The Happy Feet saga is really one of two things:
('Happy Feet' can be seen via this Google Search)
1) All the Emperor Penguins got together and had a hui about climate-change. They decided that because we'd messed up their environment they had to make a new penguin world. So their smartest bird volunteered to be the advance guard for a brilliant plan.
Step One was for him to swim a few thousand kilometres 'off course' and turn up on a beach in New Zealand (his grandfather did it in 1967 so he actually knew the way like the back of his flipper).
Step Two was to be make sure he was seen eating a lot of sand. The humans
fell for that one, called him Happy Feet (his real name is Superbrain) and
took him in VIP transport to get lots of TLC. When they'd pumped out the
sand they set him up in his own luxury quarters and chipped in to feed him
lashings of grade-one salmon.
Step Three was for Superbrain to become such a global heart-throb that the
stupid humans would be sucked into giving him a First Class ticket back to
his clan, so that he won't have so far to swim.
Step Four will be a penguin Twittering all over the Southern Ocean, then
every bird will click in to Superbrain's Google+ Circle to find out exactly what to do.
Step Five will be millions of Emperor Penguins on every New Zealand beach
eating sand then getting stuffed with salmon in the lap of luxury.
Step Six will be New Zealand having to sign a Treaty of Emperors in which
the foreshore and seabed are ceded to them birds. Otherwise they'll eat it
all and refuse to barf it back.
2) It's a metaphor for the capital-gains tax. If we eat sand now and put up with a bit of stomach-pumping we'll all live on salmon for ever.
Waiheke Island, New Zealand
Waiheke from the west (the end nearest Auckland)
About Me
- Nobilangelo
- My Christian name is pronounced 'noble-arn-jillo' (i.e., both o's are long, so the first two syllables rhyme with 'noble' not 'hobble'--yes, I know that's obvious, because there's only one 'b' between the 'o' and the 'i', but some people seem to see two b's, hence the English lesson). My surname is pronounced kerra-marliss. I was born, bred and educated in New Zealand, except for an international systems-engineer's course in San Antonio, Texas. I am born-again Christian, a thinker with a very practical turn of mind, a scientist with a particular interest in planet-friendly energy and neuroscience, an engineer (mechanical, industrial and IT systems), an inventor, a Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a writer and poet, a naturist, a designer in different fields, an arranger and composer of symphonic music, a multi-award-winning IT journalist, a photographer, and a practitioner at various times in other hands-on fields including building, metalwork, woodwork, stained-glass and landscaping.