(Note: this post was started right before finals, and I never got around to finishing it.)
I've been having a very solid semester in terms of my class choices, but by far my favorite has been Law of Cyberspace. Not only is this an incredibly relevant class (so much more likely to use the internet than own real property, at least any time soon), it has been responsible for both my knowledge of awesome YouTube clips (Google "A Fair(y) Use Tale" for educational and "I know my rules" for hilarious) and the single best reading assignment of the year.
Now, one would think this is a no-brainer: a class about the internet would obviously have the best cases. Surprisingly, there have been a few fantastic reading assignments from other classes, including:
*Decedent Estates (10/13)- Barnes was a case about how sane you have to be to write a will. Apparently, waving your junk around in public while declaring that you are the Messiah casts some slight doubt on the issue of whether you are of sound mind.
*Copyright (10/18)- Topics of the cases: Seinfeld, Harry Potter, Game Genie, Duke Nukem, and Monty Python. Enough said.
However, the winner was Cyberspace from (11/12) for three cases.
1. eBay v. Bidder's Edge
This case was about whether you could use bots or spiders to collect data. Normally, this wouldn't be this exciting, but when judges have to deal with cases they don't understand (read: everything involving the internet), they like to use analogies to stuff they DO understand. Exhibit A: "Unauthorized robot intruders into a "brick and mortar" store would be committing a trespass to real property." This ticks me off. I've had the plan of bringing Wal-Mart to its knees with a stream of robot invaders, which would leave me free of any legal action in highly unlikely event of failure, and the court closes the door on me. Bastards.
However, the court then belabored the analogy, and unwittingly redeemed itself in a big way. "for the analogy to be accurate, the robots would have to make up less than two out of every one-hundred customers in the store, the robots would not interfere with the customers' shopping experience, nor would the robots even be seen by the customers." This obviously is the seed of a burgeoning industry: robot ninja security guards. You won't be able to see them, and they won't interfere with your shopping. But just try to shoplift...
2. Topheavy v. Doe
This case is amazing, entirely aside from the party names. So "Jane Doe" was a 17-year old from Texas who decided to grab a fake ID and go to Spring Break. When she was there, she was approached by a man who offered her the opportunity to play a trivia game in which she could win money for correct answers, though she would have to lift her shirt for wrong ones. Now, leaving aside why ANYONE would think this is a good idea, she played the game after giving information from her fake ID. Despite the fact that she initially applied to play by using her real info, which she then scratched out, Topheavy figured that there was no reason to verify her information because "she did not look or act like she was as young as seventeen." Wow. That excuse has never ever worked before, not for any of the statutory rape cases in history. Who told them that this was intelligent to claim in court here? (shakes head)
3. Mosley v. New Groups
This case stands for a generally innocuous proposition: that you have a privacy right in the things you do in private. This, in general, is not problematic for me. What WAS problematic was the thing that Mr. Mosely was trying to keep private...Nazi sex orgies. You heard me right: Nazi sex orgies. Apparently, he would do Nazi role-play with groups of prostitutes, which is strange enough in itself. What is more bizzare was that the court did not consider this an entirely commercial transaction (which would have been held to a less strict level of scrutiny) because the prostitutes planned to give Mr. Mosely a free session for his upcoming birthday. There are no words. Absolutely none.
May all your hits be crits,
B
Monday, November 15, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Well if his bulb is dim...
So, as I think I've mentioned, I moved to the great state of Virginia in late May. While this isn't entirely unpleasant (especially cause I live across the street from a Costco), it does mean a 30-minute commute in the mornings, the bulk of that spent on the Metro. In order to pass the time, I spend my mornings reading the two daily free papers: the Express (crazy liberal paper), and the Examiner (crazy conservative paper). And while I've come to expect a touch of the crazy out of the Examiner, this morning's "Dim Bulb" feature ticked me off pretty royally. It read:
"Who: Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer WHAT: Said on "GMA" that he's not prepared to conclude that the First Amendment condones burning the Quran WHY IT'S DIM: Breyer said that such a burning might be like yelling fire in a crowded theater, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes had once said in a dissenting opinion. So the threat of violence and harm is sufficent enough reason to stifle free speech? CURE: Force cannot be permitted to stifle freedom."
(DISCLAIMER: I don't get up on my soapbox much because this blog, such as it is, is meant for amusement rather than political statement. This particular idiocy just pissed me off enough to say something, and not just because I've met Breyer (who is awesome!))
Where to begin? Let's start with a mundane procedural point; Holmes' famous phrase came in an unanimous opinion, one in which (by definition) there is no dissent. So there.
Now onto the important stuff. Burning the Quran might not be protected. We allow burning of a lot of things: flags, disco albums, the House. But that doesn't mean we can go around burning anything we please. The closest analogue I can find was RAV v. City of St. Paul, which came down in 1992. The Court struck down a Minnesota ordinance under which a KKK member had been prosecuted because he had burned a cross on the lawn of a black family. While the Court said that the law couldn't stand because it was content-based speech restriction, Justice Scalia (backed by Kennedy and Thomas) concluded "Let there be no mistake about our belief that burning a cross in someone's front yard is reprehensible. But St. Paul has sufficient means at its disposal to prevent such behavior without adding the First Amendment to the fire." Now I don't know about you, but that appears to mean that there ARE constitutional ways to limit the burning of symbols to convey hatred. And for anyone who is thinking about making the argument that Quran burning is not like cross burning, they're not burning the Quran to have a halal barbecue; it's a pretty clear sign that the burners don't believe Muslims are welcome in their town.
Now to the "pot v. kettle" argument. Saying that it is "freedom" to be able to burn the Quran is even more ludicrous coming from a conservative publication. It's pretty well documented that the conservatives aren't huge fans of flag burning. And I can only imagine the incredible shit-storm that would follow if any other religious group decided to burn the Bible in the town square; though any person who would burn the Quran should obviously burn their copy of the New Testament as well, given that it's pretty clear they aren't using it.
So in conclusion, Mr. Examiner Editor, if Justice Breyer's bulb is dim, yours is burnt out.
May all your hits be crits,
B
"Who: Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer WHAT: Said on "GMA" that he's not prepared to conclude that the First Amendment condones burning the Quran WHY IT'S DIM: Breyer said that such a burning might be like yelling fire in a crowded theater, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes had once said in a dissenting opinion. So the threat of violence and harm is sufficent enough reason to stifle free speech? CURE: Force cannot be permitted to stifle freedom."
(DISCLAIMER: I don't get up on my soapbox much because this blog, such as it is, is meant for amusement rather than political statement. This particular idiocy just pissed me off enough to say something, and not just because I've met Breyer (who is awesome!))
Where to begin? Let's start with a mundane procedural point; Holmes' famous phrase came in an unanimous opinion, one in which (by definition) there is no dissent. So there.
Now onto the important stuff. Burning the Quran might not be protected. We allow burning of a lot of things: flags, disco albums, the House. But that doesn't mean we can go around burning anything we please. The closest analogue I can find was RAV v. City of St. Paul, which came down in 1992. The Court struck down a Minnesota ordinance under which a KKK member had been prosecuted because he had burned a cross on the lawn of a black family. While the Court said that the law couldn't stand because it was content-based speech restriction, Justice Scalia (backed by Kennedy and Thomas) concluded "Let there be no mistake about our belief that burning a cross in someone's front yard is reprehensible. But St. Paul has sufficient means at its disposal to prevent such behavior without adding the First Amendment to the fire." Now I don't know about you, but that appears to mean that there ARE constitutional ways to limit the burning of symbols to convey hatred. And for anyone who is thinking about making the argument that Quran burning is not like cross burning, they're not burning the Quran to have a halal barbecue; it's a pretty clear sign that the burners don't believe Muslims are welcome in their town.
Now to the "pot v. kettle" argument. Saying that it is "freedom" to be able to burn the Quran is even more ludicrous coming from a conservative publication. It's pretty well documented that the conservatives aren't huge fans of flag burning. And I can only imagine the incredible shit-storm that would follow if any other religious group decided to burn the Bible in the town square; though any person who would burn the Quran should obviously burn their copy of the New Testament as well, given that it's pretty clear they aren't using it.
So in conclusion, Mr. Examiner Editor, if Justice Breyer's bulb is dim, yours is burnt out.
May all your hits be crits,
B
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Home Alone
So, I've been alone all weekend. Marie has gone to her uncle Jim's 75th birthday celebration in Chicago, leaving me and Ellie the Cat to hold down the fort in her absence. Though nothing major has happened, I felt the need to write some of this stuff down, as this blog needs to reclaim its status as the place where I vent the random thoughts that enter my brain.
*Ellie has recently started drinking out of the sink. On the spectrum of adorable things that cats do, drinking from the sink is very close to the top. She just sticks her head towards the faucet, turns it sideways, and laps at the top of the stream. While this is super-cute, it also shows the difference between Marie and I in terms of how we believe kitty-parenting should work. Marie is from the "do things for the cat" school of thinking, so when the cat wants to drink from the faucet, Marie picks the cat up and puts her back down when she's done. I, on the other hand, believe that the cat needs to show that she really wants it. This means she has to jump up and jump down of her own volition, which I believe has the added benefit of giving the cat a workout (and every little bit helps). I don't know what this difference says about us as parents/people, but its probably significant in some way.
*Along with our Verizon package, we got 3 free months of Cinemax/HBO. As our cable package isn't as all-inclusive as our Comcast was, I spend a fair amount of my TV time watching movies, and have come to two realizations:
1. I have a very specific movie-categorizing system. There are movies I don't like/dont want to see, movies that I want to see, and movies that I'd be willing to pay for at the actual theater. Marie likes to give me grief when I (inevitably) like one of the movies that I told her I didn't want to go see at the theater (Get Smart and Yes Man being the two most recent candidates). The thing is, given that you have to pay for movies at the theater, I usually don't go unless I'm reasonably sure that it's gonna be good. This has managed to keep me away from seeing awful movies in the theater for the better part of my life; avoiding all Jack Black movies has also contributed to this, since he's been responsible for 2 of the 3 worst movies I've seen in theaters.
2. HBO and Cinemax have three distinct types of movies. First, there are the good movies. I've gotten a few movies off of my "I need to see this" list, including Gran Torino and Funny People, since I've had premium channels, which is super-helpful. Second, there are the BAD movies. I don't know who makes the programming decisions at these channels, but there is no reason that Bio-Dome, Meet The Spartans, or both need to be on at any time, much less at all times. Third, there's the interestingly named porn. I have yet to indulge in this, as there is no reason to be up at 3am, but the fact that there is a movie called The Devil Wears Nada (The Hills Have Thighs and Cleavagefield being the other best names) makes me smile inside.
*I'm not very good to myself when I'm home alone. I don't go to sleep until late, and worse, I don't eat well. Friday night's dinner was a sub I picked up at Harris Teeter, and I only ate lunch yesterday, though to be fair, I ate my weight in enchiladas at Shaun's house while watching the US-Ghana game. This is part of how i managed to lose 40lbs in a year; while I love to cook, I feel very little need to do it for myself. I'm trying to stop that for tonight, and I'm making a brisket which will hopefully make for an excellent picnic dinner tomorrow at the outdoor Star Trek screening. I'm banking on the fact that Marie (who doesn't have her computer with her) won't read this, so that the food will be a surprise, but I'm also convinced that she'll act happy and surprised anyway.
May all your hits be crits,
B
*Ellie has recently started drinking out of the sink. On the spectrum of adorable things that cats do, drinking from the sink is very close to the top. She just sticks her head towards the faucet, turns it sideways, and laps at the top of the stream. While this is super-cute, it also shows the difference between Marie and I in terms of how we believe kitty-parenting should work. Marie is from the "do things for the cat" school of thinking, so when the cat wants to drink from the faucet, Marie picks the cat up and puts her back down when she's done. I, on the other hand, believe that the cat needs to show that she really wants it. This means she has to jump up and jump down of her own volition, which I believe has the added benefit of giving the cat a workout (and every little bit helps). I don't know what this difference says about us as parents/people, but its probably significant in some way.
*Along with our Verizon package, we got 3 free months of Cinemax/HBO. As our cable package isn't as all-inclusive as our Comcast was, I spend a fair amount of my TV time watching movies, and have come to two realizations:
1. I have a very specific movie-categorizing system. There are movies I don't like/dont want to see, movies that I want to see, and movies that I'd be willing to pay for at the actual theater. Marie likes to give me grief when I (inevitably) like one of the movies that I told her I didn't want to go see at the theater (Get Smart and Yes Man being the two most recent candidates). The thing is, given that you have to pay for movies at the theater, I usually don't go unless I'm reasonably sure that it's gonna be good. This has managed to keep me away from seeing awful movies in the theater for the better part of my life; avoiding all Jack Black movies has also contributed to this, since he's been responsible for 2 of the 3 worst movies I've seen in theaters.
2. HBO and Cinemax have three distinct types of movies. First, there are the good movies. I've gotten a few movies off of my "I need to see this" list, including Gran Torino and Funny People, since I've had premium channels, which is super-helpful. Second, there are the BAD movies. I don't know who makes the programming decisions at these channels, but there is no reason that Bio-Dome, Meet The Spartans, or both need to be on at any time, much less at all times. Third, there's the interestingly named porn. I have yet to indulge in this, as there is no reason to be up at 3am, but the fact that there is a movie called The Devil Wears Nada (The Hills Have Thighs and Cleavagefield being the other best names) makes me smile inside.
*I'm not very good to myself when I'm home alone. I don't go to sleep until late, and worse, I don't eat well. Friday night's dinner was a sub I picked up at Harris Teeter, and I only ate lunch yesterday, though to be fair, I ate my weight in enchiladas at Shaun's house while watching the US-Ghana game. This is part of how i managed to lose 40lbs in a year; while I love to cook, I feel very little need to do it for myself. I'm trying to stop that for tonight, and I'm making a brisket which will hopefully make for an excellent picnic dinner tomorrow at the outdoor Star Trek screening. I'm banking on the fact that Marie (who doesn't have her computer with her) won't read this, so that the food will be a surprise, but I'm also convinced that she'll act happy and surprised anyway.
May all your hits be crits,
B
Friday, June 18, 2010
Reflections on a Screwjob
Allow me to set the stage:
In the first half, Slovenia had surprised the US, who had somehow forgotten that being favored in a game does not mean that you are exempt from playing defense and trying to control the ball. Slovenia scored twice, no thanks to some lousy efforts by the US defense and midfield. Equally bad was the fact that we were unable to make any real headway against their defense, and I was legitimately worried going into the second half.
Fortunately, in the second half, the US remembered what they are really good at: coming back from deficits that are their own fault (let's hope we're this good when it comes to dealing with China). Landon Donovan, he of the incredible goal scoring and equally incredible receding hairline, scored a hockey goal (come in on the goalie, fake, then put it over his left shoulder) to make it 2-1. Less than 20 minutes later, Michael Bradley, whose only claim to fame at this point is that he's the US coach's son (I think this is all anyone knows about him), scored off a nice pass from Jozy Altidore to tie it up at 2.
Now at this point, the US is DOMINATING. Slovenia is not back on its heels; it's wondering if anyone got the license plate of that H3 with the TruckNutz that just reminded them that "superpower" doesn't only refer to our nuclear arsenal. Altidore is pulled down outside the box, and the US receives a free kick.
Slovenia decides to "defend" this free kick. By this, I mean that Altidore becomes an unwitting participant in some sort of medieval hand-fasting ceremony, Bradley is being grabbed in a way that would make most of us curl up into the fetal position and announce that we need an adult, and the rest of the US attack force is being impeded in ways that would be penalized in both American football and hockey. Somehow, out of all this chaos, Maurice Edu swoops in and cleanly deposits the ball into the back of the net. 3-2 US! One of the greatest comebacks of all time. Then the ref blows the whistle, nullifying the goal.
The mystifying part of all this is that there doesn't appear to be a foul on the US, everyone is onside, and the ref makes no indication of why he made the call that he did. Needless to say, this took all of the wind out of the US, and we didn't get close again in what ended in a 2-2 draw.
Now I understand that the ref is part of the game, and that human error plays a part in sports. However, this whole thing could have easily been avoided if they had just chosen a referee with some sort of experience. I mean, Tamsen Burke (who ran the IM department at Chicago; you could have trained a monkey to do her job, do it better, and look better while doing it) had the whole thing figured out: if your team makes the playoffs, you provide a ref; if you don't make it, no ref necessary. This is why the Dominican Republic doesn't send a judge to the figure skating in the Winter Olympics; it's not that they can't do it, but someone decided to leave the job up to countries more familiar with the sport. I'm sure the good people who run the soccer federation of Mali would have been happy not to pay for the referee's travel, and we all would have been better for it.
May all your hits be crits (and not be disallowed),
B
In the first half, Slovenia had surprised the US, who had somehow forgotten that being favored in a game does not mean that you are exempt from playing defense and trying to control the ball. Slovenia scored twice, no thanks to some lousy efforts by the US defense and midfield. Equally bad was the fact that we were unable to make any real headway against their defense, and I was legitimately worried going into the second half.
Fortunately, in the second half, the US remembered what they are really good at: coming back from deficits that are their own fault (let's hope we're this good when it comes to dealing with China). Landon Donovan, he of the incredible goal scoring and equally incredible receding hairline, scored a hockey goal (come in on the goalie, fake, then put it over his left shoulder) to make it 2-1. Less than 20 minutes later, Michael Bradley, whose only claim to fame at this point is that he's the US coach's son (I think this is all anyone knows about him), scored off a nice pass from Jozy Altidore to tie it up at 2.
Now at this point, the US is DOMINATING. Slovenia is not back on its heels; it's wondering if anyone got the license plate of that H3 with the TruckNutz that just reminded them that "superpower" doesn't only refer to our nuclear arsenal. Altidore is pulled down outside the box, and the US receives a free kick.
Slovenia decides to "defend" this free kick. By this, I mean that Altidore becomes an unwitting participant in some sort of medieval hand-fasting ceremony, Bradley is being grabbed in a way that would make most of us curl up into the fetal position and announce that we need an adult, and the rest of the US attack force is being impeded in ways that would be penalized in both American football and hockey. Somehow, out of all this chaos, Maurice Edu swoops in and cleanly deposits the ball into the back of the net. 3-2 US! One of the greatest comebacks of all time. Then the ref blows the whistle, nullifying the goal.
The mystifying part of all this is that there doesn't appear to be a foul on the US, everyone is onside, and the ref makes no indication of why he made the call that he did. Needless to say, this took all of the wind out of the US, and we didn't get close again in what ended in a 2-2 draw.
Now I understand that the ref is part of the game, and that human error plays a part in sports. However, this whole thing could have easily been avoided if they had just chosen a referee with some sort of experience. I mean, Tamsen Burke (who ran the IM department at Chicago; you could have trained a monkey to do her job, do it better, and look better while doing it) had the whole thing figured out: if your team makes the playoffs, you provide a ref; if you don't make it, no ref necessary. This is why the Dominican Republic doesn't send a judge to the figure skating in the Winter Olympics; it's not that they can't do it, but someone decided to leave the job up to countries more familiar with the sport. I'm sure the good people who run the soccer federation of Mali would have been happy not to pay for the referee's travel, and we all would have been better for it.
May all your hits be crits (and not be disallowed),
B
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
The Degrading Parade
So, as part of my RA duties this summer, I'm reading cases from the European Court of Human Rights to figure out their definition of torture. While all the really obvious stuff has been found torture (rape, beating, etc...), there are some people who have decided that the relevant provision of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is a legal blank check.
Which brings me to Efstratiou v. Greece. The petitioner, a young Jehovah's Witness (yea, them again. These people pop up in every religion-related lawsuit ever) refused to march in a parade with her school to celebrate the Greeks going to war against Fascist Italy. As punishment for her refusal, the school board suspended her for two days.
Now, I believe there is a lawsuit in here somewhere, and one that would likely win in this country. Compelled speech is a no-no, which is why we don't force students to say the Pledge of Allegiance (or at least we don't suspend them for refusing). However, the Efstratious decided to argue that this was a violation of Article 3 of the Convention, which states:
"No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
Yikes. Stripes. REALLY??? Suspension from school is torture or inhuman and degrading? The social stigma and permanent record status aside, not going to school for a day is hardly the worst thing that could happen. While the reasoning of the school was wrong (and was found to be a violation of the student's rights on other grounds), and while I grant that you're allowed to plead however you'd like, there needed to be someone in that lawyer's office to say (in the words of the AEPi Risk Management speech) "What the Fuck are you Thinking?"
May all your hits be crits,
B
Which brings me to Efstratiou v. Greece. The petitioner, a young Jehovah's Witness (yea, them again. These people pop up in every religion-related lawsuit ever) refused to march in a parade with her school to celebrate the Greeks going to war against Fascist Italy. As punishment for her refusal, the school board suspended her for two days.
Now, I believe there is a lawsuit in here somewhere, and one that would likely win in this country. Compelled speech is a no-no, which is why we don't force students to say the Pledge of Allegiance (or at least we don't suspend them for refusing). However, the Efstratious decided to argue that this was a violation of Article 3 of the Convention, which states:
"No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
Yikes. Stripes. REALLY??? Suspension from school is torture or inhuman and degrading? The social stigma and permanent record status aside, not going to school for a day is hardly the worst thing that could happen. While the reasoning of the school was wrong (and was found to be a violation of the student's rights on other grounds), and while I grant that you're allowed to plead however you'd like, there needed to be someone in that lawyer's office to say (in the words of the AEPi Risk Management speech) "What the Fuck are you Thinking?"
May all your hits be crits,
B
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Someone Told Me: "It's All Happening At The Zoo..."
Wow, it's really been forever, hasn't it? 2L kinda ate my life and forced me to spend my waking hours doing things other than blogging. This was a problematic development to say the least, as I kinda liked having a place to muse to to the wider world. I'm gonna try to keep this updated more often, and I've got two posts in the works about the major events of 2010; these will be out in the next few days, along with a larger post about 2L. I guess that, for now at least, I'll start with the most recent occurence:
With the one day of full freedom I had, I followed Amanda and Jessica (Amanda's roommate) to the National Zoo. I don't know how in hell I've been here for nearly two years without going to the zoo. I love the zoo, and I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago all the time when I lived there. I guess law school got in the way.
The National Zoo is relatively impressive, for not being Lincoln Park or San Diego. They have pretty much what you'd expect to see at the zoo: Large Cats, Elephants, Monkeys of various sorts, etc... However, the two things that stood out the most had nothing to do with these animals, but with my two favorite animals at the zoo: Otters and Turtles.
Otters: I love otters; they might be my favorite zoo animal. I was definitely spoiled by the one in Chicago: he would swim right up to the glass, and follow you when you walked back and forth, which is surprisingly fun. The National Zoo has a smaller breed of otters, and they didn't look like they were doing much. There was a small half-log, about 18"x9", and I could only see one otter head and one otter tail poking out. I assumed that there was only one otter in there, which isn't nearly enough for such a large habitat. Soon, the tail at the end turned into a head, which was good, as two otters are always better than one. When the two wriggled out from under the log, they were soon joined by a third. These three otters walked over to the other end of the habitat, laid on rocks, and completely refused to go in the water. I swear they were doing this on purpose; the habitat is laid out for the specific purpose of allowing people to see the otters swim underwater, and I think that they'd had about enough of living up to the expectations of others. This would have been awesome enough on its own, but upon looking back to the log, I noticed three entirely new otters wriggling out, who then proceeded to do the same routine as their ottery predecessors. This log was like an otter clown car; I actually went back at the end just to make sure there were no other otters in there. Fantastic stuff.
Turtles: The turtles were at the very end of our trip, having accidentally passed them the first time. The National Zoo has a thing for turtles; they own turtles of almost every shape, size, and color imaginable. The final turtles we saw had two notable characteristics: 1) they were very large, and 2) they were very obviously having Turtle Sex. Turtle Sex is a very awkward-looking thing; it's kinda like one turtle is trying to climb the other and continually failing. So, having moved on from the Turtle Sex, I was looking at the other, less amorous turtles, when a little girl walked up to the den of iniquity and said "Awwww! It's so cute! That turtle is trying to climb the other one!" Now, its not my place to tell small children about the birds and the bees, especially if their mother is in no mood to do so, so I just sat there and tried to crack up as quietly as possible. Turtles rock.
Again, apologies for taking so long to post. More stuff upcoming.
May all your hits be crits,
B
With the one day of full freedom I had, I followed Amanda and Jessica (Amanda's roommate) to the National Zoo. I don't know how in hell I've been here for nearly two years without going to the zoo. I love the zoo, and I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago all the time when I lived there. I guess law school got in the way.
The National Zoo is relatively impressive, for not being Lincoln Park or San Diego. They have pretty much what you'd expect to see at the zoo: Large Cats, Elephants, Monkeys of various sorts, etc... However, the two things that stood out the most had nothing to do with these animals, but with my two favorite animals at the zoo: Otters and Turtles.
Otters: I love otters; they might be my favorite zoo animal. I was definitely spoiled by the one in Chicago: he would swim right up to the glass, and follow you when you walked back and forth, which is surprisingly fun. The National Zoo has a smaller breed of otters, and they didn't look like they were doing much. There was a small half-log, about 18"x9", and I could only see one otter head and one otter tail poking out. I assumed that there was only one otter in there, which isn't nearly enough for such a large habitat. Soon, the tail at the end turned into a head, which was good, as two otters are always better than one. When the two wriggled out from under the log, they were soon joined by a third. These three otters walked over to the other end of the habitat, laid on rocks, and completely refused to go in the water. I swear they were doing this on purpose; the habitat is laid out for the specific purpose of allowing people to see the otters swim underwater, and I think that they'd had about enough of living up to the expectations of others. This would have been awesome enough on its own, but upon looking back to the log, I noticed three entirely new otters wriggling out, who then proceeded to do the same routine as their ottery predecessors. This log was like an otter clown car; I actually went back at the end just to make sure there were no other otters in there. Fantastic stuff.
Turtles: The turtles were at the very end of our trip, having accidentally passed them the first time. The National Zoo has a thing for turtles; they own turtles of almost every shape, size, and color imaginable. The final turtles we saw had two notable characteristics: 1) they were very large, and 2) they were very obviously having Turtle Sex. Turtle Sex is a very awkward-looking thing; it's kinda like one turtle is trying to climb the other and continually failing. So, having moved on from the Turtle Sex, I was looking at the other, less amorous turtles, when a little girl walked up to the den of iniquity and said "Awwww! It's so cute! That turtle is trying to climb the other one!" Now, its not my place to tell small children about the birds and the bees, especially if their mother is in no mood to do so, so I just sat there and tried to crack up as quietly as possible. Turtles rock.
Again, apologies for taking so long to post. More stuff upcoming.
May all your hits be crits,
B
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