The Polar Bears Are Not Having A Good Time

There’s an ASPCA commercial that’s run for quite some time that has been unofficially banned in our household. You’ve likely seen it – a series of heartbreaking footage of neglected dogs and cats as a Sarah McLachlan song plays. It is rather affective.

I’d rather not see it, but Paloma was positively inconsolable the first time we saw it (of course, I probably now have a reputation as the heartless bastard that has threatened to FedEx a kitten to Gary Busey, yes?).

So tonight, I look up from reading ESPN online, expecting to see The Family Guy and, instead, seeing footage of gaunt polar bears and undernourished polar bear cubs, struggling to cross the ice melting beneath their feet. It was a commercial for the World Wildlife Fund and it must have lasted two minutes – if not quite as potent as the ASPCA’s pitch, it certainly held a greater sense of dread.

I’ve already made a note to send them a donation (no doubt my twenty-five dollars or whatnot will get things back in order).

I immediately thought of a fellow who works in my office building, wondering if he had possibly seen the commercial. Occasionally, he will be outside smoking when I happen to also be enjoying tobacco. Invariably, he will announce some arcane fact about the weather.

“The past seventy-two hours have been the coldest seventy-two hours over those three calendar days since the dinosaurs roamed the earth,” he proclaims to all in his vicinity.

I’ve gotten the impression that he suspects the whole climate change thing to be bogus and he’s on a one-man mission to spread the word.

I get the vibe that he’d sign on to hunt polar bears from a helicopter with high-powered artillery.

I’m not a scientist and I’d wager that neither is this fellow smoker. But, it does seem as though the weather has been off kilter and there do seem to be an awful lot of, you know, actual scientists – people who devote all of their time to pondering such matters – who seem to be concerned.

All I know is that those were some miserable looking polar bears.

Here are some lions and tigers and bears…

Bob Marley – Iron Lion Zion
Mr. Whiteray has a lovely post on Mr. Marley which quite appealed to me as I’ve also been reading the late Timothy White’s bio on the music legend, Catch A Fire.

Bruce Cockburn – Wondering Where The Lions Are
I’ve always been a bit more partial to Bruce Cockburn’s more rock-oriented stuff, but there’s no denying some of his gentler material is wonderful, too.

Rosanne Cash – Dance With The Tiger
Rosanne’s father once came into the record store where I worked. Oddly enough, The Man In Black was wearing a bright, floral-patterned Hawaiian shirt. That said, Rosanne is certainly one of the more under appreciated female artists of the past twenty years.

Zebra – Bears
When Zebra released their debut in 1983, a lot of music fans embraced their Zeppelin-like sound. A lot of critics slagged them for their Zeppelin-like sound. Personally, I wore that first album out (on cassette, of course).