WHOA! In case you think that vote of yours doesn’t count - how about these election results? The country has sent a clear message of dissatifaction with the status quo. Now let’s just hope some things begin to happen! I personally am thrilled with the voter turnout. I worked yesterday in a local precinct and watched carefully as folks voted - very impressed with how carefully and apparently thoughtfully they voted. Way to go!
I DID! Did you?
And all I got was this stupid sticker…… oh well……
Just kidding! It is really important that you vote - otherwise you just can’t legitimately complain about the ways things are unless you exercise this incredible privilege to vote.
NO, a polar bear would never eat a penguin in the wild! Reason? Because all polar bears live in the Northern Hemisphere and all penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere!
Did you get the right answer?
I am working on the pictures from my magical trip to Churchill, Canada, to see the polar bears but in the meantime I have a question for you! In my work as a docent at the Los Angeles Zoo I have asked this question many times over many years and have gotten very few right answers. But here goes: In the wild would a polar bear eat a penguin?
I will post the correct answer in a day or two but give it a try!
I am soon to embark on a wonderful adventure. Travelling to Churchill, Canada, to see the polar bears has long been a dream of mine and it soon will be a reality! My trip takes me to Winnipeg then to Churchill where we will talk to the bears from a tundra buggy, participate in a dog sled ride, spend time with the mushers, visit an abandoned (I hope) bear den, take a helicopter ride over the tundra, visit a couple of museums spending some time with local native people and hearing stories of the past, and hopefully will catch an evening of the Northern Lights. What a joy! I am getting my camera fired up and hopefully will get some wonderful shots. Stay tune for on-line viewing of my album when I return but in the meantime here is just a teaser - obviously I didn’t take this picture because I am not there yet! Back to packing and organizing! Where are my mittens?
I watched a fascinating little movie called “Paper Clips” yesterday. Students at Whitwell Middle School in rural Tennessee lead the cast for this documentary about an extraordinary experiment in educating middle school students of the enormity of the Holoaust. With the leadership of their teachers they decide to collect 6 million paper clips to represent the 6 million victims. The project started small but grew into an enormous project incuding meeting survivors from around the world and finally setting up a memorial with an actual cattle car sent from Germany. The documentary could have been edited and produced more succintly but the warmth of the young students toward the elderly survivors more than made up for its shortcomings. Definitely worth a watch and an interesting lesson in stereotypes on all sides.
I was looking over my blog posts recently to realize that I have posted about pandas four times! But they really are cute and here are six more panda cubs just beginning their lives at a panda breeding and research station in China’s Sichuan province. Sometimes I wonder about all these panda cubs being raised in captivity. Will they be successfully re-introduced to the wild or might we be creating a somewhat new species of captive bred and raised pandas. Is there enough relatively protected space for them. Actually there seem to be no other real choices to save the species. Anyway here they are - too cute!
It is almost unbelievable that five years have passed since the attacks on 9-11. My sympathies are with all those that lost loved ones on that horrendous day. But then that really includes everyone out there - I didn’t lose a family member but I lost 3000 fellow US citizens.
But I have so many questions - where are the rebuilt building or buildings? Where is the memorial we should have. Why isn’t cargo that goes on planes examined in totality? Why isn’t there a mechanism to examine cargo that comes into our ports? I am more than willing to cooperate at airports or wherever with security checks but I understand the screening device for shoes does not pick up plastic bomb material (what the “shoe bomber” had in his shoes!) So if this grandma from LA has to take off her shoes, obviously I will do it but will it help?
I watched Koppel on Discovery last night (Ted Koppel) , his first show “The Price of Security” during which he made a fascinating comment at the end of the program. He noted there is one nation which can absolutely guarantee security - North Korea! Of course, it is at the expense of “every and all liberties”! We need a comprehensive system of security measures that is balanced with safety and the rights we hold so dear. We need them now! Otherwise did the terrorists win more than we thought?
Today we lost Steve Irwin that we knew as the “Crocodile Hunter.” Just 44 years old, he was filming a segment for a series called “Oceans Deadliest” off the Great Barrier Reef and received a fatal sting to the heart by a stingray. He was absolutely passionate for wildlife and his work at the Australia Zoo. Sometimes criticized he was devoted to his work, his family and the Zoo. I remember one filmed segment of his visit with Terri, his wife, to New York. He was leaning over the subway tracks to see what they were about and Teri was trying unsuccessfully to reign him in. Enthusiasm ruled and he approached conservation and his beloved reptiles with the same passion. I shall really miss hearing all about the wonderful reptiles he loved and especially him saying “crikey”!
During an interview with Brian Williams in New Orleans yesterday Bush offered up another one of his weird “bushisms”. Brian was commenting on Mr. Bush’s reading list for the summer and remarked that there was a wide variety of material to which the President commented, “Yes, I am a “ek-e-lectic reader”! Now I really don’t know how to spell exactly what Bush said but the last time I looked the word is eclectic! I guess it is just too much to ask for the President of the United States to speak good English…… sigh…….