It's not exactly a
happy animal shot but we are light on those right now, for whatever reason. What we have here is actually art, by kisrael's recent definition in the naked-woman-holding-live-pig IotD:
Art is what you can get away with.
In this case a British street-ish graffiti-ish artist named Banksy has painted this elephant as a part of an exhibition in LA.
The exhibition is about global poverty and injustice.
The Daily Mail snarks:
Quote:
The elephant, named Tai, was given a floral, nontoxic paint job for the 'Barely Legal' which ran from Thursday until yesterday at a warehouse in the city.
Cards handed out at the opening, which attracted such celebrity guests as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, read: "There's an elephant in the room. There's a problem we never talk about. The fact is that life isn't getting any fairer... Twenty-billion people live below the poverty line."
The world's population is only estimated at 6.65 billion people.
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Ms. Jolie was
moved to spend $360,000 on Banksy works, so in one sense the guy got away with it. But in another sense he didn't. Three days ago, animal control in LA revoked his permit, saying it was abusive to paint the animal and force it to just, well, stand there. Which leads to the
Guardian's question, how do you clean an elephant?
Quote:
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"With a power-washer," says John Ray, deputy director of Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire, who has been working with (and washing) elephants for 20 years. "That's good for getting rid of loose skin. You hose the elephant down, then ask the elephant to lie down on its haunches - they are trained to understand 'lie down' - and scrub it with a brush and soapy water, starting from their back to their feet. We use a horse shampoo. You have to pay attention to the areas they can't clean themselves, such as their trunk where it joins the head, and their tail, then rinse them with tepid water."
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