Saturday, April 9, 2011

It doesn't look like a mandarin [orange], but it's still a Mandarin [duck]. The Mandarin Duck (Aix galericulata) - set of 4 W.W.F. maximum cards / maxicards / dorincards about DPR Korea, otherwise known as North Korea


"Mandarin (bureaucrat), a bureaucrat of modern Japan, Imperial China, Vietnam, and by analogy, any government bureaucrat."
Any government bureaucrat, such as House Speaker Jim Boehner (R).
Mandarin Jim.
He's a FED...and we are fed-up.
But he's not a silver spoon-fed fat cat.
"Early life, education and career
Boehner was born in Reading, Ohio, the son of Mary Anne and Earl Henry Boehner, the second of twelve children in a family of German and Irish descent.[2][3][4] 
He grew up in modest circumstances, having shared one bathroom with his eleven siblings in a two-bedroom house in Cincinnati. [MY NOTE: is "confrontational" a keyword?]
His parents slept on a pull-out couch.[5] 
He started working at his family's bar at age 8, a business founded by their grandfather Andy Boehner in 1938.[5] He has lived in Southwest Ohio his entire life.[MY NOTE: does that increase the intellectual magnitude?]
All but two of his siblings still live within a few miles of each other; two are unemployed and most of the others have blue-collar jobs.[6"] 
[MY NOTE: other politicians think that there's no fun in having political power, 
if you don't abuse it]

He is not known as Gentleman Jim.
"Gentleman Jim may refer to:

Nicknames of:


He is not Jungle Jim, either.
But is he a BAYNER?
"The German pronunciation of the name Boehner/Böhner is [ˈbøːnɐ] BUH-nair. 
However, Boehner's biography at House.gov recommends the pronunciation BAY-ner." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boehner  

UPDATE: I have googled the name Boehner, to see if this blogpost is already indexed by the search engines, and I saw this website below, in the search results. I never knew about this website. :)

Anyway, the point about a mandarin (bureaucrat) is what he does as "a public servant", not how he fancies his name pronounced.
"In one speech, Obama mentioned Boehner's name nine times[39] and accused him of believing that police, firefighters, and teachers were jobs "not worth saving."[40]"

Memory refresher for all those Mandarin bureaucrats, including Scott "Walker, Wisconsin Ranger":
when disaster strikes and everybody rushes out, 
THE FIREFIGHTERS are supposed to RUSH IN.
And they do it!
This is a custom postcard, that I designed front and back, at zazzle. You can further customize it.
WTC2, with Public Domain photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WTC-Fireman_requests_10_more_colleagesa.jpg

Ah, yes! We were Speaking in the House about the Mandarin duck.
"The Mandarin Duck (Aix galericulata), or just Mandarin, is a medium-sized perching duck, closely related to the North American Wood Duck. It is 41–49 cm long with a 65–75 cm wingspan.

The adult male is a striking and unmistakable bird. It has a red bill, large white crescent above the eye and reddish face and "whiskers". The breast is purple with two vertical white bars, and the flanks ruddy, with two orange "sails" at the back. The female is similar to female Wood Duck, with a white eye-ring and stripe running back from the eye, but is paler below, has a small white flank stripe, and a pale tip to its bill.[2]
Unlike other species of ducks, most Mandarin drakes reunite with the hens they mated with along with their offsprings after the eggs have hatched and even share scout duties in watching the ducklings closely.[3] However, even with both parents securing the ducklings, most of them do not survive to adulthood."

"In the eyes of ancient Chinese, Mandarin Ducks form a life-time couple, unlike many other species of ducks. Hence they are frequently featured in Oriental art and are regarded as a symbol of conjugal affection and fidelity.

Chinese proverb for loving couples uses the Mandarin Duck as a metaphor: "Two mandarin ducks playing in water" (simplified Chinese鸳鸯戏水traditional Chinese鴛鴦戲水pinyinyuān yāng xì shuǐ). The Mandarin Duck symbol is also used in Chinese weddings, because in traditional Chinese lore they symbolize wedded bliss and fidelity."
"North Korea (Listeni /ˈnɔrθ kəˌriə/), officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK)"
"After the collapse of the Soviet Union and a series of natural disasters, a famine occurred, causing the death of 900,000 to 2 million people.[18]
Facing these circumstances, leader Kim Jong-Il adopted Songun, or a "military-first" policy in order to strengthen the country and its government.[19] 
Although North Korea is officially a socialist republic,[20] many outside media organizations report that it is a totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship[13][14][21][22][23] with an elaborate cult of personality around the Kim family and one of the worst human rights records of any country.[24] 
North Korea is the world's most militarized nation with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel.[25] 
It is a nuclear weapons state, and has an active space program.[26] 
Due to the government's secretive nature and its reluctance to allow in foreigners, North Korea is today considered the world's most isolated country and has thus been given the moniker "The Hermit Kingdom" by some.[27][28][29]"

In the duck images from the top, I'm sure you'll see some pink spots, enough to make a stretch/related post for Happy Pink Saturday meme. :) .
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Happy Pink Saturday! (still open on Sunday!)

Please visit "Pretty in pink"/ "Show us your pink" [objects, that is :)] meme here: