The Swallow and the Crow

Aesop was a Greek storyteller, famous for his fables which often had a moral attached to them.  The fable of the Swallow and the Crow ends with the the crow talking about fair-weather friends, with regard to his plumage.  

What or who are fair-weather friends? A fair-weather friend is someone who is a good friend when iit is easy and convenient to be one.  However, when times turn dark and things become difficult, you can be sure that this person will be nowhere to be seen.  They are no longer your friend when you have problems.

As the saying goes,  "with friends like these, who needs enemies?"

Male and female American Crows look alike, with all-black plumage that has an iridescent purple sheen in direct light.

Small swallow with long forked tail. Dark above, pale below, with a rusty breast and face. 

Fun fact; did you know that a group of crows is referred to as a 'murder of crows' while swallows are referred to as a 'flight of swallows'?

    Click here for a recording of the fable.

Photo credits:

https://abcbirds.org/bird/american-crow/

https://ebird.org/species/welswa1

Six degrees of separation

Six degrees of separation (also known as the six handshakes rule) is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. For example, you go to a gathering, and you meet a "friend of a friend", who you can then connect to another in a maximum of six steps. 

Picture this: a while ago, a stranger came calling to my door. She was looking for an English speaker to help her with a translation.  Did I know this person?  No, I did not.  Then, pray tell, how did she end up ringing my doorbell?

Aha! the magic of 6 degrees ... and how we're all connected.

In her quest to find an English speaker, she made enquiries at a neighbourhood stationery shop, three streets away. It just so happens that a young man who was studying English, previously worked at that shop. His former colleagues directed her to a neighbourhood butchery for further information on 'the English speaker'. So off she trotted to the butcher, who happens to be the uncle to this student.  Here, she was directed to me, right next door!  

It didn't even take her six handshakes - in a hop, skip and jump - voila - she found me, a total stranger, yet still the one she was looking for.

You could say that her 'Bacon' number was 3.

What? Bacon number? This comes from the Kevin Bacon experiment. It is said that the actor Kevin Bacon, in a 1994 interview, declared that he had worked with everyone in Hollywood or someone who's worked with them. As a result, three college students invented a parlour game that became known as "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon" after watching two films on television that featured the actor back-to-back. The Bacon number of an actor is the number of degrees of separation they have from Kevin Bacon, as defined by the game.  

Have you ever thought about how far removed you are from the people you see on TV, the people on your route to work or school, some random person on the street?  What if your world was smaller than you imagined?  What if that person who consistently rudely bumps into you at the train station turns out to be the "friend of a friend of a friend?"

It's a small, small world.