Step Away From the Panda, You Pervert

If you hire people to work for you, I think you need to have some sort of a screening process in place to weed out those that could potentially be, say, damaging to your reputation. Embarrassing even. Now imagine if you were a Pennsylvania State Senator. And you found out that you had a staffer who was arrested and charged "...with attempted sexual exploitation of children, unlawful contact with a minor and criminal solicitation to commit sexual abuse of children." While dressed like a panda. Wait. A pannn....WTF?!

Correct. A panda. Those cute and charming black and white creatures predominantly found in China but shipped here to the US to spend time in zoos to the delight of gazillions of tourists who think it's perfectly natural to be standing 5 feet away from a panda in downtown Washington, DC. And speaking of Washington, DC, did I mention that this pervert worked for a Senator?!

I'm getting ahead of myself here. A one Alan David Berlin, age old-enough-to-know-better-at-40, is a former staffer of Pennsylvania State Senator Jane Orie-R. No, I do not know why her political party that she represents would be important here, but the article over there at the metronews.ca.edmonton felt the need to include it, so I did as well. Plus, why not just bait the waters a little bit more with yet another reason for people to attack the character of the Republicans. (Though you have to admit, saying that they want to fornicate with omnivorous Asian mammals could really be hard to top. So really, by putting out there that she's a Republican, this story could end all of the back biting once and for all! Who'd a thunk it?) I say that he's a 'former' staffer of Senator Orie because he was fired on Friday. He was arrested on Thursday. I don't think that those two are completely independent of one another. Just a hunch, but I'm guessing that once your employer gets wind of the fact that you've been trying to solicit panda sex from, wait for it, a 15-year old boy, you're going to get fired. Soon. As soon as possible.

It would seem that Mr. Berlin had "...used Internet chats and instant messages to proposition the Harrisburg-area boy, including talking about dressing up in animal costumes and engaging in various sex acts." That according to the state Attorney General, a one Tom Corbett. He disclosed that these untoward events occurred "...in April and May, (and he) discussed various sex acts with the boy." Mr. Berlin (who I am really tempted to repeatedly call 'The Pervert') also suggested that he "...travel to the boy's home and have sex with him in the backyard while his parents slept." Oh. I see. While his parents slept. Oh, well, good! Because it would have been a completely different story if his parents had been awake! OF COURSE WHILE HIS PARENTS SLEPT! Because other than that one details, what could possibly go wrong?! Please.

Apparently, Berlin (aka The Pervert) (Sorry! I can't help it!) had worked for the Senate since 1993. For some inexplicable reason, this story included a quote from a one Mike Sarfert, who was the chief counsel for Senator Orie, when he said that Berlin (aka The Pervert) "...did not work on major legislation but assisted with grants for things such as roadwork." Um, what?

What difference does that make?! Didn't work on major legislation! Did work on major legislation! Who the hell cares?! I don't care if he worked on the railroad all the live long day! He wanted to have sex with a boy dressed like a panda! The only thing I care about as far as his employment duties are concerned is whether or not they involved any sort of zookeeping responsibilities! I don't care what he DID for the Senator! I care about what he wanted to DO to a panda! And the boy! For hell's sake, can people not FOCUS?!?!

Well, after you run across someone doing something like Berlin (aka The Pervert) was, if you're law enforcement, you get a warrant to search their place. And they did. That's when they learned that pandas were not the only thing that Berlin (aka The Pervert) apparently had a penchant for. "Authorities also found a wolf costume and cat-type costume...but the panda costume has not been found." So, wait. It's definitely a wolf costume, but it's only a cat type costume? What does that mean? "Cat type"? Like a big house cat "cat type? Like Tony the Tiger "cat type"? Like Halle Berry as the Catwoman "cat type"? What does that mean? It won't make this any better (or worse!) but at this point, details are essential for the very fact that we have already been told about the longing for the panda. We have a picture in our heads (admit it!) of someone in a panda suit. We need to know what the "cat type" costume consists of so that we can add it to our list of images floating around in our heads (and without our consent, might I add).

A one spokesman for the attorney general, a one Nils Frederiksen, said that "Berlin (aka The Pervert) used the costumes as an entree to solicit the boy." Wait. What?!

The kid was 15 right? And this dude, The Pervert (No more aka-ing this guy. He's worth of full pervert declaration at this point!) thought that a panda suit was his in? Now, aside from the fact that I don't know if a panda suit would entice any boy, really, regardless of age. But I'm really hoping that it is not some unknown fantasy amongst throngs of teenage boys to engage in some sort of interspecies coital relations!

But here's my favorite quote from the good Mr. Frederiksen. "It's one thing to be interested in the furry culture, it's another thing to make arrangements to have sex with a teenage boy." ::: blink ::: ::: blink :::

"The furry culture"? Like mold? It's a furry culture. Oooooohh. THAT furry culture. Yikes. Well, in that case, yes. Yes, it is. Well said, sir. Well said.

Fortunately, this guy is sitting in jail with a $250,000 bail. Now, granted, knowing the salaries of some government workers, he might be able to afford that no problem. But let's hope not. Instead, let's hope that this little story makes its way around to some of the other inmates. Some of the burlier inmates. Some of the more sexually deprived and burly inmates. Let's hope they get wind of The Pervert's Follies and act accordingly. Accordingly according to prisoners, of course. I'm not suggesting any sort of leniency for this type of thing. Hell, no! That guy's interested in pandas? Hopefully Bubba will be able to give him a little tutorial on bamboo and wazoo! Should be quite enlightening for him. As it should be.

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Panda's Gone Wild

Panda alert! Panda alert! We have a panda that is acting like....well, a panda! That's right, a panda! Panda alert!

It seems that a panda, yes a panda, a panda in Beijing (the official sponsor of the panda) according to The Telegraph, "...has tasted human blood for the third time after attacking a man who jumped into the animal's enclosure to retrieve his son's toy." Wow. Way to lay the drama on thick there, UK reporter guys. Geez.

GuGu the panda (not to be confused with a distant cousin, GaGa the wallaby) lately seems to be dealing with an inordinate number of people in his living area there at the Beijing zoo. Actually, when there are supposed to be no people in the panda living area, even one person in there is a sure sign to the panda that something is wrong. It's very easy to spot something is awry when "normal" is "nothing" because "something" is therefore "something" and not "nothing".

I don't know what the deal is with the panda enclosure at the Beijing zoo, but if people are just able to hop on over it willy-nilly like they seem to do, perhaps the zoo might want to think about an alternate enclosure for the creature. I'm envisioning something similar to the tiger enclosure the way it used to be at the San Francisco Zoo. In that scenario (right before the tiger bolted from her enclosure to maul two zoo visitors and kill a third) the tiger was kind of on the honor system. It wasn't much more than a curb. really and the zookeepers must have thought that they had some sort of a deal with the tiger. It became clear that was not the case immediately after the tiger escaped and all of the mauling and killing began.

The Beijing Zoo apparently has five pandas. China.org.cn had the handy little graphic below to show where the five pandas are located at the zoo. I don't read Chinese (and the only thing in English on that map are the two emergency exits for some reason), but I'm going to guess that the one with the big yellow "Ka-Blam!" graphic next to it is GuGu. Just a guess, however.


Over there at China.org.cn is a pretty detailed description of what occurred. Apparently, a one Ding Ding (who, to my surprise, was not the name of another panda! No, it was the name of a young boy! He's going to be confused for a panda for the rest of his life whenever someone first hears his name. Poor little Ding Ding the panda. See how easy it is?) dropped his panda toy into the panda enclosure. That's when Ding Ding's Dad, Zhang Xiao (pronounce that however you want because I don't have a clue) jumped over the fence to get the toy. Bad idea number one right there.

Then a panda (presumably GuGu) went rushing at Ding Ding's Dad (who, from now on will be referred to as DDD for the purposes of this post). The key word there is "rushing". Panda, full speed ahead! That's when DDD did the natural thing and got out of the rushing pandas way. As he was trying to escape from inside of the enclosure, "....some bystanders, thinking the panda was harmless, urged him to stand his ground. Zhang stayed where he was and the panda made its attack, knocking Zhang down and biting his left leg." WTF?!

You're in a panda pen with said panda "rushing" at you while a bunch of people who are not in the pen, nor do they have a panda "rushing" at them, tell you "Oh, he's fine! Stay! Stay! Stand your ground, man!" And so you do? Why? What is wrong with you? How many times did he get bit? It wasn't enough. Stupidity deserves to be bit a lot.

"A 40-year-old zookeeper (Do we need to know how old the zookeeper is for a particular reason? Is it just to show that even those who are 40 can still save people from the jaws of a panda?) rushed to the scene and called for help from his fellow keepers. In minutes, the rescuers used hand tools to separate the panda from its victim." Hand tools? What kind of hand tools? Panda-jaw priers? Panda-jaw removal instruments? Panda-jaw insta-openers? What kind of tools? Who makes them? (Wait. Let me guess. Made in China?! I thought so!)

Having a panda's jaws clamped on your leg for any amount of time would be extremely painful. Heck, having any animals jaws clamped on your leg for any amount of time would hurt. It's not just exclusive to panda's that when they bite you it hurts. But despite all of the jaw clamping the man has "...undergone surgery for damage to major ligaments (I'm Major Ligaments! And where is Lieutenant Tendon and Corporal Cartilage?") and been given an anti-rabies vaccine, has no life-threatening injuries." Anti-rabies vaccine? I would assume that a panda, any panda, in a zoo would not have rabies, thus making the anti-rabies vaccine unnecessary. I suppose it could be a precaution, but I'm really thinking that they would know if they had a rabid panda on their hands. (All of the foaming over the bamboo and what not would be a tip off.) Yeah, he looks great down there, doesn't he? Geez.

But this is being reported in the media as if GuGu is some crazed and violent creature who just attacks people at will. (People, of course, who have climbed into her enclosure, that is.) This isn't a house cat. It's a panda bear. A bear. Bears, while they look all nice and cute and always seem quite friendly in cartoons (that Yogi and Boo-Boo always cracked me up) they will sooner knock you down with one paw and proceed to maul you to death in a rather undignified fashion while you scream in horror and agony. That's not very nice and cute and friendly. Pandas, while ever cuter looking because of that black and white facial thing they have going on, are still what? Bears, that is correct. And they will act like bears when? All the time, because they're bears, that is correct as well!

I don't know that I can fault an animal that has been in captivity in a zoo for several years when it attacks or rather, bites a human being who was too dumb to stay out of it's cage. I certainly can't fault it for biting a human being who was too dumb to get out of it's cage. So I think it's a little unfair to characterize the panda as violent or vicious or having a taste for human blood (like it's some sort of panda vampire or something. Though I'd really like to see something like that!). I think that the guy who jumped in the pen and then did decided to stand up to the rushing panda could, however, be fairly characterized as a moron who probably got what he deserved. And after all, the article did say that "Such attacks are frequent in China, where zoo-goers often approach the animals...for a closer look." There ya go! He got what he deserved. It's not like he had never heard of a panda attacking a person before. Happens all the time, apparently. Moron.

Next time, sir, just buy your kid a new toy. It will hurt less.

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That's Not A Panda!

Release the pigeons! We have another freaking panda!

Over there at Zoo Atlanta (Correct. Zoo Atlanta. Not The Atlanta Zoo. Zoo Atlanta. Go figure. Morons.) Mr. and Mrs. Panda, otherwise known as Lun Lun and Yang Yang are the new proud panda parents of a baby panda with no name because they don't know the sex of the baby panda just yet. I'm surprised that they knew it was a baby panda to begin with. A baby panda does not look like a panda at all. It looks like an unfinished mistake of some sort. And while I couldn't find a picture of this particular baby panda, I learned that most of them look the same. Thus, I figured that I could use a picture of any ol' newborn panda or, in this case, pandas and it would be just like the real thing. And the real thing looks nothing like a panda. Behold and trust me! Two newborn pandas, I swear!

Oh, my God, what the hell are those?! They're like little fuzzy penises with legs! Holy crap! (Why did I make that so BIG?! I don't want to see that!) Those can't be pandas! THIS is a panda:

Those things above look nothing at all like pandas. Penises with legs, that's what I'm seeing. And it's starting to frighten me. (Why do I keep looking at it?! Make it go away!)

Apparently, when a baby panda is born, it is no bigger than a stick of butter and weighs about as much as well. The panda gestation period is quite short, between 140 and 160 days. That's only about 4-5 months, which makes it a little easier to understand why the Little Leggy Penis Brothers up there look the way that they do. 4-5 months is not very long to grow an entirely different creature within your uterus or womb or pouch or stylish shoulder bag or whatever pandas have. It'd be like cooking a three minute egg for a minute and a half. Actually, it would be just like that because in both cases, what you end up with is something that is just SO gross!

Apparently, Lun Lun had to be artificially inseminated as Yang Yang had no interest in providing the natural insemination. It seems that pandas are rather particular when it comes to choosing a mate. You know, there's only about 1,500 of them left on this planet; they really shouldn't be so darned choosy. And while I know that Lun Lun did receive the sperm artificially, I am blissfully unaware of the particulars of the procedure! I am not, however, unaware of how they figure out of the creature is pregnant after all of the sperm implanting has occurred. Just like with humans (although hopefully in a different setting) they do an ultrasound. Behold! An ultrasound on a pregnant panda!


All of this has been so, so, SO much more than I really wanted to see and or know about the panda pregnancy process. (My world is a world in which things do not grow inside of other beings like an alien that is maturing inside of a select host up until the time which the creature has matured to the point of being forcibly expelled out of the host uterus in an extremely painful process akin to that of shoving a pot roast through one's nostril.) And since the little cub is so small, the fine folks over there at the zoo with the ridiculous name, Zoo Atlanta, didn't even know for sure if Lun Lun was preggers until Thursday. And out popped the Little Leggy Penis (the LLP) on Sunday!

But hold on! Now there's a problem. It would seem that Zoo Atlanta has turned off the feed from the Panda Cam (I swear). According to a one Simone Griffin, the Zoo Atlanta spokesperson, "...they wanted to more closely watch the tiny, hairless cub based on the behavior of the cub and its mother, Lun Lun, in the zoo's birthing den." So they shut off the Panda Cam and plunked the LLP down in an incubator. So they say.

Hey, you saw the pictures just like I did! That little panda is tiny! That big panda is not! Personally, I'm not so sure they should be allowing Lun Lun around the LLP until it stops looking like an LLP at the very earliest. She could squash it without even trying. She could think it's a bug and swat it into a panda pancake without really trying. That's not really a zoo attraction many would flock to.

But pandas, in general, ARE the sort of zoo attraction many, many folks flock to. If you want some folks to flock, get yourself a panda. For some reason, Americans love the damned panda. They just can't get enough of the panda. Panda, panda, panda. (I think it's that black and white fur pattern they've got going on that Americans are drawn to. What's another animal that Americans just love to death? That's right, the killer whale. Willy. Shamu. Doesn't matter the name, if you're an American, it is unlikely that you've made it through your childhood without having a killer whale jump through a hoop five feet in front of you and then shower you with water when he splashes back into his Tank O' Captivity. Americans just love a tricky orca.)

And flock the folks did to Zoo Atlanta to get a glimpse of the yet to be named panda-panda. Some of the children even brought along little stuffed panda toys with them to play with while they watched the panda cub on the Panda Cam. Those kids are going to be two things. Disappointed and confused. "Mommy, that's not a panda." "Why are we looking at a rat?" "What's a leggy penis?" They did not get dragged to the zoo to look at something was not panda-like. Yep, some very sad children leaving Zoo Atlanta, I'm sure of it.

Pandas also always have the repetitive name. Ling-Ling. Lun-Lun. Yang-Yang. Why do they have to have Chinese names at all? I mean, we're raising them. Can't we name them what we want? Why can't the Chinese part of their name be like the middle panda name and then they get an American first name? Maybe it would help me warm up to the whole panda craze if I had an opportunity to go and fawn over Steve, the Giant Panda and his cousins Gary and Sue. It might not, but you have to start somewhere and naming the panda Steve would be a great place to start.

But here's a real treat for you! Below is the video of the nameless panda-panda being born. Panda birth! It's fairly short, considering it's the emergence of a brand new creature into the world, and runs a little less than two minutes. It's not disgusting. It's not gross. You don't see fluids or placentas or any of that stuff flying around. It IS loud at times. And it is also hilarious.

Weird, eh? I thought so too. I also thought it was hilarious. After Lun Lun shoots that creature out, she appears to be shocked, just shocked that it is what it is. She sort of jumped back there like, 'Holy s***!! What the hell is that?! Where'd that come from?! Usually I'm just crapping bamboo! I've never had this happen! Yang Yang, dammit! Get over here!"

Look, as much as I don't understand the fascination with the panda, I really do hope the LLP panda is going to be OK. I also hope it grows some damn fur pretty quickly. It's going to be scaring the neighbors if it's walking around looking like that for very long.

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Eats, Shoots and Leaves

It's bad enough when it's a slow news day. You want something exciting to read about something happening somewhere and you just can't find squat. And if you're looking for that daily dose of newsworthiness online on a slow news day, you're likely going to be wading through some of the stupidest stories you have ever seen masquerading as "news". (I mean, come on, there's "filler" and then there's "crap". Naturally, I shall be talking about the "crap".) The slower the news day, the more inane the stories. And it's as if those writing the stories or the headlines actually know that the story is pointless and they're just running it to fill space. Grammar, sensical meanings, they're all out the window. They don't care. And they know that you don't care either. That's how we end up with things like this:

From the "I'm So Stupid I Need Someone To Show Me How To Fold A Freaking Newspaper In Case I'm In A Narrow Newspaper Reading Zone" files, we have a demonstration from the simple folks over at realsimple.com, we have the feature "How To Fold A Broadsheet Newspaper - Easily read a paper on a crowded bus, train, or plane with this trick."

Now, if you're like me, you hear/read "trick", you think "magic". Thus, if you're like me, you're often very disappointed as actual magic will rarely follow. (That's when, if you're like me, you go right back to thinking "trick" as that's exactly what the whole thing is. Just one big trick.) Regardless, I'm going to walk you through this like they do. Trust me, it won't take long (though it may seem as if it goes on forever. After all, we are folding a newspaper.)

• Step 1: Before reading, fold the newspaper in half lengthwise both ways, for a flexible, two-way crease. To begin, fold the newspaper back along the vertical crease.

• Step 2: Find your desired page by leafing through the paper, using the top corners. better handling. (Better handling? How difficult is the handling of a newspaper in general? I'm thinking, "not very". Oh, and thanks for the tip on how to "find my page". Huh. LOOK at the pages to find the page. Brilliant.)
  

• Step 3: Fold the left page back along the vertical crease. You will be able to read theouter columns of the left and right pages. To read the inner columns, fold both pages back along the newspaper's center crease. (I'll be able to read the outer columns and then I will be able to test my long term memory as I retain the information in all of those columns before I am able to get to the rest of the story contained in the inner columns.)
  
  
• Step 4: Fold in half horizontally, into quadrants, for better handling. (Better handling again? What am I? On the goal line in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl and trying to score before time runs out? Better handling? It IS a newspaper, right? They're not made out of eels. I'm pretty sure my newspaper handling is going to be just fine even without this "trick". Grrr..)

All photos above illustrating this "trick" were taken by by Christopher Coppola.

I find it odd that the purpose of all of this folding of the broadsheet newspaper (a term I have heard never) is presumably because you are on, as the title tells us, a "crowded bus, train or plane". (And that could be with or without John Candy and/or Steve Martin, although, most likely without John Candy.) It seems to me that you're going to need a bit of room to make these maneuvers in the first place and if you can do that, why don't you just read the damn thing like that in the first place? And really, if you honestly cannot figure out what to do with yourself and your big ass newspaper if you're in a crowded area, it's highly unlikely that you possess the cranial ability to actually read the thing at all, so what's the point? Not exactly news I can use, that's for sure. (Seriously, at the very least, I was sort of expecting an origami swan or something when we were finished. Didn't even get that. A com-plete waste of time.)

Then over at the ABC News website (yes, one of the four major US News outlets is bringing you this vital tidbit of insight into your soul), we can now glean more information about the human species through their feature "What Your Car Trunk Says About You - Market Researcher Explores the Junk in People's Cars to Gather Consumption Information". Oh, for Christ's sake, are you freaking kidding me?

Among the questions that appear to be burning through the loins of the researcher are "Do moist towelettes stay moist in a hot car?" "Where do people squirrel away all the extra house keys she keeps unearthing in cars?" "Where do squirrels people away all of their acorns?" (OK, I made the last one up, but it's hard to resist a good squirrel pun when presented with the opportunity.) The researcher also went out on a limb and made the bold statement, "Cupless cupholders are significant". Why, yes, especially if you're looking for your cup!

What? Just because I have something else in my cupholder besides a cup I am supposed to be expressing something "significant"? NO! Of course not! (What kind of researcher are you anyway? You're nothing like the kind I'm familiar with, let me just tell you that.)

And finally, from one of the most unjournalistic (yes, I made that up) news sites online, we have the oh-so-biased (and in love with Obama) msnbc.com. Apparently, the folks who write headlines over there just want to make sure that the headline includes all of the vital components of the story, regardless as to whether or not it will actually convey what the story is really about. They also don't seem to care about whether their headline will confuse readers who have even a semi-firm grip on the English language. I present to you their mangled headline:

"Panda Moved After China Quake Gives Birth."

Oh, really? Well, I'm touched that the panda was so moved. I had NO idea that an earthquake was capable of actually GIVING birth (so maybe this really IS news after all!) and I really wish that they had included the sex of the newborn baby quake in the headline as well.

The panda headline is a great segway into mentioning the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss. Lynne is one of those individuals, like myself, who feel a little piece of their soul die (or get really freaking irritated) whenever they encounter writing that is grammatically incorrect, is missing punctuation or is incorrectly punctuated, contains misspellings, etc. The panda headline could cause her to damn near pass out, I would imagine. The title of her book is derived from the following story (which is available on her website, as is the book itself):

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

So punctuation really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death.

Indeed.

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