The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => People & Places => Topic started by: AugustWest on February 26, 2004, 03:24:04 am
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I heard a story on NPR this evening about the director of the National Zoo resigning. Isn't this where you work?
Sounded like there are some pretty serious problems there, especially with sanitation. They kept talking about rats. Willard rats, not mole rats.
Anyhow, I was concerned for you when I heard the story. Are you safe from the rats? Is your job safe?
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That's been in the news for a while. It pops up on the front page of the Post from time to time. It doesn't sound like the regular employees will be effected, it all sounds like more a top brass thing.
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The Post today is gloating about driving her from office. There's a huge picture of her at the top of the front page. I think she needed to go, but I think the paper has behaved quite offensively. I get the feeling there are reporters who are trying to prove their worthiness for muckraking on more important beats.
It is a long complicated story. A lot of the problems they talk about are really in the past. Things are not perfect here but it's nothing like how they make it sound. And it's frustrating that there's never any context - how it compares to other zoos, which as far as I know, are typically just as understaffed and underfunded as we are.
A lot of the problems are typical of any large bureaucracy. But the thing is, while in any job people make mistakes and any organization can have problems, mistakes here can cause things to die. It's not like my last job where the worst mistake I could make could always be righted by a signature on a piece of paper. So some scrutiny is valid. Unfortunately, it has felt like a witch hunt. It makes it hard for people to take action to solve the problems when they are afraid every second that they're going to have their name in the paper.
I am pretty safe from rats - mostly just mice in our building, and fewer than there used to be. My job isn't safe because I'm still only a temp, but that has nothing to do with this shakeup, that's a whole other story.
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May I rant about one more thing?
There's a typical kind of line in that NPR report that I just listened to: something like "many animals have died at the zoo in the past year."
Well, DUH. People: Remember when you were a kid and you had that old dog, and one day you came home and he was gone, and your parents said that they'd taken him to live on a farm in the country? Well, I have some bad news for you...
Animals don't live forever. Of COURSE a zoo with hundreds of animals is going to have animals dying all the time. Mostly dying of old age, after they've lived much longer than they'd ever live in wild, because at the zoo they have a consistent food supply, and vet care, and no one trying to eat them. For every the animal they talk about who has died somewhat prematurely, I could introduce you to another animal that's way outlived its species' average life span.
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Hey, the Baltimore zoo almost had to close early this year. But I think people expect your zoo to be perfect because it has things like "National" and "Smithsonian" attached to its name.
I can't believe that between the Metro thefts and Lewis's indictment that the zoo got the main spot.
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You know my big beef with the Zoo, which I think Spellman had a lot to do with? Too many freakin' expansions and renovations at once. The past few times I've been in, the zoo looks like CRAP because there's too much construction and tearin' shit up going on. FoNZ members are constantly being beseiged with pleas for extra donations to fix the small mammal house, to redo the buffalo exhibit, for the Polish-American heritage garden, for the damn farm/petting zoo that still isn't done, for this that and the other damn thing. YEARS ago I sprang for a tile with my name on it at the new panda house, and WHERE'S MY fuck*ng TILE?!? For that matter, WHERE'S THE NEW fuck*ng PANDA HOUSE?!!! I don't even know where they're putting that mofo.
Ahem. I don't doubt that stuff needs to be updated and replaced, but it would be better both aesthetically and from a budgeting perspective to pick one or two projects, get them freaking done, then take on more projects.
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I agree. And what you're seeing doesn't even include the whole "Tear up Olmsted's park and build Lucy's Asia Trail" project that only exists as blueprints and models at this point.
But don't even get me started on pandas.
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I can't believe that because the Party Animals project was so "successful" they're doing it again with pandas. Who has these ideas?
I seem to recall several news stories about the the elephants and donkeys being disappointing and eyesores and vandalized and such. Why are they doing it again?
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You know my big beef with the Zoo, which I think Spellman had a lot to do with? Too many freakin' expansions and renovations at once. The past few times I've been in, the zoo looks like CRAP because there's too much construction and tearin' shit up going on. FoNZ members are constantly being beseiged with pleas for extra donations to fix the small mammal house, to redo the buffalo exhibit, for the Polish-American heritage garden, for the damn farm/petting zoo that still isn't done, for this that and the other damn thing. YEARS ago I sprang for a tile with my name on it at the new panda house, and WHERE'S MY fuck*ng TILE?!? For that matter, WHERE'S THE NEW fuck*ng PANDA HOUSE?!!! I don't even know where they're putting that mofo.
Ahem. I don't doubt that stuff needs to be updated and replaced, but it would be better both aesthetically and from a budgeting perspective to pick one or two projects, get them freaking done, then take on more projects.
This is one thing that our little 'ol local zoo, the Louisville Zoo, has been very good about. Every 3 years or so they start a new project/addition. They complete it, it's fabulous and they move on to the next one. As a long time member, I've been very pleased with our zoo and am somewhat concerned because the longtime director is leaving soon.
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YEARS ago I sprang for a tile with my name on it at the new panda house, and WHERE'S MY fuck*ng TILE?!?
I'm sorry, but I hate that shit. Any thing in the past 50 years that has been built with charitable contributions has this sort of graffiti all over the place junkin' up the facade. Whatever happened to annonymous donor?
~Paul
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You know what I hate about the zoo, it's too cheap. Our zoo here in Houston is very nice, but it only cost $7.00 for adults and $3.00 for kids to get in. Which means that for a city with a hellofalot of poor people with lots of kids the zoo is the place to be. On weekends the Houston Zoo is like Woodstock with animals. They need to raise the prices to keep the riff raff away.
~Paul
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Paul!! You said it! I go to the zoo and it's all I can do not to punch the shit out of the little fuckers pounding the glass and the undereducated, unwashed masses taking flash pictures of animals behind glass. These stupid buffoons need to get thrown out and their misbegotten parentage-slightly-hazy offspring need to be fed to the nearest large carnivore. I love animals and I love the conservation efforts most zoos are working towards but sometimes I think they should either give people a test or assign each group of ignorant hillbillies a bouncer with pepper spray, a cattle prod and no sense of humor whatsoever.
Elitist? Shit yes. Wrong on this point? Unless they do price the zoo out of the hands of these morons, I don't think so. Maybe, like other forms of entertainment, some natural tiers could be developed....like the difference between a night at the Symphony and a Monster Truck Rally.
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You think you have a problem - did you know that it's FREE to get into the National Zoo.
PS - Please don't pound on the glass because I HAVE TO CLEAN YOUR FREAKING FINGERPRINTS OFF IT. Thank you.
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Well, this thread sure got really offensive really fast.
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Well, this thread sure got really offensive really fast.
Well, I could jump straight for the H...
No, no I really shouldn't!
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I can understand why those posts sound offensive. But we've had things happen like a visitor dropping a rock on an animal and killing it. Even when it doesn't go that far, when you work at a place that attracts huge mobs of people, you see way more than your share of the sort of behavior that makes you despair of the future of civilization. And unfortunately it seems to be a facet of human nature to lack respect for anything that you get for free or for cheap, so that makes it worse. I won't go so far as to say that the more I see of people the more I like animals, but some days it's close.
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I won't go so far as to say that the more I see of people the more I like animals, but some days it's close.
I'm willing to bet that if you removed the fine acheheads, dumbrellites, and other OL people you don't really "see" that it would be much much closer.
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Well, this thread sure got really offensive really fast.
I assume I'm the one with the need for speed here....I think Wombat's point that people can't respect anything that is free is right on. I worked in a clinic where service was free and people had the nerve to COMPLAIN because they had to WAIT while people who got their first or triaged in with pressing needs were seen. And this was for VD, people! It's not like you don't need a little time to think... I was more than happy to suggest they pony up some cash at another clinic if they felt they weren't getting their money's worth.
It's the same problem in my opinion - people are no longer held to any reasonable standard for behavior and accountability and the rest us get branded elitist or nazis or whatever (racist, even!) because we understand that everyone benefits when everyone behaves reasonably. And everyone suffers when people don't.
I don't want to live where everyone is like me. I just want to live where everyone has some kind of respect for what other people do for them. It seems like a small thing to ask.
As for Zoo-Foolery: Ask Phil Bronstein if we shouldn't respect critters just a little more than we do...
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At the zoo in Anchorage, we let the animals eat the people, making it easier to see the pretty critters.
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At the zoo in Anchorage, we let the animals eat the people, making it easier to see the pretty critters.
It would be hard to use this solution in my building. It takes a really, really long time for naked mole rats to eat a whole person.
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Well, no, that's true. You have to start with a larger animal. We begin with the polar bear usually. Then, when there's just scraps left, you can go to the mole rats.
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Huzzah for Binky and all of his brothers!
Mildly off-topic: I went to the Bronx Zoo on Tuesday, and I can now vouch for the fact that naked mole rats are not ugly because of their nakedness. I have now seen mole rats with fur (I want to refer to them as "clothed mole rats"), and they are also a heinously ugly animal, an embarrassment to God and man.
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Mildly off-topic: I went to the Bronx Zoo on Tuesday, and I can now vouch for the fact that naked mole rats are not ugly because of their nakedness. I have now seen mole rats with fur (I want to refer to them as "clothed mole rats"), and they are also a heinously ugly animal, an embarrassment to God and man.
Do you remember which kind of clothed mole rats they have?
We have two furry kinds called Damaraland mole rats and Palestine mole rats. They bite like crazy. You can pick the naked ones up, and they'll just run away when you try to clean. But the un-naked ones are extremely illtempered and can bite really hard. Since they spend all day digging with their teeth, they have very strong jaw muscles.
Maybe we should call them PG-rated mole rats. No nudity and only a little bit of violence if you are careful.
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We have two furry kinds called Damaraland mole rats and Palestine mole rats. They bite like crazy.
I'm guessing they bite though, because the Damaraland ones keep lobbing crap at them and stealing their habitat.
Man I'm going to sleep!
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Do you remember which kind of clothed mole rats they have?
We have two furry kinds called Damaraland mole rats and Palestine mole rats. They bite like crazy. You can pick the naked ones up, and they'll just run away when you try to clean. But the un-naked ones are extremely illtempered and can bite really hard. Since they spend all day digging with their teeth, they have very strong jaw muscles.
Maybe we should call them PG-rated mole rats. No nudity and only a little bit of violence if you are careful.
Unfortunately, I don't remember which kind they were, except that they were greyish. (I appear to be channeling the same Bad Customer Archetype that produces "I'm looking for a book? It was blue.") However, this sounds basically accurate -- the naked mole rats I've seen, at the Bronx zoo and elsewhere, seemed quite docile, but the two clothed ones I saw were busily gnashing away at each other with their gigantic teeth. They seemed remarkably unsocial, which was a surprise after the calm naked mole rat hive.
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I realized I had a way to look this up. You saw the Damaraland ones which are the bitingest. Yeah, they bite each other all the time when they are not trying to bite me. It's funny that you call them unsocial because technically we call them social animals - they live in groups - but I guess what that means is that's it's a really nasty kind of society.
I wonder if the Bronx has a better exhibit where you don't have to stick your hand right in with them to clean it. If I grow up to have a permanent job as the mole rat keeper, I'll have to go take a look.
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I just got back from an afternoon at our zoo. Unfortunately, I missed our naked mole rats. They're right next to the new gorilla exhibit and we've got a brand new baby gorilla, so we spent time there.
MAN it was packed. It was the first nice day of the late winter (60 yesterday, 63 today). We've been zoo members for years and go several times a year. I have never seen it like that before. Whew!
People weren't too bad. My only pet peeve was the kids who would walk right between me and the exhibit I was viewing.
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Dang, what is it about people, that even a person of such taste and style as August West prefers a baby gorilla to a small mammal exhibit.
I hate that thing about kids getting in the way. Especially when there's something to pet. All my life I have had no mercy for children when they were in the way of me petting something. I do try to make up for it now by being very nice to them when I am the one who has something that they can pet.
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Honest and truly, I was trying to make a point of stopping in to see them. But it was a group dynamic thing, see. Also, this was my first time there since the gorilla exhibit opened, so it was something of a novelty for me. I've seen the NMR's before.
Had a good view of the Siberian Tiger pacing, pacing, pacing. Got splashed by a sea lion. Caught a long glimpse of the red wolf, which is rare in the daylight. He actual stood up and stretched for a while. Also had a moment of humor at the wolf's pen when we noticed that he had a two tennis balls molded together in bone form toy much like my dogs have.
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I realized I had a way to look this up. You saw the Damaraland ones which are the bitingest. Yeah, they bite each other all the time when they are not trying to bite me. It's funny that you call them unsocial because technically we call them social animals - they live in groups - but I guess what that means is that's it's a really nasty kind of society.
Two responses to this:
1) I love the adjective "bitingest."
2) I assumed that the Damaraland mole rats were social animals -- after all, I can hardly picture any mole rat charging across the plains, a fearsome and solitary predator -- but, yeah, they have a society much like middle schools have a society. (If perhaps with marginally more biting.)
I wonder if the Bronx has a better exhibit where you don't have to stick your hand right in with them to clean it. If I grow up to have a permanent job as the mole rat keeper, I'll have to go take a look.
The mole rats were actually in separate houses -- the naked mole rats were in the World of Darkness (bats, mostly), while the clothed mole rats were in the penis House (many small mammals).
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I can hardly picture any mole rat charging across the plains, a fearsome and solitary predator
Actually our other furry kind of mole rat is solitary. I will have to relate this mental picture to him tomorrow. It will give him a goal to live up to. Probably involving biting me more.
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I hereby forgive AugustWest for missing the mole rats because a couple of his posts since then made me laugh so hard I hurt myself.