Zoo Presentation and New Pictures

Spectacled owl pair at the Zoo (a bit fuzzy due to the low light)

My triple-decker presentation day was last Friday. I followed the three scripts I posted on this blog pretty closely, but I ran out of time and was "cut off" long before I could finish my talk about the owls or tie it all together at the end. This was pretty frustrating, especially since: 1) I was the only one this happened to, even though others in my group ran over their time limits; and 2) the other two groups had quite a bit more time allotted to them to get through their three animals. Luck of the draw, I guess, but a bit annoying. In any event, the prairie dogs were still "off exhibit", but that gave me more time to talk about the signage at the Zoo. (Unfortunately, the trainee who was supposed to talk about the black-footed ferrets immediately before me was absent which meant I had to touch on those animals briefly as well in my prairie dog talk.) Only one of the two spectacled owls (the male) was visible, too; I learned later that the female is brooding at the moment in a hollow trunk in the exhibit. But the wonderful octopus put on an amazing show for us: she was up in the corner of the tank when she noticed the whole clutch of people standing there, so she came down and pranced around in front of us for a while, sizing everyone up with her eyes and showing off her underbelly. It was pretty obvious she was interacting with the group and I'm finding the giant Pacific octopus to be more fascinating every time I see her.

The Climes They Are A-Changin'

Norm Kelly, living in denial
credit: Steve Russell/Toronto Star

Does anyone think it would be a good idea to hire Todd Akin as the head of Planned Parenthood? Or Ernst Zundel to run a chapter of B'Nai Brith? Completely absurd notions, aren't they? And yet, here in Toronto, we have a climate change denier as the chair of the Parks and Environment committee for City Council. Norm Kelly, Ward 40 (Scarborough-Agincourt) councillor, met last week with several environmental experts regarding how climate change will affect Toronto's aging infrastructure, listened to each of them speak in turn, and then told reporters that there's "information coming along the academic pipeline" that will, in some way, "prove" that climate change is a myth. Kelly is not nearly as radical as the men I cited in my earlier analogy—and to his credit seems to be allowing for some debate (which he will likely just ignore at the end of the day)—but he's symbolic of a pretty big problem in this country: people in positions of authority who are not under-qualified but "anti-qualified" to be in charge of hugely important portfolios.

Farewell to the Penny

"Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck."

Sad penny face
links to: forgetthebox.net

I seem to be in the minority here, but I find it almost indescribably sad that the Canadian penny is on the verge of being lost to history forever. The last Canadian one-cent coin was minted on May 4 of last year and today the Royal Canadian Mint officially ended its distribution of pennies to financial institutions. Today also marks the day that independent businesses will begin to stop accepting or giving out pennies at points-of-purchase; some of them will be reprogramming their systems to automatically round up or down each sale to the nearest nickel but most will do it the "old-fashioned way" for the foreseeable future: cashiers will calculate the rounding in their heads and hilarity will most likely ensue. The government claims it will save $11 million per year by no longer minting these bronze beauties (and you know the Harper Cabal never lies about financial figures) but the cost to us as consumers and business owners in the immediate future, at least, will easily rival that $11 million savings. In the first place, it will likely cost businesses collectively hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of dollars to reprogram their check-out registers to round everything to the nearest nickel. Try to imagine a scenario where those costs are not passed down to the people who shop there; I'd be very interested in hearing from you if you are successful. The businesses that do not choose to go this route (at least at first) will cause some pretty impressive bottlenecks at their checkouts while harried front-line employees who are already under pressure not to make mistakes with their tills try to work out "rounding rules" in brains that haven't had to calculate a total since they were seven years old. Frustrated customers who leave those stores and vow never to return may become a pretty serious problem not too far down the road.

Pro Sports are Losing Me

Before the lights went out

It's Super Bowl Sunday, the day of the Greatest Sporting Spectacle in the World™ or, as I like to call it, Sunday, February 3, 2013. I've never really been a football fan at any point in my life; I do watch the occasional game if there's some significant reason to do so and will try to at least follow if not actually watch a Championship Game from time to time, at the very least for pop culture value. Last night, for example, the importance of a solid social media presence was once again driven home to me: I hadn't watched even a moment of the "festivities" (and especially not the half-time show) when I was alerted on Twitter that something extraordinary was happening in the Superdome—specifically, half of the lights had gone out due to some sort of power surge. I immediately switched over to the channel carrying the game and left it there for about twenty-five minutes, soaking up the historical occasion. Then the game itself resumed and we all went back to watching the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. I did switch back at the very end when I learned how close the game had become; I really only watched it for curiosity's sake, though, from there on in. But that's always been my attitude toward football; there's nothing new under the sun there, although I do watch it—and basketball and tennis and pretty much all professional sports—even less often now than the miniscule amount I once did.

In the Shadow of the Groundhog

How could he not see his shadow??

It's Groundhog Day again today, or, as I like to call it, "Rodents Suck at Math Day". Or maybe it's not their fault: after all, they didn't choose the date of the "holiday". February 2nd is "Candlemas", supposedly midway between the start of winter and the start of spring, but somewhere along the way our calendars changed just enough that it's actually not the midway point any more, if it ever was. "Candlemas", by the way, is yet another Christian holiday that was co-opted from the pagans (who called it Imbolc); another story in their long tradition of demonizing "witchcraft" while simultaneously "purifying" the important days of Celts and Pagans everywhere. That, of course, is a story for another time: my main point here is Candlemas or Imbolc or however you like to refer to it comes forty-two to forty-three days from the beginning of winter but forty-six to forty-seven days before the beginning of spring. Remember those numbers; I'll return to them later.