Frenzies for Bread

The ducks have been in a frenzy lately;



Music is "Dirty Fight" from the soundtrack to the original Dirty Pair television series.

I took some stale buns down to the river last night, expecting to spend a relaxing ten minutes with the ducks. But the moment they saw me, they started walking towards me in a wave and all three buns were gone with blinding speed. To-day when I went down with another three buns, I only saw four ducks lounging under a tree. But the moment I tossed a bit of bread their way, a mob of ducks appeared from seemingly nowhere and the situation in the above film developed. One duck yanked a whole bun out of my hand, so it went even faster than last night. When I ran out, they tried to eat the camera, as you can see from the video, and after I shut off the camera I sat there a little while as they continually bit at my fingers and the tiny crumbs on my knees. I finally scared them off when I reached over a couple to take a small piece of plastic away from one, who I was afraid would choke on it.

This morning I watched Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's announcements for rallies they're going to hold on the National Mall, parodying Glenn Beck's rally. While I sympathise with Stewart's desire to promote a more reasonable approach to social and political issues, I don't quite agree with his usual perspective of both sides being equally paranoid. We're seeing Tea Party candidates, like Christine O'Donnell, actually win nominations. While at this point, I still think there's good reason to think this just means Democrats are going to win those seats, I do think it really says something scary about the intellectual laziness of the American people.

But I do hope Stewart and Colbert's rally draws enough people to make Glenn Beck's look appropriately ridiculous.

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