Animals, taxes, polling places and a disappearing boulder mystery

All from a couple of 2020 Harper’s Findings and Indeces:

Animals

Migrating steppe eagles fitted with cellular trackers by Russian zoologists incurred massive international roaming charges.

Female fish will mate outside their species if a male is attractive enough or if the female can’t see clearly.

Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? (A question for women only.)

A nineteen-year-old Margarita Island capuchin monkey in a Chinese zoo with a humanlike face has remained unable to find a mate, which zookeepers attribute not to his appearance but to his bad personality.

A Tennessee electric eel was switching the lights of a Christmas tree on and off.

Speaking of which, remind me some day to tell you about a moose in Banff who got a high from mild electric shocks (?) and consequently repeatedly ripped strings of Xmas lights off people’s houses and, trailing the lights, would run down Banff’s main street.

Why we need a new voting rights act* and why I’m endlessly furious at John Roberts

Minimum number of polling places that states in the South have closed since 2012: 1,327.

Why I’m beyond furious at Mitch McConnell

Average effective tax rate, as a percentage of income, paid by the richest 400 households in the United States in 2018: 23.

Mysterious miscellany

The Wizard Rock, a boulder that had vanished from the Prescott National Forest, reappeared.

Bathroom break?

*We have one, passed by the House but ignored by the aforementionedly hateful Mitch McConnell.

 

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