Friday, September 14, 2007

The Arctic: Boating Paradise

Yesterday, when Mark Gongloff put up the post with that headline, I realized I may be deranged.

Not nuts in a kooky, endearing sort of way.
No. I mean seriously, pathologically disturbed.
Why, my gentle reader may be tempted to ask?

Well first I thought of Knut. Cute, cuddly Knute. But not the cute Knute of last winter:
Knut's got that death threat licked.

No. I thought of the morbidly obese, malingering Knut:

Knut Feigning Sore Paw to Get Attention

By David Crossland in Berlin

Berlin Zoo's polar bear superstar Knut is so lonely that he has been deliberately limping to get some attention, says his keeper Thomas Dörflein, who knows the shaggy cub better than anyone else. The ruse is working: Visitors have been cooing over him and alarmed fans have been writing in from as far away as Brazil and Hawaii.

Knut sticking out his tongue at visitors last week.
Zoom
DPA

Knut sticking out his tongue at visitors last week.

Knut the celebrity polar bear has been receiving get-well messages from around the world ever since he slipped on a wet rock and hurt his paw last Friday -- but his keeper at Berlin Zoo thinks he's only pretending to be in pain because he likes the attention.

The shaggy nine-month-old cub, now weighing in at 80 kilograms, made a pitiful sight on Monday, limping around his enclosure in the drizzle and dragging his right back paw. Visitors felt sorry for the bear, who was rejected by his mother at birth.... From Der Spiegel

And as I'm looking at this fat freak, I know that since the Wicked Witch of the West, melting is negative, in most social situations.
But I can't get this song out of my head:

I Melt With You by Modern English.

Talk about inappropriate. I think I'll dance to the elevator now.