Elephant escapes

I was delighted to read in the news that an elephant at the Albuquerque Zoo, name of Alice, managed to get out of her habitat. The employees showed up to open the zoo and Alice was just moseying around the zoo, I guess. 

The city where I currently live used to have an elephant named Princess Alice who also went walkabout sometimes. In her case, she'd go walkabout around town, not just the zoo. She was apparently a pretty sassy elephant, according to some of the newspaper articles I've read about her. 

Honestly, I think the Alice the elephants maybe are onto something. Sometimes, you just need a break, a little change of pace, some new scenery. 

Just out of curiosity, I checked how frequently elephants make an escape. AI says on average, 6 times a year (at least between 1990 and 2017). So that's fun. Also, be careful if you see an escaped elephant. It doesn't say why, but escaped elephants can be a risky situation. Not sure if it's just that they are big, but also not sure it needs to be anything else. 

Anyway, here's to all the elephants shaking things up, and to anyone else who gets to escape for a bit. 

Overheard in the hallway

So I work for an international organization. That makes it interesting when global politics go a bit sideways (or a lot sideways. Any amount of sideways. It all makes it interesting). For example:

We have an team that covers the US and a team that covers Europe/Africa. (My team covers Latin America and the Caribbean. You likely already figured that out). 

I was walking down the hall a week or two ago and overheard this conversation between a member of the US team and the Europe/Africa team: 

US guy: Hey, Europe/Africa guy! How's it going?

Europe/Africa guy: Well, y'know, my area is just trying to start WWIII.

US guy: Hey, so is mine!

For some reason, it is the most hilarious conversation ever while also just being kind of depressing. And that is just one example. 

In my own travels, I know that there have been worries about whether we'll be able to travel, whether we'll be allowed back in the country after traveling, how people in the countries we are visiting will react, ticket prices, and myriad other concerns.* I have friends in other countries who are definitely impacted by global politics. The news isn't as remote and far away as it used to be. Although, I suspect that is true for most of us, not just people at global organizations. 

Anyway, here's hoping that WWIII gets postponed indefinitely. We have too much to do at work as it is, without the apocalypse getting in the way!

*I should note, for an archivist, this is a pretty unusual problem to have. Like, a statistically insignificant (statistically non-existent, probably) number of archivists likely have to deal with this. At least in the US. Which on the whole, I think makes me pretty lucky.

Who asked for this?

On Monday, I got a text from "Ashley Brooks." Who is Ashley Brooks, you ask, that I should mention her? (I guess it could be a him, although then I would seriously question whether it was 1926 instead of 2026). 

Ashley is a virtual assistant at the dealership where I bought my car. Now, I actually appreciate that someone from the dealership texts to remind me of my routine maintenance. Very helpful. And usually an actual person.

Ashley, though? Do we not all have our hands full trying to deal with actual people, without also being hounded by fake ones? Do we really need the virtual Ashley's trying to sell us stuff, to spam our inboxes? WHO ASKED FOR THIS????

Answer: No one. No one asked for this. At least, no normal person. I don't know a single person (and like all people, I know some very odd ducks. And am surely the odd duck in someone's world) who was walking around saying, "You know, the junk mail from the Post Office, that was alright. But not quite enough. And spam emails, those are great. They have definitely improved my quality of life. Social media spam has also kicked it up a notch. But I still feel like there's more life has to offer. I need more. I am not living my best spam life."

Anyway. Here we are. Silver lining? I don't have to feel bad about ignoring fictional people. 

Fire safety

The other day I saw some headline about how we have to fight fire with fire (it was referring to political campaigns, not weapons, which in light of the US bombing Iran, seems an important clarification). 

And my reaction was, "No one would fight fire with fire. You fight it with water." We don't have firemen going in and fighting forest fires with flame throwers. Fighting fire with fire is only a good strategy if you are trying to burn down the world. 

That was my first thought. My second thought was that there is probably some etymological history here that would make it all make sense. And larks, there is!!!

The phrase dates back to Shakespeare. (Most things in English seem to be sourced from him or the Bible. Surely there were other sources?) In his day--and still today--they would create firebreaks. Meaning, they'd burn vegetation so that when the fire arrived, there was nothing left to burn and it would die. Fighting fire with fire.*

I'm not sure fighting fire with fire today has the same outcome. Firebreaks aren't focused on the fire itself, if that makes sense. They aren't attacking the fire, they are preventing it, by looking out towards other areas. It's preventative. Whereas, most of the time when we use the phrase today, it's not preventative. It's aggressive, attacking, and not really concerned with ending a conflict, so much as winning at all costs. 

I vote we return to the original motive of the phrase. If we do, I think we'll be left with more of the world standing. And we'll all learn a bit about fire-fighting!

*You can find multiple sources that confirm this through a quick search on the internet.