How cool are penguins?

I watched March of The Penguins yesterday and what a charming documentary film it was.  I saw the English language version with Morgan Freeman (if you click the link to IMDB, please do go on the discussions boards - one person wanted to know why Freeman didn't save a Penguin chick that was either dying or at risk of dying and that made me laugh out loud - the helping not the dying.)

My one problem with nature programmes is the level of carnage.  In March of the Penguins, the carnage level is relatively low but I still wept when one of the mothers was snatched by a seal and Morgan told us that the mother's chick would die as it wouldn't be fed and again at the sight of the distressed and bereaved mother who tried to steal another penguin's chick


I quite like nature programmes because I like to think about how animals construct their little societies and how this compares to us humans.

The film has attracted some controversy with some people saying that it is far right propaganda designed to illustrate the moral decline of modern America (although it is actually a French film).  People favouring this view point to the shared nature of child (chick) rearing in penguin society and the devoted behaviour of penguins to their young.  They forget to mention that penguins often chose their mates on an annual basis and the several documented cases of same sex relationships (neither of which I think are indicative of moral decline but I would if I was of the far right).  I would argue that one could just as easily see the penguin society as one constructed on the principles of reciprocity, mutuality and love and they apparently have no clear hierarchy which clearly makes all penguins socialists.

I think it's more likely that there are right and left wing penguins as well as saintly dreamers and hardened realist penguins and nice penguins and bitter, twisted penguins.  There may even be some comedic penguins and some philosopher penguins.  They appear though to be able to work together and get things done. 

Penguins are not especially timid around human beings and have been known to approach people in passing.  This is great news as I would like to meet, pet and perhaps playfully wrestle with a penguin but realistically, the prospect of me and a penguin coming across each other in the Antarctic is slim.  Also apparently, there is recorded evidence of fossils of penguins that were the size of an adult human male.  Can you imagine that?  A penguin as tall as a man?