awww.

Tiger, Orangutan Babies Playmates at Zoo

CISARUA, Indonesia Feb 28, 2007 (AP)— Call them the odd couples. A pair of month-old Sumatran tiger twins have become inseparable playmates with a set of young orangutans, an unthinkable match in their natural jungle habitat in Indonesia's tropical rainforests.

The friendship between 5-month-old female baby primates Nia and Irma, and cubs Dema and Manis, has blossomed at the Taman Safari zoo where they share a room in the nursery.
After being abandoned by their mothers shortly after birth, the four play fight, nipping and teasing each other, and cuddling up for a shared nap when they are worn out.

"This is unusual and would never happen in the wild," said zoo keeper Sri Suwarni, bottle-feeding a baby chimp on Wednesday. "Like human babies, they only want to play."
The four have lived side-by-side for a month without a single act of hostility, she said.
Indonesian tigers and orangutans are both endangered species, threatened by rapidly shrinking habitats.

Conservationists estimate there are fewer than 700 Sumatran tigers still alive, while fewer than 60,000 orangutans remain in the wild. Around 90 percent of the jungle has been destroyed by illegal logging, poaching and cut-and-burn farming practices on Borneo and Sumatra islands.
The exceptional friendship will likely be short-lived, said veterinarian Retno Sudarwati, because as the animals grow up their natural survival instincts will kick in.

"When the time comes, they will have to be separated. It's sad, but we cant' change their natural behavior," she said. "Tigers start eating meat when they are three months old."

it's so funny to me how INSANE the news world goes over these "friends". . . . but darn it,, i love baby animals too!!!!!

"I hear more Elton John than Public Enemy, and that's just not right."

in general i'm not a big fan of pitchfork, but this article on antarctica's music scene is interesting,,,

. . . icestock 2008, anyone?

my weekend

jet interview:



hanging out with mouse the dog:



ice-sliding (with shoes) on the canal:

don't get enough sun? maybe a giant mirror can help. . .

Swiss Officials Want to Spread Sunshine

Local officials said Monday they are considering the construction of a giant mirror to light up this mountain village with 198 residents who are deprived of sunlight for three months each year.

The project would help illuminate parts of the southeastern Swiss town of Bondo that lie so deep in the Bregaglia Valley they do not receive any sunlight between December and February, said mayor Renzo Giovanoli, confirming a report in the daily Suedostschweiz . . . The mirror would be similar to a 26-by-16 feet sheet of reflective steel installed last year in Viganella, an Italian town close to the Swiss border. Viganella, like Bondo, is dark during winter months because of its position at the bottom of a steep Alpine valley, blocked off from sunlight by the surrounding mountains.

happy getting-ready-for-valentine's-day, which i love for absolutely no good reason. (the getting-ready part is usually more fun.)

in a way i like this postsecret:



but i like this more:

because including platonic/familial/unrequited love i'm knee-deep all the time and it's ALL WONDERFUL!!!

while looking for a cut flower bouquet in alan's pet shop (squirrel hill, pgh) a few valentines ago, alan himself gave an impassioned & convincing argument for potted plants over cut flowers (which he'd "never sell") mainly because potted plants last longer. i don't think i've bought cut flowers since. here's a reminder of some other reasons to pass up cut flowers this year & beyond:

Cut-Flower Industry Relies on Heavy Pesticide Use

It's probably the last thing most people think about when buying roses.

But by the time the velvety, vibrant-colored flowers reach a Valentine's Day buyer, they will have been sprayed, rinsed and dipped in a battery of potentially lethal chemicals.

Most of the toxic assault takes place in the waterlogged savannah surrounding the capital of Colombia, which has the world's second-largest cut-flower industry after the Netherlands, producing 62 percent of all flowers sold in the United States.

With 110,000 employees -- many of them single mothers -- and annual exports of US$1 billion (euro771 million), the industry provides an important alternative to growing coca, source crop of the Andean nation's better known illegal export: cocaine.

But these economic gains come at a cost to workers' health and Colombia's environment, according to consumer advocates who complain of an over-reliance on chemical pesticides . . . 36 percent of the toxic chemicals applied by Florverde farms in 2005 were listed as "extremely" or "highly" toxic by the World Health Organization.

also, way to go harvard for fixing their former president's blunder,,,

and have fun CHINA measuring the entire great wall!

wow. i think i just discovered the most potentially perfect band:

The ZEatles are a GenderQueer Beatles cover band that plays original material too. We grew out of the Feminist, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and ALLY UCLA community and are coming out into the world near you! . . . ZE is the gender neutral pronoun. HE is male, SHE is Female and ZE is anything in between, upside down and inverted!

two interesting feature articles from yesterday's washington post:

Sold on a Stereotype about the chinese book market's fascination with titles like "Jewish People and Business: The Bible of How to Live Their Lives," and...

Teddy Bear, Version 2.0 mainly for the most wonderful paragraph!! :

Last week, one of Megan Leffew's friends held a birthday party for her hippo, Cotton Candy, right in the middle of the Leffew family dinner. Megan excused herself from the table to log on to the Webkinz site, where four other girls were waiting. They played a four-in-a-row game and exchanged virtual presents. (Megan gave Cotton Candy a gumball machine and a snowflake sweater.) There were a birthday cake and goodie bags -- and then Megan's mom, Sandra, finally persuaded her to come back to real-world dinner.

itadakimasu.

luckily nothing like this happen to me when i had my own bus mix-up in cambodia...

Thailand: Missing 25 Years After Taking Wrong Bus

Jaeyaena Beuraheng, a 76-year-old woman from Malaysia, has been reunited with her family 25 years after she got on the wrong bus, local reports said. Ms. Jaeyaena, who cannot speak, read or write Thai and speaks only Yawi, a dialect also spoken by Muslims in southern Thailand, where she was bound, ended up in Bangkok, 750 miles north. She boarded another bus, thinking she was heading south, only to end up in Chiang Mai, farther north. She eked out a living as a beggar for five years before being arrested in 1987 and put into a homeless center. She was thought to be mute, until last month when three students from her province came to work at the center and spoke her language.

some things i am listening to a lot recently:

guided by voices: little whirl, strawdogs, queen of cans and jars, peep-hole, indian was an angel, awful bliss, GOLD STAR FOR ROBOT BOY

bonnie prince billy: maundering

bole 2 harlem, hand picked for me by linda wertheimer & actually not too bad in my un-educated world music opinion

plus the esbjörn svensson trio
and unicorn mountain compilations...because i miss pittsburgh.

OH! and soon, new stars of the lid, which you can also listen to here thanks to ross!

hi from dc! here goes nothing with one of many attempts at a meaningful blog, mainly due to my increasingly terrible correspondence habits + busy schedule. check here for general scattered musings & expect inconsistencies!!

also, a guide to fancy chocolate written by melody, a friend of mine here at npr:

A Bittersweet Guide to the Best V-Day Chocolate

i was a taste-tester & am anonymously quoted all over the place, most notably (sheepishly) as the "one tester" who gave a "rave review" of Whitman's and Hershey's (!!) when it comes to sugar, i'm apparently easy to please.