Word: manor
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...like Dubai, a constituent part of the United Arab Emirates, says its Mubadala Development Co. will pay $1.35 billion for a 7.5% share of the U.S.-based private-equity investment firm Carlyle Group, which owns a diverse range of megacompanies, from chipmaker Freescale Semiconductor and nursing-home operator Manor Care to airplane-parts manufacturer Sequa Corp...
...love, on a TV or movie screen, with a creature they would gladly kill were they to find it in their kitchen. So audiences have cheered on Rodentia from Mickey to the aspiring chef of Ratatouille. So, too, with the social, saucer-eyed, erect-standing mongoose relatives of Meerkat Manor, who have followed in the paw prints of The Lion King's Timon to raise their species' star in Hollywood. The Kalahari nature show is Animal Planet's biggest hit, a saga of turf wars, sex, betrayal and cuddly pups. It's manna from TV heaven: all the drama...
...suffering daughter Mozart--a fan favorite who was abandoned by her mother and lost several pups--was killed off camera by an unknown predator. Grief-stricken fans held online vigils, created Diana-style tributes, even suggested the deaths were faked. (Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance--they hit every stage.) Manor is a study of animals, but it's become a study of humans. How much reality do we want from reality TV? And when nature, producers and providence fail to provide justice, how do we step...
Like the meerkats, Manor is an odd beast. The crew is forbidden to intervene, and the producers don't sugarcoat the animals' less cuddly habits (infidelity, abandonment of young, occasional cannibalism). But the meerkats are named and given human traits ("courageous," "caring," "bully[ing]"), and their antics and tragedies take place over a sound track. Manor is both brutal and melodramatic and thus more devastating than most documentary or scripted drama. Imagine Brothers and Sisters if every once in a while, Sally Field, Rob Lowe or someone else got eaten by a goshawk...
Since meerkats can't speak for themselves, Manor is a kind of metaphysical Mad Libs, in which fans fill in the blanks with their own morals and worldviews. On Animal Planet's Web forums, they mourned, eulogized and fantasized. One imagined Flower welcoming Mozart in heaven, apologizing for her earthly neglect by serenading her daughter with Always on My Mind. On YouTube, they created dozens of video shrines, scored to power ballads. Some castigated the crew for not intervening. Some debated who was less "deserving" of dying. (Flower: survivor or slut?) Others argued that nature is beyond morality. But even...