It must be Bizarro News Day and nobody told me.
Item #1: The tallest man in the world saved the lives of two dolphins by sticking his very long arms down their throats and into their stomachs to remove some plastic they swallowed.
Item #2: A schoolteacher in Richmond, Virginia has been suspended from his job because... wait for it... he paints with his ass in his spare time. Seriously. I am not making this up.
Our response to airplanes can tell us a lot about who we are. Besides being of great pratical use, an airplane is a powerful symbol. Who among us has never dreamed of flying, in both the literal and metaphorical senses? Who has never longed to transcend everyday existence and to see, to do, to become something more - to "slip the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of god"? Who has never earnestly desired to disappear from this place and reappear somewhere different, somewhere new, somewhere far far away?
When did this become the sports blog? I'm not sure. But hello and welcome to all the people who have been finding SecondhandSun via google searches for the address of Lael Farm, the email address of Barbaro's owners, and so forth. As I'm sure you know, but others may not, on Friday it was looking like the horse would die from laminitis, a foot inflammation. He's had a couple of good days and now they're thinking he may pull through. I know very little of horses or laminitis so I can't speculate about that. The articles seem to repeat over and over and over and over that the horse is comfortable and he isn't in any pain and he's alert and happy and he's not in any pain and he's not really experiencing any discomfort and did we mention he's not in pain? Because he's not. Okay.
At first I thought it was odd there were so many people wanting to send care packages and get well messages... to a horse, because likely he doesn't read them. But then I realized that it isn't really any different from wanting to send letters to your favorite sports or music star. People do this when they identify with a famous person or feel that s/he represents them in some way, and it's really very common I would guess. In any case you can send Barbaro your well wishes on this website so I hope that's helpful. To those who would do so, what does Barbaro mean to you?