Louts Alert: Apparently the Buffalo, NY zoo decided to have free admission on Memorial Day. Unfortunately it seems that a horde of vandals took them up on it. The Buffalo News has a variety of articles, editorials, and letters to the editor, but my favorite is from Donn Esmonde, titled "Zoo rowdies give humans a bad name ". Some lowlights:

• " 'Mommy, why are that man and his kids chasing the calves and trying to ride them?' I don't know, honey. Because they're ignorant? "


• "The featured attractions were fights, pot-smoking, beer-drinking, cussing, crushed pop cans hurled into bear and lion dens, the assault of a pop machine and unsuspecting lorikeets - multicolored Australian birds who feed from your hand - catapulted from branches. But enough about how the adults acted. "


• "Zookeeper Larry Radford told one boy to stop jumping on the mesh that covers the duck pond. The kid's mother was standing 10 feet away, screaming obscenities into a cell phone. "


• "A couple of apparently inebriated men kicked and punched an uncooperative pop machine. 'It was all f-this, f-that,' said Derenda. 'Then there was a big commotion by the polar bear, people laughing and heckling. Somebody had thrown in a baseball cap, and the bear was eating it.' "


• "At the nearby playground, an adolescent boy jumped on a tube slide, trying to break it. When Bankhead told him to stop, the boy's mother got huffy. 'Who do you think you are,' she said, 'to talk to my son?' "


• And more...

Clearly the wrong animals were in the cages.