‘Friends of the Zoo Elephants’ Tackle Most Serious Scandal Ever

All seems normal in this article from KYW1060 about the autopsy of beloved zoo elephant Petal. Natural causes, old age, yadda yadda yadda. Case closed, right?

Wrong.

A group from Delaware County, Pa. calling itself “Friends of the Zoo Elephants” says it doesn’t buy the autopsy results. They want to know more about Petal’s medical hisory [sic] and what the zoo did to help her.

Yes, Philadelphia Zoo, what did you do to help this elephant? Did you feed it regularly and provide it shelter? Was it given enough peanuts and things to remember?!? We must spend precious time, money and intellectual capital to get to the bottom of this, immediately!

Phila. Zoo Releases Autopsy Findings on Death of Aged Elephant [KYW 1060]

Spectrum To Be Razed; No More Circus!

Thanks to Philly.com for inexplicably running a photo of an elephant on the front page along with the Spectrum story. This actually reminded me of the best part of the old arena being knocked down: No more circus! Philadelphia just got better already.

The Delco Times had this, too, late last month.

It’s official: ‘Final year of the Spectrum’ [Inquirer]

City To Be Overrun By Non-Elephant Animals

A letter writer in this week’s Northeast Times complains about the lack of elephants at the Philadelphia Zoo:

What kind of a zoo has no elephants? The Philadelphia Zoo, that’s who! Our elephants have been with us forever. Now they are packing their trunks and moving. The worst is they are going to a bigger and better habitat that has more room for them to roam. Do they know something we don’t?

Who’s next?

The high prices for admission and parking are keeping a lot of families away from the zoo. They can no longer afford to spend that amount of money for a day’s outing. The gorilla families were the biggest draw to the zoo, and tragically they were lost in a 1995 fire, due to someone not caring enough to check on a preventable event. It’s sad, but if the situation gets worse, I think all the animals will pack up and leave.

Ask any kid what animals do they want to see at the zoo? They will say monkeys and elephants.

Holy shit! Without elephants, our city will be overrun by lions and tigers and prairie dogs! Aw, but I could probably snag a cutesy red panda or two in that case.

Plus, do you think the animals would have little suitcases when they packed up and left? That’d be so cute!

Northeast Times Letters 5.10 [NET]

First You Get The Elephants, Then You Get The Plurality Of Votes, Then You Get The Women!

We were all a little confused back in January when Bob Brady announced his candidacy for mayor and included a wish to bring the elephants back to the Philadelphia Zoo.

The elephants hadn’t left yet, but one was set to go to an elephant sanctuary and the others were to head to the Maryland Zoo.

But, well, apparently, you control the construction business, you control the elephants.

The Philadelphia Zoo’s three African elephants will not move to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, which announced today that it has delayed the expansion of its elephant habitat and would not be able to accommodate Petal, Kallie and Bette this spring as planned.

It’s amazing. Bob Brady has enough power to stall construction in other cities. (Well, how would you explain it then?) Also, it appears he’ll be able to keep a campaign promise without actually having to do anything, like get elected or maybe even be on the ballot. That’s pretty impressive.

Baltimore’s out for 3 Philly elephants [Inquirer]
Feb. 23: Bob Brady’s HELP!!!111 To Include Elephants

Bob Brady’s HELP!!!111 To Include Elephants

It’s been a while since Bob “HELP IS ON THE WAY!!!111” Brady made the announcement he was going to run for mayor, but since I just found said announcement on this website, I figured it was finally time to talk about it.

I’m talking, of course, about the elephants.

A great city does not boast the oldest zoo in the country and then ship its elephants off to Maryland and Tennessee.

And I want to make one thing clear to my grandchildren – Alexandra, Serena, Ricky and Robby – when I am Mayor, there will be elephants in the Philadelphia Zoo and they will live in a place we can be proud of. [...]

A great city recognizes the assets it has –

In culture, Arts, History, and yes, elephants –

It protects these assets and works tirelessly to grow them.

While Bob Brady may have lost Marianne Bessey’s vote, I still wonder: Whose vote, exactly, is he trying to get with this “bring the elephants back to the zoo” campaign promise?

Okay, let’s assume Bob Brady really does want the elephants back at the zoo. Personally, I think elephants are one of the more boring animals — give me some red pandas and lions, please! — but, hey, to each his own.

But Bob Brady’s a longtime politician, a good politician, and so he wouldn’t say something in his announcement speech if it wasn’t, at some level, designed to gain him votes. Is there a disaffected group of Philadelphians who go around grumbling under their breath that there aren’t elephants at the zoo anymore?

I know I’ve joked before about the Friends of Philly Zoo Elephants just being like 20 people or whatever, but I also think the group that really, really wants to keep the elephants at the zoo no matter how small their pen is is equally small, if not smaller. Right? Was anyone really upset the elephants are gone from the zoo? (Besides Bob Brady, I guess.) Is there a big elephant constituency I’m unaware of? Someone please clue me in here.

Announcement [Bob Brady Works]
Feb. 12: Bob Brady Campaign Keyboard Is Stuck On Caps Lock

Raj Locks Up Elephant, Mariachi Band Vote

It’s going to take a lot for 13th Congressional District longshot/ex-Apprentice contestant Raj Bhakta to knock off incumbent Democratic Rep. Allyson Schwartz in November’s election. He needs something big. Something memorable. (Or he needs Schwartz to be found in bed with Mark Foley’s severed head.)

Since Schwartz is rather unlikely to murder anyone anytime soon, Bhakta turned to the next logical way to get attention: Hiring a six-piece mariachi band and three circus elephants to stand near the U.S.-Mexican border.

Bhakta thinks our borders aren’t secure enough and, if we don’t secure them, mariachi bands and elephants will be able to come freely into America and steal jobs from hard-working American mariachi bands and elephants.

He didn’t have any of these men or elephants cross the border, of course, but he says nobody was there and so they could have easily snuck in. But, uh, why elephants. Okay, yeah, Raj is a Republican, but does he think it’s Republicans who are sneaking across the border? Wouldn’t he be for that? Will our country one day be overrun by illegal immigrant Republican mariachi bands who will spend their time playing patriotic ditties while dismantling social security?

Only time will tell.

Making a pachyderm point [Doylestown Intelligencer]

Leftovers: Pumpkin Inflation Cripples Pa.

• Due to the weather this year, pumpkin prices are going through the roof! They will maybe cost an “extra dollar” each and won’t be as nice! Damn you, weather! You owe me a dollar! [Philadelphia Weather]

• So buy your pumpkins early. And, according to the head cashier at a shop that sells Halloween garb, buy your Halloween costume early, too! [KYW 1060]

• The Philadelphia Zoo is closing its elephant exhibit, proving that one woman (and a small group of followers) can make a difference, provided the issue is “elephants in zoos.” [Inquirer]

• Radnor High was closed today because of this message written on a bathroom wall: “You are the reason that people like me bring guns to school.” Tomorrow, expect the school’s walls to be covered in threats in the hope of, like, an entire week off! [KYW 1060]

No more elephun at the zoo for one woman

The most specific activist group ever, Friends of Philly Zoo Elephants, has been protesting the zoo off and on since Dulary, the zoo’s Asian elephant, was injured (naturally, by one of those bully African elephants). They want the elephants shipped to a sanctuary.

Fair enough. The Zoo, however, is so worried about the group that they’ve been monitoring chat rooms for several months to keep tabs on them. (Perhaps they got tips from the Bush administration.)

And, of course, the zoo read the group’s leader, attorney Marianne Bessey, wrote that zoo director Pete Hoskins will have “nightmares every night until you die, which should be very soon.” And now she’s banned from the premises. This is odd, because if you were to actually believe Bessey was serious — which, uhm, it seems 100 percent likely she’s not — you’d want to ban her from Hoskins’ bedroom, since it seems like she’d kill him in his sleep.

Bessey, though, in her best lawyerly argument, comes up with an excuse for the lame comment:

In making the remarks about Hoskins’ demise, Bessey said she had not been threatening him but simply calculating what Hoskins’ “life expectancy” would be in sub-Saharan Africa, homeland of three of the zoo’s four elephants. That would be 51, she said, adding, “You have outlived your life expectancy by some 10 years.”

This is what’s known as the “Life Expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa Defense,” which has not once been believed by a listener since it was invented in 1867. I’m not quite sure why it keeps getting used.

Zoo banishes elephant activist over Web posting [DN]
Photo by Thomas Sly

Quickies: To be fair, it’s the best coffee shop run by an Internet bank in America

• The New York Times on going to Philadelphia: get your coffee and wifi at the ING Direct Cafe, dawg! And open an Orange Savings Account! [NYT]

• Craig LaBan recaps his year: Nothing got four bells — whatever that means — and only one restaurant (Haru) was bad enough to not get any recommendation at all. Oh, snap. Better keep extra disguises when you’re around 3rd and Chestnut, Craig. [Inky]

• New Action News sports anchor Jamie Apody is a a second-degree black belt in karate. This kitten’s got claws! How long until 6 ABC has her do some headache-inducing “Challenge our anchor to a sport!” gimmick? I give it two weeks. [DN]

• And — it’s in the middle of this story, so you gotta read — but one little documentary makes a woman sign the “Free the Elephants” petition. A whopping 100 signed, which means about .015% (note: figure made up) of the people in the gallery care about elephants. Eh: As long as the zoo keeps those red pandas, I’m down. [Inky]

• Hey, how about this one? La Salle’s basketball team is 6-0 after a four overtime win against Central Connecticut State. And nobody arrested! Nobody! Whoo! [DN]