Zoo news, part 2

Hmm. In contrast to the Bronx Zoo, which has had a problem keeping the critters inside its boundaries, the Oakland Zoo is taking in non-paying guests.

(You’ll recall that within a couple of months last year the Bronx Zoo lost both a cobra & a peahen. Both restored (so we’re told); but who knows what other exotic animals got out that the press never got wind of?)

No—Oakland Zoo has apparently become a destination for local fauna. Skunks, foxes, coyotes, wild turkeys & deer—they’ve all found ways to break into the zoo. & stay. & enjoy relative security & seemingly never-closing buffet.

I like the idea that the zoo co-exists with the natives. 

Midsummer musing

KQED, the local NPR outlet, runs listener commentaries they call “perspectives”. Yesterday, summer solstice, the contribution was from a Southerner about summer. & summer.

Basically, how summer in the Bay Area just doesn’t cut it. It’s not particularly different from any of the other seasons here. & she longs for the languid days & nights of the South.

I’m not really a Southerner (unless you count Southern Californian, because I am that), but I so agree with her. My years in Virginia & an unnamed state to the south of there have spoiled me when it comes to expecting changes as the seasons roll round.

Around here, spring, summer, autumn—all pretty much of a piece. During winter the temperatures dip…might reach the 50s or 60s. Boo-hoo. Otherwise, just unremitting cloudless skies & really dry air.

In Virginia, right about now hot, sticky days carry on into warm, sticky nights, but fireflies are lighting up the twilight & in wooded areas bats are coming out to catch their mosquito dinners. You can buy corn at roadside stands that was picked just this morning; it’s so sweet you almost don’t have to cook it to gobble it down. If you walk down the town street, people greet you, whether they know you or not.

When mom turns on the sprinklers & lets the kids run through them, it’s a joyful relief for all concerned.

I understand that air conditioning has changed a lot of the south—people go indoors & glue themselves to Netflix on 52” flat-screens instead of lounging on front porches drinking lemonade & watching their kids play. & now that places like Friendly’s are in bankruptcy, I’m not sure where you’d get your ice cream & grassy slope to cool down the evenings.

But I still miss it & I’d trade this dry, dusty paradise for the Old Dominion in two blinks of a June bug’s eye.

Drama in the town square

Here’s a different sort of flash mob for your entertainment, courtesy of my friend the Pundit's Apprentice.

Well—more street theatre than flash mob. But still—mixing it up for the Belgians, who don’t ordinarily get a whole lot of excitement in their town squares.

Ritz à la Russe

If I had a bucket list, I believe I’d have “be part of a flash mob” in the top third. I recently received links to a couple, via my friend the Pundit’s Apprentice. Here’s the first: “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, in Moscow.

Now, leaving aside the fact that the video editing on this sucks, there are a couple of things I find interesting about this.

The number & variety of digital devices that are being used to record the event. Even a few tablets. I'm thinking that the recording is an integral part of these things.

Then there's he curious incident of the bride & groom. Hard to determine whether or not they were intended to be part of it—the two of them left standing at the end tends to indicate that they weren’t.

But I bet they’ll remember this day for a long, long time.

Also, if this video goes viral, I’m betting that bridezillas all over the country are going to demand a flash mob at their receptions.

News of the good, Part 3

Really an amazing event this past week: Burmese opposition leader & holder of the high moral ground for decades Aung San Suu Kyi finally accepted her Nobel Peace Prize in person.

When you consider what this woman has endured—her house arrest was only lifted two years ago by the military dictatorship, & she was elected to parliament but two months ago—it’s just astonishing that things have shifted such a distance that she’s in Oslo to accept her prize & will be able to return to Myanmar.

Considering everything going on in the world, it’s really heartening to have this story to put things into perspective.