Fishy

Our older girls love the dolphin show at the MN Zoo. LOVE it. It is absolutely one of their most cherished activities. I suspect their current love of Ariel is directly related to their first love of dolphins. Since so many families seem to share this common experience, you could imagine my surprise when we entered Discovery Bay one August afternoon to find no line for the dolphin show. Usually, there are hundreds of abandoned baby buggies at the foot of the winding stairway that leads up to auditorium. I knew something was amiss as soon as I spied the empty stroller coral. Sadly, we were informed that one of the dolphins is pregnant and the dolphin show has been put on indefinite hiatus. It could even be on hold until this particular marine mammal births her baby. Not sad for the dolphins mind you; but for me, who had to explain to our girls why we weren’t going to see the dolphins that day…and maybe for a long time after. Surprisingly, they accepted the pregnant dolphin story hook, line and sinker. Even today, when something dolphin comes up, it’s highly likely one, or both of them, will say: “the dolphin show is having a baby”, followed by a sigh, but then a quick return to whatever they had been engaged in before dolphins had come up.

Fast forward to last week when I run across an odd little news item from the Pioneer Press regarding the dolphin show. Apparently, the zoo staff had significantly streamlined their story. Yes, one of the female dolphins, Allie, is pregnant and expecting next spring. However, April, Allie’s mother, who is not pregnant, is behaving as if she was. She’s also not eating. Zoo biologists can’t figure out why. To make matters worse, all this pregnancy and fake pregnancy is apparently making Semo, Allie’s babydaddy, really, really, horny. He’s chasing that mother-daughter tail as fast as he can and neither the mother or daughter are making it hard for him. Quite to the contrary.

The presence of a female and a male is all it takes with dolphins,” said Kevin Willis, director of biological programs at the Apple Valley zoo. “Dolphins are a species that are pretty easy to breed. They’re big, and they do it often. They’re not shy or secretive. Parents found themselves even having to explain the dolphin trio’s behaviors to their kids, Willis said. The dolphins were so sexually distracted that trainers had to cancel their shows.

What you talkin ‘bout Willis! It’s like a Jerry Springer cast you got swimming around up in there. Willis says: “all four will now be managed as breeding dolphins to get ready for next year's calf birth." Spree, Semo’s 7 y/o dtr. has so far kept her relationships platonic. "Until now, they'd been managed as show animals. So we just decided, with one confirmed pregnancy and one we're not sure about, let's just take away any stress, take away the show element of the day…Not an easy decision, but we decided we would just let those animals have a break." Except, from the sounds of it, those animals aren't resting much. Holla!

Contaminated

We received an email last night that appeared to be a side by side comparison of McCain and Obama’s tax plans, entitled: “2008 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE COMPARISON TALKING POINTS”. It was the type of viral email I wouldn't usually bother responding to, but, it came from family. I won’t say who, but they're born and raised in MN. And they’re parents. Old enough to be my parents, in fact. I’ve mentioned I’m from Massachusetts, right? Born and raised in Mass. Anyhow, here’s an example of of some of these “talking points”:

Sen. McCain on Income Tax: Single making 50K = tax $12,500 (No change). Sen. Obama: Single making 50K = tax $14,000 (Under Obama, your taxes could almost double!)

Voted against making English the official language: Sen McCain: No, Sen. Obama: Yes

You get the picture. Total Republican propaganda. So, in an attempt to reply to this nonsense as politely as I could, I did a little Internet research on this chain letter. First of, Snopes.com (the urban myth web site) has this to say:

Every recent presidential election cycle has brought e-mail forwards that paint the Democratic party candidate as a proponent of a "tax and spend" philosophy (who will inevitably implement significant tax increases on taxpayers across all income levels) and present the Republican candidate as a model of fiscal conservatism, and the example (here) fits this pattern....According to the Tax Policy Center's analysis (View Here) of the candidates' proposed tax changes, the primary difference between them would be distributional, with Senator Obama’s proposal favoring lower-income taxpayers and Senator McCain's favoring higher-income taxpayers. (Read the full post here.)

Second, and don't ask how I got from that to this, I just did and your hair band may be made with used condoms.

In November 2007, news emerged from China that some hair band manufactured there were found to have been made from recycled condoms. The prophylactic hair ties were discovered in Dongguan and Guangzhou, two cities in the province of Guangdong. The “secret ingredient” came to light when a young woman in Dongguan thought to investigate the hair bands given to her in a local salon after one began to fray, revealing an unexpected color inside.

I'm not sure which story grosses me out more. Wait, it's definitely used condoms in people's hair. Although, both are pretty offensive. Here's the full post, with pictures! And for gosh sakes, don't put those things in your mouth anymore.