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I stepped back to the early afternoon and looked south, I'm pretty sure, to one of the Smithsonian buildings; it turned out to be that of Natural History where I resumed my ambling aimlessly. This lead me, as any venture into the Natural History museum would, into an exhibit about Rastafarianism. I admit I didn't know much about Rastafarianism going in --- mostly I know that it has something to do with Jamaica, and that there are a lot of tiresome pot jokes made in connection with it --- but I'm usually up for learning something new and maybe I'd learn what it was doing in the Museum of Natural History. (I didn't; maybe it just had the floor space available.) In particular I had no idea the religion was based on the idea of Haile Selassie being God reincarnate, which ignorance left me embarrassed.
I wandered around further with the idea of getting to a mammals exhibit, and ended up lost in prehistory and the many fascinating yet often disgusting creatures of hundreds of millions of years ago. Eventually I realized the museum is laid out in order that everyone is shuttled into a gift shop or a cafe, and the easiest way to get somewhere was to retrace my steps, get nearly out, and plunge in again, and that's how I got over to mammals. They had a pretty impressive set of taxidermied examples of animals, some of them posed as they might have been in life.
Also at one of the mammal exhibits I realized an odd bit of species stereotyping: if raccoons get on display, it's going to be in connection with their eating, particularly in eating (human) garbage. As an example there was a corner showing animals and liftable panels asking questions --- ``What's the bobcat hunting?'' (the sparrow in front of it). ``What's the mouse guarding?'' (``Winter treasure'', which looks a lot like food to me.) ``What's the shrew's secret weapon?'' (Poisonous saliva, by the way, so now I have to decide how much I want to fear shrews.) ``How do moles live underground?''
The raccoon's question? ``How does the raccoon make it through winter?'' He fattens up, of course, and it's explained how he eats garbage. It's admittedly not just raccoons who get their eating habits mentioned prominently. After all, pretty much every animal other than the robot squirrel is hugely interested in its food. See also the mouse question-and-answer above, or other examples like ``What's inside the chipmunk's cheeks?'' (acorns, other nuts, and seeds) or ``What's the flying squirrel hiding?'' (nuts and seeds). Still, the hungriness of raccoons takes top billing. But even the bit showing how raccoons teach their kids stuff like climbing and grooming points out the eating thing. Yeah, they dropped the thing about how 'procyon lotor' would wash its paws ... to eat ... but there are aspects of the raccoon besides eating.
Squirrels by the way get several displays, including one about the Eastern Grey Squirrel. The panel explaining squirrels there reported that ``Scientists call squirrels `living fossils' because their body plan has changed so little since the first squirrel evolved about 35 million years ago''. I assume that shortly after calling squirrels such the scientists are bitten on their ankles by squirrels who want to know who's calling who a fossil anyway, which is why high-heeled sneakers are growing so popular among scientists and 1986.
Anyway, after a bit of this I came to realize I didn't want to wander endlessly back and forth inside buildings all day, and wanted instead to go to the National Zoo and see some real live animals. I re-traced my steps and found my way out the other side of the building, toward the Metro station and by the way the hottest, muggiest Washington afternoon since the previous Washington afternoon.
Trivia: About 1.5 million United States soldiers arrived in Europe in the final six months of World War I; by the Armistice, 29 divisions of the 42 in the field had seen action. Source: The First World War, Hew Strachan.
Currently Reading: Second Founding: New York City, Reconstruction, and the making of American Democracy, David Quigley.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-30 05:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-01 04:23 am (UTC)Sure, but it's not the entirety of a raccoon's life, just ... what gets mentioned if nothing else gets mentioned. Raccoons have a lot of quirky and odd behaviors; why should eating get top billing?
Raccoons only EAT!
Date: 2010-06-30 06:06 am (UTC)Re: Raccoons only EAT!
Date: 2010-07-01 04:26 am (UTC)You haven't seen the 'Raccoon steals carpet' video, have you? See a cat try that.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-30 07:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-01 04:31 am (UTC)None that I saw, can you believe it?
In fact, these days, people wonder what the heck I'm talking about when I allude to it. Admittedly they often wonder what the heck I'm talking about.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-30 10:07 am (UTC)As if this wasn't enough?
...I wonder if MST3K ever panned that one? ;o)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-01 04:35 am (UTC)Heh ... oh, yes, they were a bit in mind. But it's one thing to be afraid of hilariously inaccurate representations of shrews, and another to think they're actually got poisonous venom to be deployed somewhere.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-30 08:38 pm (UTC)Also, the food was extremely good.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-01 04:45 am (UTC)I'd known Rastafarian food tended toward vegetarian and vegan-friendly meals but hadn't given that much particular thought beyond, well, that's what the restaurants are known for. I don't remember that the exhibit at the Smithsonian went into reasons behind it, although I may have just overlooked it.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-02 02:01 am (UTC)And what about the sea life exhibits on the first floor, surely you'd've mentioned if you'd seen the giant acrylic jellyfish or the formaldehyde-preserved Tremendous Humboldt Squid Thing. And if you were in the Mammals Wing, you weren't in the Full-Scale Dinosaur Sculptures Are More Impressive Than Genuine Burgess Shale Ediacaran Fossils Wing.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-03 05:04 am (UTC)I did indeed miss the second floor, and this after thinking of going up to it to see at least the Hope Diamond, but that was more a matter of I decided to get into the outdoors and go to the zoo instead of deliberately choosing not to get up there.
The first-floor fossils thing I did wander through, partway, although it was also surprisingly crowded. Maybe it was the heat of the day.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-10 06:04 pm (UTC)--Chi
[*1] After the Anteater, which, it's right there in the name; slightly after termites and about equal with spiders and mosquitos.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-12 12:16 am (UTC)I can't blame folks for being curious what animals eat, but the raccoons-eat-trash thing, and the raccoons-eat-lots things seem to be the default lede. Maybe it's just confirmation bias, but I'm starting to think the head of the Museum And Zoo Label Writers Association has been battling a raccoon in the pantry.
I think mongoose is probably second in animals identified with their food, after anteaters. But they also have the ``mongoose is a singular bird 'cause nobody can say two of 'em'' thing to fall back on.