Saturday, April 1, 2017

Fiona Sends You Some Love from the Cincinnati Zoo

Fiona is showing us the only time in a hippo's life when the animals are anywhere close to cute but she owns it for just now and all kinds of people are pulling for her.  She was born prematurely so her survival was questionable but it's about a month later and she's now up to one hundred and sixteen pounds.




The next time you see Fiona, she will kill you but that shows the tiny drawback to falling in love with hippos; they're among the most dangerous animals on the planet and they may well kill more people in Africa than alligators (seriously).  If you get into the water with a hippo, it's extremely unlikely you will come back out in the same number of pieces as when you went into it.

As Kurt Vonnegut Jr once said, "I'm beautiful in the water."

So are hippos but don't be in the water with them.

Ed:  what about being in the water with Kurt?

I don't swim that way, mate, but try your luck if you wish.  Tip:  he's dead.


There's a deep, lifetime love for the Cincinnati Zoo since it was the second job I actually liked doing. Regrettably, it was the last but it was extremely good while it lasted in working for the garden crew but being around all those magnificent animals all the time.  The job I liked before that one was for an old German who ran a bakery in Davis, California, and he gave me treats to take home when he didn't sell them that day.  If you ever get a chance in your life to work in a German bakery, definitely do it.

The Zoo took a great deal of bad press regarding Harambe and all because of a singularly stupid woman but I know from personal experience all of the people in the Zoo show more animal love than any ten others and it must have gutted them to shoot Harambe but they were left with no other choice.  The Zoo is much more than that single event so I'm pleased to bring you Fiona.

Ed:  too bad she will kill us the next time she sees us!

Tell you what, Ed.  Life has a few simple rules and it's best to respect them.  Don't vote for Republicans; don't ever believe a word which comes out of Washington; don't ever fucking swim with hippos.

Ed:  you equate believing Washington with being killed by a hippo?

Do you think I go too soft on Washington?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

How you got from Hippos to Republicans I will never understand but you didn't like Nixon either

Unknown said...

My memory of Nixon is of him sitting on a toilet with the caption, "Would you buy a used car from this man?"

In contrast to modern time, the things he was doing were kind of minimal ... but I still wouldn't buy a car from him.

Anonymous said...

You should have loved him.
He increased spending on social programs to levels higher than defense.
He began the EPA. He presided over the Clean Air Act He instituted quotas by race for government hiring.
He almost got a universal guaranteed income passed. He started the OSHA regulations increasing worker safety. Passage of Endangered Species Act
He was far closer to a Democrat on domestic policy than Republican. But he also had his failure on wage price freezes that sent inflation out of control and the number of corruption issues.
He must have rolled in his grave thinking I resigned and Clinton just said I don't recall.

Unknown said...

I know he was much better than he was credited but there was such a stink from Vietnam plus bombing Hanoi to the Stone Age that walking on water back here probably wouldn't have impressed anyone.

It's remarkable how much each party tap dances around the central points of their platforms over time and it looks like the Democrats have tap danced themselves right off the stage just now.

Anonymous said...

Didn't he end the war the democrats started. Eisenhower technically started it but first troops were Johnson's claim to fame.
But he was still a Democrat in Elephant costume

Unknown said...

I've hammered LBJ multiple times for escalating Vietnam. That poser Democrat owns it forever no matter how much his miserable corpse tries to wiggle out of it.

Nixon did end Vietnam but he borked it as well since he was hated for the carpet bombing of Hanoi. After that, people didn't want to hear anything about him, Vietnam, or any damn domino theories.

Nixon, for the reasons you mentioned, could have wound up high on the list for outstanding Presidents but he made some colossal mistakes and, in my view, threw it away.