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I’ve got mixed feelings about the gorilla that was shot at the Cincinatti zoo because a four year old had wandered into the enclosure.

He was treating the child very gently

I like gorillas, I like it that there is an  animal so much like us, and I think that human/gorilla communication will continue to evolve until one day, one smart gorilla will have enough sign language to say “WTF!  This is a fucking zoo!  How would you like it if we kept your twiggy ass in a zoo?”

And, according to most eye-witnesses, the gorilla was actually being protective of the child, and helpful.  Then, boom, he was shot dead.  His name was Harambe.  He was 17 years old.

I don’t blame the parents.  Well, maybe a little bit, but I can’t say my two never got out of my sight, never gave us a scare.  They  never fell into the gorilla pen at the  zoo, though.  Touch  wood.

I blame the zoo a little bit.  Not for the decision to fire, although that may have been a bit hasty as well.  It did happen in Cincinnati.  Maybe the zookeepers mistook Harambe for a 12 year old black child.

No, I mean for not having a fence that would keep 4 year olds out.  The zookeeper, quite glibly, said “Do you know any 4 year olds?  They can climb over anything.”

Do you know, sir, that a lot of people visiting your zoo are 4 year olds and it’s kind of your job to maintain a fence they can’t get over?
You can’t blame the child, who was just  being naturally curious.  You can’t blame Harambe, he did nothing aggressive.

I guess there’s no point in  blaming anybody.  But, it’s a tragedy.  RIP, Harambe.

I’m just checking through my notifications, which has become a time consuming process because either Facebook or Hotmail has decided to mess with me for no reason, and I no longer get all the notifications of facebook comments in my inbox.  They go to junk mail, so I have to retrieve them from there, and then go through the list.

Anyway, as I’m doing that, and getting into occasional arguments with Hillary people who see nothing at all wrong with the idea that Puerto Rico suddenly decided to cut the number of polling places for their upcoming primary – by more than half, one saying “Well, maybe they had budget problems, did you ever think of that?,” I’m also half listening to a documentary on NASA and I hear the radio guy speaking to the astronauts and I hear the announcer saying “O.K., go for the burn.”  It could be an omen, it could be a coincidence (hint: it’s a coincidence) but, nonetheless, it made me feel good.

I don’t know what it will take to convince these people that their candidate is a deceitful wretch who cares more about winning than she does about democracy,  honesty, or the good of the Democratic party.

I’ll keep trying, though.

One constant argument in my family is public transport vs. driving.  I opt for public transportation whenever it’s possible.  To me, it’s one of the joys of living in Prague, and it’s distressing to me to watch the car culture slowly wash over the whole planet, like the ocean’s going to wash over Florida in  a couple of years if we don’t get our shit together.  My interests are not all green, though.  It just seems more convenient to me.  You don’t have to find parking, you don’t have to worry about getting into an accident, you don’t have to buy gas.
My wife, on the other hand, prefers to drive if she can rationalize it in any way.  Of course, the kids are on her  side.
I was pleased, tonight, that she agreed to come to my poetry reading tonight, so not too bothered that she insisted on driving.  I objected, but it was token.

Problem is, we didn’t know exactly where it was.  We were driving around, higher and yon, and not getting any closer, so we parked and went looking on foot.  It was kind of drizzly, but it had stopped raining.  We found the street, which runs along the park, there’s not much there on either side that has an address, but on the map it looked like the place was in the park, but it wasn’t.

We came to a house with  what I thought was the address, but it was clearly just a house and nobody was home.

Eventually found the place, we were well late but it was O.K.   The guy before me was reading a short story, I did my five or six minutes of  poems, there was a scene from a play, intermission, and then a classical guitar player who was kind of awesome.  Incredibly fast fingers, but he also had a wood thumping, finger snapping thing going on.  It was a classy act.

It seems there will not be a Sanders/Trump debate after all.  Tough guy Donald Trump is weaseling out of it.

Here’s my theory:  Trump said on the Jimmy Kimmel show he’d debate Bernie Sanders.  Then he  said, less than  24 hours  later, that it would be ‘inappropriate,’ which is a very  big word.  I believe he was being sincere when he was on the show.  As sincere as Donald Trump ever is, anyway.  In the sense that it  sounded like  a good idea, so he said sure.

So, somewhere between the program, and  very shortly afterward, somebody talked to  Donald Trump and said, no, don’t debate Bernie Sanders.  So he said sure.

The question  is no longer  “Who is Donald Trump?,” but  rather “Who is giving  Donald Trump orders?”  How’s that for a scary thought?

Meanwhile, in the real race which  currently matters, the latest controversy over Hillary’s e-mails is still big news.  We’ll see if, like all other news of Hillary, it just fades away after one news  cycle, or if this is the crippling blow.  I mean,it comes from the State Department, which she was the leader of, and they’re saying that  what she  was doing was neither routine nor allowed.

Here’s how  I  feel about that:  31,000 is a hell of a lot of e-mails to lose,  especially since so many are  likely to assume that you have something to hide, and it’s clear that whatever was in those e-mails was more damaging than allowing  that perception would be.  Who were they all to?  Might it not be possible  to retrieve some of those by examining (with proper subpoenas,  of course) the  e-mail histories of Monsanto, and Goldman Sachs, all her  wealthy donors, lobbyists for private prisons, the  Saudi king’s American accountant, and so on, and see  if  any of them have a few  hundred e mails going  back and forth at key dates.

It was a funny old day in politics.  I woke up to the news that Donald Trump had agreed (on the Jimmy Kimmel show) to debate Bernie, and Bernie had responded on Twitter, “Game on.” Because Bernie is just that cool.

My initial thought, I must confess, was ‘Good for Jimmy Kimmel!’  I remember he started his talk show about the same time as Jimmy Fallon, and in the beginning I got them confused a lot, because they’re both named Jimmy.  Also, I put them in the same category, i.e. talk show hosts who are not impossible to watch but, seriously, pretty lame heirs to Letterman and O’Brien.  As time wore on, I liked Fallon more and more and Kimmel less and less, but that’s neither here or there.  He scored a coup with the debate, and it could have been a career high point, and I was happy for him.

I also felt the debate would be good for Bernie, because the symbolism of absent Hillary would have been just too delicious.

But, Donald Trump is making excuses now, and it probably won’t happen.  Everybody’s afraid to debate Bernie.  As the only one willing to debate, Bernie shows, once again, that he is a stand up sort of guy.  A mensch, as the Jews say.

Donald Trump is not a mensch.  He is a gibbering shitweasel.  Hillary Clinton is not a mensch.  She  knows she’s been  cheating.  She knows that the OIG’s report on her e-mails  is seriously damaging but, as long as she  refuses to debate or talk about anything of substance, it’ll blow  over and people will find something else to complain about.