ETIQUETTE

If high soci I ever reached,
I'd review what I've been teached.
Goodness knows,
I'd be on my toes
That etiquette not be breached.

WHEEL WEIGHTS

With lead, wheels are weighted.
A material change is slated.
Falling off, some thirteen percent
Put 2K tons in the environment.
So the change is not debated.

BADGERS VS. ZIPS

From high in Land's End's box,
We gazed upon the jocks
And 80K fans, most in red.
"These guys? No sweat they said.
We're sure to clean their clocks."

THE ELEPHANT

Reared in a matriarchal family,
A smart, social critter is he.
Though a book he rarely reads,
His decisions meet his needs,
Which are sex, sustenance and security.


THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, September 2008

family ties

THE ELEPHANTS OF SAMBURU

"Happy families are all alike, wrote Leo Tolstoy; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. But the great Russian novelist wasn't thinking of elephants, whose familial relationships are complex, various, and fascinating, even amid the relatively happy circumstances of Kenya's samburu National Reserve."

"Finding food, finding water, and finding reproductive oportuinites aren't always simple tasks, but compared with finding security they are relatively straightforward. Real security, lasting security, is more unpredictable and elusive. The local people have a word for it: neebei. Every person wants neebei -- freedom from danger, menace, uncertainty, fear -- and it's not anthropomorphism to say that every elephat does too."

EXTREME DRINKING

Extreme is their drink consumption
As college kids turn twenty-one.
It's not the least bit charming.
In fact, it's quite alarming.
Yet I guess they call it fun.

CHOLITAS

Entering the ring, they unpin their shawl,
Then fight in skirts, petticoats and all.
Bolivian senoritas,
They're known as cholitas.
They say it's quite a brawl.


NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, September 2008

In the wrestling rings of Bolivia, skirts fly as CHOLITAS FIGHT BACK!

"A fluttering of lacy petitcoats won't ease the sting of the leg drop 'Juanita the Loving One' is poised to inflict on her opponent. The spectacle of native Aymara women in traditional dress-- cholitas -- theatrically mauling each other draws crowds in El Alto, high in the hills above La Pas."

"About seven years ago, when he was fretting about the diminishing audiences for the weekly lucha libre spectacle at the El Alto gym, Mamani had the inspired idea to teach women to wrestle and put them in the ring in cholita clothes."

KING AND NED

Dad's horses were King and Ned.
He kept them healthy and well fed.
His affection for them was warm.
Hardest for him when we left the farm
Was bidding them farewell, he said.