Sometime when the world seems about to explode, I go over to the San Diego Zoo to check in with a couple of old friends to see how they are doing.  Things are fine at the zoo.  I had an interesting few minutes with an orangutan who was hanging from some ropes near the glass wall that kept us apart.  Her face and mine were less than a foot apart.  We looked directly into each other’s eyes for a few minutes, and she smiled... or I think that’s what the expression meant. I smiled, too.  I moved my hand to her hand separated by only and inch of glass.  When I finally moved away but stayed close to the glass, she moved with me... face to face.  It was clear that some meaningful contact had been made between us.  When I stopped, she stopped.  When I moved, she moved with me.  It was an amazing few minutes.  I don’t have a picture because I knew it wouldn’t have been polite to hold my camera up to the class and point it at her.  My picture here is one I snapped earlier of the big male who sat nearby obviously disinterested.  As I was taking his picture, he glanced at me; but he obviously had no interest in anything more than acknowledgment that he had seen me and that I had seen him. He went back to eating a payapa.  

On another matter, I’ve decided to try not to anticipate what harm the fresh troubles in North Africa and the Middle East may bring to innocent people. I wish it could all have been resolved peacefully before tomorrow, but that isn’t going to happen.  Steve Klein, an ex-marine who founded an organization called Courageous Christians United and lives up in Hemet, California, says he was a script consultant for the movie that is causing all the trouble.  He stages protests outside mosques and abortion clinics. In 2007, Klein sued the city of San Clemente after it ordered him to stop planting anti-illegal immigration fliers on cars.  I don’t know the status of the law suit.  He is host of a weekly program on an Arabic Christian outlet called “The Way TV.”  Klein is well known to the Southern Poverty Law Center folks who monitor activities of right-wing extremists.  When he was interviewed by reporters today, he said the whole affair was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s fault for not protecting the embassy staff better in Libya.  He said Secretary Clinton is to blame for the death of the American ambassador and three others.  He went on to say about the Islamists who rioted in Libya and Egypt, “I’m not responsible for the actions that they go out and do.  Why would I be bothered.”  Why indeed?  I wonder if he will sleep well tonight.

It was a hot day here in San Diego, so I went over to check on the polar bears. They didn't seem to be comfortable.  A tree up the road from their enclosure has in its bark an amazing likeness of an owl.  

...and not far from the owl in the tree an ivy frond was unfolding.  Life is good... here where I am... and where that guy Klein will sleep tonight.   I hope it will soon be good for the people in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and the other troubled places in the world.