Picture

Another lion

Jacob.
Used with permission, thank you to mistyhofslund.

Baseball

Fundie knickers got in a serious twist when on July eighth the San Diego Padres invited the Gay Men's Chorus of San Diego to sing the national anthem.

There were Christian picketers - people who can't think that gay people exist without thinking about 'lifestyles' (read: buttsex) - and email fundraising alerts from the American Family Association.

But reports are that the Chorus's performance was well received from those in attendance.

As my friend Scout says, "Tee hee!"

Very rough and shaky video.
About a minute.

I've always thought that baseball was the queerest men's sport, at least in terms of fans, not the athletes (that qualification allows me to rule out figure skating).

But maybe that's just an accident of geography and Chicago and Wrigleyville.


Linky.

Black rhino

This baby black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) was recently born at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas.

Besides the fact that she's so cute, this caught my attention because we once spent most of a day running around a park in Zululand in South Africa trying to spot a black rhino that I wrote about here.

No wonder we came up empty: According to the International Rhino Foundation, there are less than thirteen-hundred in all of South Africa.


Linky to Thoughts From Kansas at ScienceBlogs.

Plushy has nothing to do with this post but just hadn't been featured in a while.

Animal Crackers

More silly free associations.

Animal Crackers #1

Do you know what this country needs today? A seven-cent nickel ... If it works out, next year we could have an eight-cent nickel. Think what that would mean. You could go to a newsstand, buy a three-cent newspaper and get the same nickel back again.

Groucho Marx.
About four.

And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like apple sauce, they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.

Animal Crackers #2

Shirley Temple.
About three and a half. But you'll kill it as soon as you've had enough.

Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop
Gosh oh gee but I have fun
Swallowing animals one by one.

Dire Straits

Walk of life

I was in the mood for some Dire Straits and found this classic that I think my friend Scout would get a kick out of seeing again.

Turn it up. About four.
Click trough to see bigger.

He got the action, he got the motion
Yeah, the boy can play
Dedication devotion.

Turning all the night time into the day
And after all the violence and double talk
There's just a song in the trouble and the strife
You do the walk, you do the walk of life.

Very cool and a very funny video. I think I like the baseball clips best.

[Update:
Having featured that, I couldn't leave out this.

Sultans of Swing
Check out Guitar George - he knows all the chords.
About four and a half.

You get a shiver in the dark
Its been raining in the park but meantime
South of the river you stop and you hold everything
A band is blowing dixie double four time
You feel all right when you hear that music ring.

]

Beverly Sills

Beverly Sills died this week at only 78 years old.

I don't know crap about opera, even though I love it.

I've always had this idea that the American superstars, like she and Sutherland, were great because they were such good actors. Doing so much with your voice and still maintaining a stage presence is quite a skill.

Here's a bit from Il Barbiere Di Siviglia.

About five.

And, in honor, here's more from Mel Blanc's Rabbit of Seville, a brilliant production that I'd like to think that Ms. Sills might have well loved as much as I do.

About seven - worth every second.

[Update - I said Mel Blanc -it's his voice - but Chuck Jones should be credited as producer director of the the Buggs' cartoon.]

[ Another update - a video rescue that I don't think will hold for long:

About seven and a half.

]

Glenn Miller again

Moonlight Serenade

I dug this out of the queue in honor of the June full moon the other night.

It's a cute video of the 78 record being played. Wobbly and scratches and all - only adds to the charm. Unlike CDs and pod downloads, that music was real.

Moonlight serenade.
About three.

I stand at your gate and the song that I sing is of moonlight.

I stand and I wait for the touch of your hand in the June night.

The roses are sighing a Moonlight Serenade.

So very cool.

Glenn Miller, earlier, at Dirty John Bonny.

Glenn Miller, at Wikipedia.

Grab your dinosaur and dance.