The Animal Review

I was cracking up this weekend, listening to an interview on Sunday's All Things Considered with Jake Lentz, the co-author/ -blogger of The Animal Review. Lentz discussed some of the animals he and fellow co-author/-blogger Steve Nash have reviewed and the reasoning for their grades. Pandas get an F, King Cobras and Great White Sharks get A+'s, and Jellyfish get a C-. Lentz has apparently developed something of a character, fancying himself a professional animal reviewer, and he stays in character throughout the interview, which adds to the humor. Take a second (or 5 minutes and 55 seconds) and listen to the interview.

Pretty funny, huh? I thought so, too, which is why I'm ordering The Animal Review: The Genius, Mediocrity, and Breathtaking Stupidity That Is Nature for the library collection. Until it gets here, we'll have to settle for The Animal Review blog. We can fight over the book when it gets here.

Pablo Escobar's Hippos

In 1989, Forbes magazine recognized Columbian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar as the world's seventh-richest person. His Medellín cartel controlled most of the globe's cocaine trade and was responsible for thousands of murders.

A Columbian police task force known as the Search Bloc eventually caught up with Escobar in 1993. According to the official story, he was finally killed in a roof-top gunfight. Some say he committed suicide rather than surrender to authorities.

Escobar's violent imprint on Columbia is indelible and tragic. But one aspect of his ill-gotten wealth remains: a private animal zoo at his former home, Hacienda Napoles.

According to a piece on NPR today, it is now a tourist destination.

With his death, the hacienda fell into ruin, and much of the wildlife died or wound up in zoos--although the hippos remained and multiplied in the murky ponds.

But a group of businessmen has given Escobar's legacy a new twist. Tourists--some 50,000 visited last year after the park opened--flock to see what's left from Escobar's heyday.