previous column	deadlyhippos home	next column

Doubly Offended by the Detriot Zoo
6/24/05
by Clay

I'm married to a graduate of the University of Michigan and despite KWo's extended hiatus from the site he is also a graduate of the University of Michigan. In fact when I told Lara about this story she had two things to say:

1. That's such a typical Michigan State grad thing to do. They're all so bitter and stupid.

2. Of course they had to be Michigan grads who were complaining, Michigan State grads don't have enough extra money to donate to the zoo.

After these comments I had to make sure that she wasn't responsible for the complaints. Once she admitted she wasn't upset about baby wolverines named Sparty and Bucky or complaining about such I felt more confident in my marriage decision. But this small story linked below really flummoxed me anyway despite deadlyhippos erstwhile favorable impression of the school.

While this story does not involve hippos and therefore does not implicate our aspirations to become the best internet database for hippo-related arcana, it is zoo related and henceforth particularly appropriate for our site.

Here is the entire text of the story:

...

Some University of Michigan backers weren't amused to learn the Detroit Zoo's baby wolverines had been given nicknames of rival Big Ten teams.

After receiving several dozen complaints, including threats to cancel memberships or reduce donations, the zoo renamed the 3½-month-old kits last week.

A zookeeper who graduated from Michigan State University had named the kits Sparty -- for the MSU mascot -- and Bucky, either for the Wisconsin Badger mascot or a variation on the Ohio State Buckeyes.

"We got some e-mail and phone calls from zoo visitors and the general public who were deeply offended by the names," zoo spokeswoman Rana Kozouz told the Detroit Free Press on Tuesday. "So we changed the names to Tamarack and Tilia, the names of Michigan trees."

...

This story was annoying to me on several levels. Of course I've decided to share them with everyone.

1. This zoopkeeper from Michigan hasn't exactly made the most humorous move ever. He's just named two baby wolverines Sparty and Bucky. On the humor scale I believe this ranks somewhere around a knock knock or fart joke. But I'm going to give the zoo keeper credit because the humor scale is not necessarily off the charts for zoo keepers. In fact, I don't recall a zoo keeper ever even attempting anything humorous outside of Jurassic Park.

2. Several dozen people have called to complain and threatened to cancel their memberships or cancel donations. This is much worse than a lame joke. These are people who have superfluous funds to support a zoo and are probably college graduates yet feel compelled to voice their displeasure about the names of baby wolverines. Usually you could just toss this aside as the random actions of dumb people (which as I scientifically proved in my academic treatise on missing white women are basically the majority of people), but dumb people with college degrees are even more dangerous than just dumb people. Somehow society has awarded their idiocy with tangible indications of a degree lauding their intelligence. This means their stupidity can truly flourish because society has convinced them they are actually not dumb. But is hyberbole regarding their intelligence even necessary when you have so much time in your life that you call to complain about the naming of baby wolverines? Are we truly still the same country that defeated Nazi Germany and conquered the western frontier? If these people had gone on the Oregon Trail they would have died before the purchases were even made at the St. Louis general store.

3. The zoo buckled. Are you kidding me? Shouldn't the zoo say, we have more important things to worry about than the fact that people are offended by the names of baby wolverines. If they really wanted to change the names, they should have renamed them with much more offensive names like Gonorrhea and Syphilis. Or even better than that they should have renamed them after the people who complained appending the word sucks to the end. For instance if Lloyd Carr complained, they should call the baby wolverine LloydCarrSucks. As an added bonus this almost sounds like a Latin name if you slur all the words together.

4. The zoo has a spokeswoman named Rana Kozouz. Is this a joke? Does the zoo actually have so much to say that they need someone with a job title of spokeswoman? And further if the zoo is trying to keep from offending everyone shouldn't her title be a neutral "spokesperson" instead of spokeswoman. I decided that this issue alone made me "highly offended" so I searched for Rana Kozouz's email address on google. Quite rapidly, I found it. rkozouz@detroitzoo.org

I then emailed her the following,

Subject: Highly Offended Twice

Ms. Kozouz,

Recently I discovered that the zoo made the decision to change the names of the baby wolverines from Sparty and Bucky to Tamarack and Tilia. This highly offended me because I knew a girl in college named Tilia and I do not think she would like to have a wolverine named after her. I hope in the future you will consider such things when you name baby wolverines.

Also, I saw in the Detroit News article that your title is spokeswoman. In this day and age do we really need to provide such sexually-charged titles. Clearly, your job should be that of spokesperson. I would appreciate a response as to why the Detroit Zoo uses such offensive titles to those of us who happen not to be women.

I hope the tone of this email conveyed exactly how steaming mad and doubly highly offended I am.

Sincerely,

Clay Travis

_______________________________________

Discuss this and any other column deadlyhippos.com column at our message board.