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3499
This video is intended to be funny, but it isn't. What is interesting is watching the poor kangaroo move. He clearly is frightened and puffs up his chest quite visibly. I also found it fascinating to watch how he uses his tail like a third leg, and sort of moon walks using it.
I should also add that this is animal cruelty and very dumb to boot.
3495
Speaking of Knut, the deceased German polar bear of international notoriety, here's a gem:
Knut the polar bear to be stuffed, displayed at Berlin museum
BERLIN -- Knut, the world's best known polar bear, is to be stuffed and put on display in a Berlin museum, allowing fans a chance to say their farewells to the animal.
The news came Tuesday as a team of veterinarians tried to define the cause of the four-year-old bear's death. Three vets took part in the examination of the 300kg (661lb) animal, and were accompanied by a taxidermist to ensure that Knut's fur was not damaged in the process.
The stuffed polar bear will be placed in the Berlin Natural History museum, close to the world's largest dinosaur skeleton, The Times of London reported.
3491
I'm here to ruin your day with this one:
Yet Another Adorable YouTube Sensation Actually Predicated On Cruelty
"The only reason the loris isn't biting the person holding it in the video is because it has had its teeth ripped out with pliers."
- Animal rights activist Chris Shepherd tells you what's really going on in those viral videos which show slow lorises—tiny primates native to Southeast Asia—being tickled and holding up cocktail umbrellas. While the clips seem awww-worthy, the reality is far more sinister: "Although the creature may look happy, it submits to being tickled as a passive defence-mechanism to deal with stress. The loris is a nocturnal animal and is effectively being blinded by the daylight in the videos. Disoriented, it grasps at the umbrella believing it is the bamboo of its natural terrain."
3480
I've been chugging through my house's most recent selection for our book club, Everything is Illuminated. I was struck by a certain passage tonight. It contains no spoilers and goes as follows:
"Do you like thinking about Mom?
No.
Does it hurt after?
Yes.
Then why do you continue to do it? she asked. And why, she wondered, remembering the description of her rape, do we pursue it?"
This lingered with me: why do we somewhat fanatically revisit the memories of lost loves that give us pain? I don't find my wandering mind returning to a bad smell or a bitter taste. I don't continually relive stubbed toes and broken bones. And while I realize the difference between the simple, nonpartisan agony of a punched gut and the what-was-is-no-more despair of reflecting on something once good, I nonetheless find it peculiarly anti-evolutionary that we compulsively return to agonizing thoughts as if they contained some veiled lesson waiting to be gleaned. God knows I can't think of one thing I've learned from ten years of on-and-off lament over the men that got away other than to avoid them altogether. And genetics says a compulsive habit resulting in a "I can do fine fucking myself, thank you" attitude is about as likely to get passed on as a penchant for eating live bees.
Anyway, here's one of my favorite depressing Beatles songs. Also, don't mind me -- I've been figuratively man-menstruating for a few days now and there's only so much Aimee Mann can do before the moodiness tumbles over onto the blog. Count yourself lucky that I was waxing philosophical and not posting a polemic about love or badgers or something.
3475
Confirmation from Eliza:
"Yale Law School, renowned for competitiveness and its Supreme Court justices, is embarking on a pilot program next week in which students can check out a “therapy dog” named Monty along with the library’s collection of more than one million books. While the law school is saying little so far about its dog-lending program, it has distributed a memo to students with the basics: that Monty will be available at the circulation desk to stressed-out students for 30 minutes at a time beginning Monday, for a three-day trial run."
God damn it, I want a therapy dog! I'm going to pull some strings and get this thing underway.
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