This week’s animal is a little different.  Meet Mello, official mascot of the 2007 Cricket World Cup:

The woman with him is his handler, who has spent several months working with big cats in preparation for the tournament.  You really haven’t trained until you’ve handled big cats swinging large wooden bats.

Sure, Mello looks like the quintessential laid-back icon of West Indian smoothitude, I grant you.  (And could anything possibly be more calming than an afternoon in the Caribbean… watching cricket?  Toss in 90-degree heat and humidity, and It’s amazing anyone hasn’t slipped permanently into gelatinous torpor.)  And no question, on his good days, Mello is an absolute treat for young and old alike, a feline fountain of big-shoed mirth.  Nobody does a between-innings hokey-pokey with the kids like Mello.  Nobody.  That’s why he’s getting this one last chance.

But just in case, his handler is packing utility-belt tasers and maintaining constant communication with rooftop snipers armed with tranquilizer guns.

Mello… has a few rough edges.  Let’s say that. 

Glenn Greenwald and others connect the dots.

One of the nice things about traveling is that sometimes you have no idea what’s going on, and so when you’re faced with ads and slogans, you have no choice but to take them at face value.

Here in St. Vincent, there are numerous large red signs, sometimes adorned with large looming faces, with a slogan that’s hard to argue with:

Better than what, I have no idea. Than the alternative, I guess. Or better than ULP used to be. Or better than being mauled by a rabid cougar, maybe. But ULP is better, anyhow. By far. All over the island. Three exclamation points.

Turns out ULP is a major political party, and yep, they won the last election. Possibly because they were better. Than being mauled. By far. !!!

Actually, I find this preferable to political marketing in the US. Phrases like “clear skies,” “healthy forests” and “war on terror” actually invert reality, the same way 1950s TV tobacco ads dressed actors as doctors to make smoking look healthy. “Better by far!!!” is so direct, sincere, and inspecific that I find myself feeling almost wistful. If they were also “new and improved,” I believe I could live here happily.

I also love that the ruling political party’s acronym is a word used in cartoons to indicate a sudden realization of doom.

In a lot of countries, that’s damn near truth in advertising.

This baby goat (a goatee?) wandered by.  Closest thing St. Vincent probably has to a pudu, so here:

Yes, granted, this week’s cute mammal is five days late.  But that seems to be how things happen around here. And stuff gets done anyway.

Half-seriously.  We could do worse.