While the partial U.S. government shutdown has many people up in arms about some of the strange closures at home and abroad, one of the most unusual is the “panda cam” that went dark at the National Zoo in Washington, notes Grumpy Editor.
Federal resources, including funds, are not an issue in showing the giant pandas on camera.
Thousands of viewers check in daily to see female panda Mei Xiang, her six-week-old cub and companion Tian Tian.
National Zoo's panda cams are sponsored by the Ford Motor Co. fund, part of a two-year, $400,000 grant to study giant panda health and the majority of the grant covers research into disease transmission, points out Danielle Elliot at CBS News.
And zoo staff doesn’t figure into the panda’s cam transmissions because volunteers operate the cameras.
As part of the Smithsonian Institution, the National Zoo is a 163-acre zoological park set amid Rock Creek National Park in the heart of Washington.
With the shutdown, the zoo and the rest of the Smithsonian museums are closed to the public along with all vehicle, pedestrian and bicycle paths into the area.
For panda cam watchers, an alternative: Try the panda cam here to see Ya Ya and Le Le at the Memphis Zoo.
Senator cites shutdown for scrapping media call
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, cited the federal shutdown as the reason to eliminate his weekly press call with Iowa reporters, finds Grumpy Editor.
“Due to the funding lapse, Senator Harkin’s offices are now closed. Therefore, he will not host an Iowa media call this week. The call will resume when the lapse has ended,” Kate Cyrul Frischmann, Harkin’s communications director in Washington, advised Iowa reporters via email.
However, the Des Moines Register reported the federal shutdown didn’t stop U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Waterloo, from briefing Iowa reporters on his usual Wednesday conference call.
Braley, active with other House members while the Senate was mostly silent, is running for the Senate next year, seeking to replace Harkin, who is retiring.
In case you missed these…
Two words absent from weekend reporting on the unusual autumn snowstorm that smacked the upper Midwest with up to almost four feet of snow (in Lead, S.D.): global warming…Stock of Tesla Motors, following media playing up a fire in one of its electric cars, dips 6.2 percent on Wednesday and 4.2 percent Thursday, but rebounds 7.67 percent on Friday as word gets out that its Model S becomes the best-selling car in Norway in September, its second month on the market there…The Associated Press and NPR are cutting back use of the term ObamaCare (for Affordable Care Act). NPR describes the nickname as seeming "to be straddling somewhere between being a politically-charged term and an accepted part of the vernacular”…Political columnist and author George Will joins Fox News as a contributor. Will, a long-time fixture as a panelist on ABC’s "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," will offer analysis and commentary across Fox News’ daytime and primetime programming…While many newspapers are reducing editorial content, the 113-year-old Lubbock (Texas) Avalanche-Journal is seeking freelance journalists and photographers to boost news, business, features, community events and sports coverage…Wichita radio station KLIO dumps its oldies format and moves to service its market’s Spanish-speaking population with sports talk using ESPN Deportes around the clock…Thomson Reuters plans to cut as much as 5 percent of newsroom staffers (out of 2,800 journalists worldwide) --- “to simplify and strengthen the Reuters news operation”…NBC and CNN shelve television projects focusing on former first lady and secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Both efforts were slated to air prior to the 2016 election.
Media, especially television, gearing up for winds that some predicted would blossom into the first hurricane to hit the U.S. this year, see tropical storm Karen fizzle in the Gulf of Mexico…with no deep low-pressure systems (candidates leading to a hurricane) on the horizon.
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