Monthly Archives: April 2012

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The Thing With Feathers

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Finally, archeologists have found something in China that may soften the fierce image of the famous T. Rex. The nasty tempered terrible lizard had a fine feathered cousin.

Said to be the largest feathered creature ever to walk the Earth at 30 feet long and weighing in at a ton and a half, this critter couldn’t fly but I wouldn’t make a big deal out of that if I were you. A massive feeling of inadequacy might lead a fluffy fellow to overcompensate in the tearing-things-to-bits department.

Notice has been issued to all of history’s other so-called “big” avians – you better run!

This new discovery will surely take its place alongside Kim Jong Il’s Beanie Baby collection as a fresh emblem of the sometimes odd collision of viciousness and preciousness. Think Slobodan Milošević in Minnie Pearl’s Hat.

Yes, he was a killer, but oh so charming!

Good accessorizing can help change even the most severe negative impression, and feathers, especially the downy, baby-chick like fuzz attributed to Yutyrannus, can make a huge difference.

In fact, an account in the New York Times notes that the name of this creature is Yutyrannus huali, a melding of Latin and Mandarin which means “beautiful feathered tyrant”.

Yes, style matters, even for dictators and despots.

What do you put on when you want to win them over with your plumage?

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Arctic Art

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Although I work with words and audio most of the time, I have great admiration for anyone who can take a good photograph. As discriminating baboons know, there’s a lot more to it than point-and-click. And for wildlife photographer Paul Nicklen, there’s a whole lot of physical courage involved as he steps out into Arctic weather and submerges himself in frozen oceans. Nicklen has worked at the top of his craft, producing features for National Geographic. He’s going to be speaking tonight at the University of Minnesota – part of a program by the U’s Institute on the Environment.

If you can only watch the first five minutes of this TED talk, you’ll get a sense for depth of his commitment and the quality of his work. And if you make it through the first five, you’ll feel a strong urge to watch the rest – but be warned! There are penguin innards on display. Cute!

Another measure of Nicklen’s intensity – I’d call it a day and send in my photos after swimming with one Leopard Seal. He took a dive with 30! No wonder the photos are so good.

Describe the best picture you’ve ever taken.

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Car Cover

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A freshly assembled and somewhat opportunistic e-mail arrived with the warm spring temperatures and the fresh, healthy weeds sprouting from my lawn.

It’s Spring! And that means it’s time to buy a new car from Wally’s Intimida – Home of the Sherpa!

Hi, Wally here. There’s nothing that’s quite as exciting to me as a new car – especially when it comes from my store and winds up parked in your driveway, or behind your house, or in the case of the Sherpa, around your house, actually STRADDLING the structure!

Yes, that’s right! The Sherpa is the biggest car on the road today – big enough to park over the house so you get the extra measure of protection that only a 100 thousand pound car can give you! And in this time of unpredictable climate change featuring widespread and indiscriminate tornados and tsunamis, that’s an extra measure of comfort you can’t afford to be without!

You may have seen the video of a tornado throwing around tractor-trailers in Dallas. That’s a very bad thing, but no tornado would DARE do that to an Intimida Sherpa. The Sherpa is aggressively massive and distinctly aerodynamic, unlike a semi. A tornado may try to pick it up, but getting a grip on the Sherpa is like trying to grab a wet bar of soap from the shower floor. An incredibly heavy wet bar of soap! And underneath that stubborn soap sits your house, all snug and protected! Isn’t that worth having a few random drops of oil in your roof? Consider it part of the price you pay for peace of mind!

Our parents had dreams for us, and for many those dreams simply won’t come true. What did they want us to have? Good jobs and loving families, of course. But also they wanted us to have nice cars and secure dwellings. Sadly, many people lack even those basics.

Yes, times are still tough, but a fresh wind is blowing. It could be your local tornado. It could be the exhaust from a new Sherpa. Or it could be that people are starting to buy homes and cars again and here at Wally’s Intimida, we don’t want to be left out. That’s why all our Sherpas have to do double duty!

Some have a beautiful dream of a nice little house with a carport. I’m suggesting you make your great big car your houseport! Come on down to Wally’s Intimida today and let’s talk about protecting your abode with a topper from the road – a Sheltering Sherpa from Intimida.

It’s a mighty big, mighty hard-to-pick-up car!

Yours in Security,

Wally

You have to admire the agility of Wally’s pitch, even though pushing the windstorm security aspects of the heavyweight Sherpa on the heels of a major tornado is a bit tacky. Ok, it’s EXTREMELY tacky.

Where do you go when it’s time to take cover?

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Iron Eyes Cody

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Today is the birthday in 1904 of the film and TV actor Iron Eyes Cody.

He he has a lengthy list of feature film appearances on the Internet Movie Database , but was famous to most Americans as the “crying indian” in this landmark anti-pollution Public Service Announcement from 1971.

http://youtu.be/862cXNfxwmE

Iron Eyes Cody was an American, but not a Native American. He was born in Louisiana to Italian parents. His given name was Espera de Corti. He shortened his last name to “Corti” and when he went to Hollywood it became the much more marketable “Cody”.

He appeared on screen with luminaries like John Wayne and Richard Harris. And also with lesser lights like Jim Varney and Mr. T. But perhaps the most fascinating character in any of his films was Cody himself. He maintained throughout his life that he was of Cherokee and Cree ancestry, and stuck to that story even after researchers uncovered his true background.

He married a Native American woman, donated to Native causes, adopted Native children and seems to have lived an exemplary life of devotion to those who were his people in every sense except through a direct blood connection. But how important is that?

Thanks to that ubiquitous PSA, in the minds of millions of people “of a certain age”, Iron Eyes is an iconic Indian, and a constant reminder that we should pick up after ourselves.

Forty years ago, keeping America clean was an important part of the national conversation. That’s not so true today, though I don’t sense that we’ve come anywhere close to winning the war against litter.

I’d like to think that no one would throw a full bag of trash at the feet of an indigenous American standing by the highway in 2012 – not that that would have happened in 1971 either. What’s more likely today is that someone would call the police because some suspicious guy was standing too close to the road, crying.

What do you do to Keep America Clean?

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Ask Dr. Babooner

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

My husband’s attention is easily captured by contests.

I patiently worked with him through the heady highs and the heart crushing lows of his sudden obsession with the Mega Millions drawing last Friday. Somehow he convinced himself we were going to win and we would be forced to do something charitable because we would simply run out of things to want for ourselves.

He became completely worked up over the difficult philanthropic choice he knew we would face – whether to set up an organization to rehabilitate invasive Asian Carp who want to stop leaping, or create a home for Facebook Orphans – the sad children whose parents won’t friend them.

But we didn’t win anything at all! Instead of planning our victory announcement, I had to help him do calm-down exercises all through the weekend. Who knew writing explanatory haiku could be so therapeutic?

Now in the harsh light of Monday morning I see that it was all for naught – he’s stuck in a pattern of serial enthrallment, lurching from one popular thing to another.

Today it’s the Final Four.

He can’t stop talking about, thinking about, and fretting over the outcome of tonight’s Kentucky vs. Kansas contest – a basketball game that, to me, is utterly meaningless because it involves two states that I could never tell apart to begin with. One of them is certain to win but I’m sure that by tomorrow morning I won’t be able to remember which one it was.

As my husband pores over the line-ups and number-crunches the statistics, I tell him that these things always seem to come down to a couple of dapper millionaire coaches shouting about fouls with 3.7 seconds on the clock, and then some gawky near-teenager who hasn’t done his calculus homework trying to make a free throw with 0.6 seconds left.

I tell my husband to skip all the pre-game and mid-game angst and just tune in for the last 12.9 seconds. He won’t miss a thing! But words are useless. He doesn’t hear me and I know I won’t be able to get his attention again until Wednesday at the earliest.

Obviously I’m frustrated.

Why do they call it the “Final” Four when everyone knows there will be four more next year? I would be able to take these major sporting events more seriously if they truly represented the end – let’s crown a champion and then never, ever play the game again.

Is that too much to ask?

Sincerely,
Mrs. Fanatic

I told Mr. Fanatic that yes, in fact, it IS Too Much To Ask.

We all find it very easy to insist that other people give up things we don’t like. After all, it would be easy for US to walk away from the lottery and the Final Four – what’s the problem? And it feels great to scoff at these hopeless addicts. But what if someone asked you to stop feeling so superior? That could be a very hard habit to break.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?