penguin rights

OK, I started a far more sophisticated post on alone-ness, urban space, a slick reading of a Bob Haas poem that nods to both Gary Snyder and The Who, with some Interpol references thrown in for good measure. But it wasn't quite coming together, so instead we have this fine tidbit from the Beeb - 'Gay groups insisted that penguins had a right to form couples without human interference'. So suddenly I find myself firmly in the penguins' rights camp: Beeb article. This, my non-existent readers, is why I tend to articulate all of my beliefs negatively. As it's much easier to state that I don't believe in interference than I do believe that penguins have a right to couple and/or mate in pairings of their choosing, regardless of species, gender, or sexual orientation. Which, given that we're talking a zoo here, is obviously rubbish.

Wow. Penguins. It reminds me that the Regents Park Zoo, with its flashy Art Deco penguin house (now rather dilapidated, but somewhat seductively charming as a hubristic monument to that very fine line between penguins and a dated futurism), had penguin issues too. Not gay penguins, though - wasn't that New York, a few years ago? The London Zoo moved their penguins from their architecturally distinctive lairs to a far less elegant corner of the zoo (fence, mud, pond) only to find the little buggers suddenly started breeding and nesting at much higher rates than had happened in years. There's a moral here, something about Art Deco housing provided free by the government and fertility, but I'll leave it to others to tease out. Or not.