secondary programming

Do you think that animals feel the way we do when we see things like this? Like, do they see our human babies and roll their eyes from internal melting?

I'll grant you, it's not the cutest, but in a disappointing hunt for available (<- key qualifier) polar bear holiday cards, this was found here.

cheerQ

You know how cheerleaders do this, "When I say X, you say Y" thing?

Why don't people actually do that, and yell with the cheerleaders - simultaneously? I promise it would in no way lessen my excitement.

sarah palin

McCain's selection of Sarah Palin marks him clearly as unconcerned with our country's future.

McCain's choice of a former pageant contestant whose greatest experience is as a PTA member, denotes at best self-concerned irresponsibility. Should something happen to him, this is honestly who he thinks would be the best leader for our nation? Someone who's even more extreme than him, who disregards separation of church and state in favor of teaching Creationism in public schools, and takes a more radical stance on abortion than a conservative male Republican?

If this VP candidate sways the disgruntled Hilary voters to his ticket, then the women of this country are slumped back not just one century but two - to a time when most women in America were illiterate, lacking any analytical training. And worse, if women blindly support a candidate because of gender, they practice a shallow bigotry. Such support would mean the majority of our U.S. women have either a tragic ignorance or shameful disregard for the sacrifices of all the heroines of the past who gave over their comfort, their safety, and sometimes their lives, so that we would be free to impact our own situation, to realize our potential, to contribute as we choose.

The irony is that while Sarah Palin benefits from these sacrifices now more than most American women, she wishes to stand on the backs of our saviors to keep others down. There is no surer factor for a woman's life to be impoverished than early motherhood.

Instead of progress, Sarah Palin's position indicates women in this country are this very day considered such simpletons that we'd fall for this ploy - that we'd sooner have a moment of false pride at the expense of our daughters' futures, that we're fools enough to prop a crowned Palin up on our shoulders while she whips away our pride and possibilities.

zoo

LZP and I thought it would be a good idea to go to the zoo.

That part was. Being there when other people were? [Doubtful mouth-scrunch]

Learn from our experience, that our suffering be not in vain. (Suffering in veins is unavoidable. It's called family, it's in your blood, yo.) Do not make the mistake of going to the Bronx Zoo on a Wednesday, the designated "suggested donation" day. It's great that it's there, though it seems to have little impact on education [shame in own species, engaged] - but really, just let the almost $30 entrance fee segregate as intended. IT IS WORTH IT.

We heard a woman telling her daughter, in all earnestness, that a red panda was a teddy bear. People were standing on one side (the wrong one) of open-air cages screaming, then being baffled that the animals wouldn't come near, then not notice that when people were quiet the animals would start moving closer. A boy aged about nine years pounded maniacally on the not-as-thick-as-you'd-think glass at the gorilla cage, with an adult female right next to the glass. LZP and I became progressively more liberal selecting children for deposit in the gorilla pits, lion fields, gator ponds, etc.

But there was one overheard highlight.

Adult Male to Presumably Have Fathered Boy: Do you know why flamingos are pink?
Boy Child: Because they're stupid. [statement]

we be schprechen american he'ya

Hey! I took two seconds and figured out 1) the font my blog wouldn't stop defaulting all attempts at text entry to was Hindi and 2) how to fix it.

This does, however, beg the question of HOW THE F DID MY BLOG TEXT DEFAULT GET SET TO HINDI?

'Tweren't I.

ihavetotypethiswayoritturnstoarabic

ewokgospel

provincial asshole-ness a modern invention, oh my!

From National Geographic regarding recent Stonehenge findings:

Furthermore, fragments of the same type of Welsh stone were identified from the nearby Stonehenge Cursus—a long, cigar-shaped ditched enclosure. The Cursus had been created centuries before the stone circle was constructed.

"It's making us think that this connection with Wales might really have been quite long lasting and not just to do with Stonehenge," Parker Pearson said.

Read all the razzle dazzle here.

chin marionette

This is the best idea I had all week (probably need more vitamins, true). The little be-string'd body could be dangling beneath the chin as live being sticks head out from behind backdrop and LO! the fun.

Introducing - the chinionette!