DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ The Ballad of Flaco, the Outlaw Who Learned to Fly
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-02 | by ( Michiko Kakutani | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The Times’s longtime literary critic says that like all great outlaw-heroes, the escaped Eurasian eagle-owl tapped into our desire to see an underdog claim his freedom. “The Ballad of Flaco” began with a tear in the fence of a small Central Park Zoo enclosure the size of a bathroom, and then, after nearly 13 years in captivity, in the memorable words of the late-night host Seth Meyers, “Flaco shawshanked out of that cage.”As Flaco embraced his new freedom, New Yorkers marveled at the ability of this bird — whose entire existence had been scripted since he hatched at an avian breeding center in 2010 — to achieve that very American feat of writing a second act to his life. Flaco’s jailbreak and new life on the lam cast him in the role of outlaw — a beloved figure in American movies from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” to “The Fugitive” and “The Shawshank Redemption.”

Persons: Flaco ”, Seth Meyers, “ Flaco, Flaco, —, Flaco’s, Butch Cassidy, ” Organizations: Sundance

☆ 5 Books to Read About Sandra Day O’Connor
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Wilson Wong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Readers see a justice who was aware of the significance of her position, and who knew what she wanted her legacy to be. “For anyone interested in the court, women’s history or both, the story of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, their separate routes to the Supreme Court and what they accomplished during the more than 12 years they spent together is irresistible,” Greenhouse wrote in her review. “Did Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg really change the world? As David Margolick wrote in the Book Review, “O’Connor was clearly Toobin’s most important source. She’s also — readers can decide if it’s coincidental — his hero: the justice, he argues, who through her pragmatic, seat-of-the-pants jurisprudence single-handedly kept the court close to the American mainstream, particularly on matters like reproductive freedom and affirmative action.” (2007)

Persons: Jeffrey Toobin, ‘, ’ ”, Sandra Day O’Connor, Alan Day O’Connor, Linda Greenhouse, Sandra Day, prim, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Linda Hirshman, O’Connor, Ginsburg, ” Greenhouse, “, Sandra Day O’Connor O’Connor, Michiko Kakutani, ’, William Rehnquist, David Margolick, “ O’Connor Organizations: Phoenix Junior League, United States Supreme, Supreme, New Yorker, CNN Locations: American, Arizona, New Mexico, States

☆ Everyone Loves Flaco the Escaped Owl. But Why, Exactly?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Michiko Kakutani | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Once upon a time, there was an owl named Flaco who lived in a small zoo in the middle of a big park in America’s largest city. As CNN, The Guardian and The Daily Mail joined New York-based media in recounting Flaco’s adventures, concern about the owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo spread beyond his hometown. Early headlines like “Central Park Zoo Owl Still on the Loose” suggested that Flaco’s escape was a variation on the plot of the animated movie “Madagascar,” in which a discontented zebra abandons the comforts of the Central Park Zoo and goes on the lam. When a vandal cut the wire mesh on his enclosure on Feb. 2, the only world Flaco knew was forcibly ruptured — a trauma that could have proven fatal. From his micro-apartment (furnished only with some tree branches, fake rocks and a painted mural of a mountain landscape), Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl was suddenly free in Central Park and exposed to all the real-life perils and thrills of Gotham.

Persons: Flaco, —, Flaco — Organizations: CNN, Guardian, The Daily Mail, Central, Central Park Zoo Locations: America’s, New York, Yorkers, Madagascar, Central Park, Gotham

Search resuls for: "Michiko Kakutani"

3 mentions found