has sent another comment in much the same style, chortling about how "you got played;" there's another from "Anonymous" claiming "there would never be enough 'verifiable' information to convince [Roberta X]." Anon, there is a difference between "verifiable information" and "information enough to convince Roberta X." I could publish the first; the second, not so much, as inference and consilience* are tough to successfully defend. I could certainly make my own conclusions based on the second, though, and I have done so.

- BlogMeets will be invitation-only until I decide otherwise. Probably dates will be published, locations will not (and they will be new ones); RSVP and if you're unknown to me, you will be checked out. This is based not so much on recent events as it is on the attendee at the last one who prompted this post. I don't have any problem at all calling out "He@rtl@nd Irregul@rs" as a bunch of racists, since they provide all the evidence on their website, but I'm not going to increase their web-visibility by linking to their site or even spelling their name with the right letters. --I put off starting a fight over it but I was in no hurry to schedule the next BlogMeet. Now that I'm moderating comments, there's not going to be a fight.

- "Once bitten, twice shy." Hey, I try to be nice, and fair, and decent, and to let stupid notions reveal their own stupidity. But I can be a hard-nosed ol' babysitter when I have to, and I can be harsh on myself when that is merited, too. Readers are fine and most of you are appreciated, but like Unk says, "I write this for me, not you."
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* Thanks to SF writer Michael Flynn for introducing me to the term in his fine book, Eifelheim, which bounces between star-traveling aliens stranded in 12th-Century Europe and a scholars in a future only a few years from now.

What I'm Doing This Morning

Instead of writing this post -- I did that last night -- I am, if the Fates allow, taking Mom's diabetic doggie to the vet to have his blood sugar checked.

Since the poor, pudgy critter is a "stress pooper" and I am not much of a dog person, it may be interesting. I like the little chickenheart well enough but I don't know if I can keep him calm enough. He may end up traveling in the king-sized cat carrier. He's not too big for it.

More later, maybe. Wish me luck!

A Funny Thing Happened At The Zoo

I went to the Indianapolis Zoo and...


...the animals blacklisted me!

Except for the ones who just plain can't be bothered to care.Tsk. "Can you outrun a cheetah," indeed. A sleeping one, you bet!

So, I was ignored. At least they still have children for the turtles tortoises to look at; I'm pretty sure it goes that way 'round. And so are they. (With no treats to lure them, either. There were two turtles tortoises, cruising around, looking for children to view; when they spotted one, they'd amble over and take a good, long look. They think the Deserts Biome is run to entertain them and they may be right. Well, them and the bust-a-pose bearded lizards, who perk up at the sight of a camera.)