[color=orange][b][u]Celebrating World Tiger Day[/u][/b][/color] ----------- Timpani Tiger speaking. July 29 is the designated World Tiger Day (also known as Global Tiger Day or International Tiger Day), and so naturally we Drumbum Tigers celebrate it with the music that we perform. The difference is that this year is an Olympic year, and so it is only on odd-numbered years we can have the big parade we typically have to celebrate this day, as well as an even-numbered year that has the Winter Olympics. (Likewise, World Lion Day is August 10, and so the Drumbum Lions lead their festivities in that.) So what do we do when it is an even-numbered year like this year, and the Summer Olympics are going? Well, we hold (and sometimes host) our own watch parties, since not all of us are able to go the Games in person. With Leo the Patriotic Lion and his parallels running the world, however, the Games are bound to go smoothly, and all who do wrong are being punished accordingly (and sometimes worse, if that IC2 force decides to kill the humans off for the sins, but not everything is worthy of the death penalty; I wish it would cut it out!). We thank the Forsythian royalty for allowing us to use their majestic homes for this; this year, we used the castle of His Mightiness, King Lionel XVIII, for this year's watch party. The difference is that we use every commercial break to play music, and as soon as we learn which nation won gold in a certain event, I command my troops to play the anthem. We use a concert band setting for this, but we also have our football drums (the modern battery percussion you hear at football games at the NCAA and high school levels). We usually play a drum cadence during the commercial breaks as a result. (In these case, I will play a snare drum while leading.) When I command a drum roll to be played leading to a national anthem, my soldiers will use the concert snare drums there. --------- If you're not sure what International Tiger Day is, it is an annual celebration to raise awareness for tiger conservation, held annually on 29 July. It was created in 2010 at the Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit in Russia (with Leonid as a witness, by the way). The goal of the day is to promote a global system for protecting the natural habitats of tigers and to raise public awareness and support for tiger conservation issues. International Tiger Day has been shown to be effective in increasing online awareness on tigers through information search. (Obviously, I'm talking about the regular tigers, and not us anthros.) The nation of India has been really effective in tiger conversation, and have been seeing a steady rise in tiger population, from just 1,411 in 2006 to 3,167 in 2023. This means that in India's 75th year of independence, India was home to 75% of the world's tiger population. Way to go, India! You've also made Lekhan the Rajput Lion proud! (He is now the Prime Minister, just as Layth the Mughal Lion runs Pakistan. The two nations have been able to make peace with each other since then, and to celebrate that, for the first time ever, the two nations played a game of cricket in Pakistan, which was won by the Pakistanis. The Indian team, however, wasn't bothered; it was a close game, but the Pakistanis won it by just three wickets. I don't remember the exact score, though; I still have much to learn about cricket. I do know for sure the highest scoring play gets your side six runs, which is when the batsman hits the ball, and it goes over the boundary. This is almost like hitting a home run in baseball.) Around the world, though, not just India, nations with Drumbums were seeing them celebrating World Tiger Day. -------- The musical payroll system allowed us to take the break from doing our usual daily assignments for the purpose of watching these Olympic Games, and are basing our salaries instead on how many times we play an anthem or a drum cadence, although they also appreciate it when we have a variety instead of playing the same thing over and over again. Nevertheless, we found ourselves playing the "Star-Spangled Banner" quite a bit. Note that we just do this in the daytime; by the time NBC starts its "Primetime in Paris" broadcast, we're already done for the day. Because of this, we close each day with the Bengalian anthem, "Tiger, Tiger, Marching Forth." Many Drumbum Tigers that aren't Bengalian still take quite a lot of pleasure in performing it. -------- As for the other Drumbums, the Snare Soldier and his Drumbum Rats are doing the same thing, but they're using his own backyard for the watch party. The Drumbum Lions, led by the Macho Major, are doing the same thing in his backyard. Both of them acknowledged World Tiger Day by playing our anthem, as well as other anthems and other Bengalian military marches, one of which was written by me. ---------- If you want to learn more about World Tiger Day, the website of the WWF (World Wide Fun for Nature) can tell you more about it. (The current WWF President hails from Pakistan. He has expressed his gratitude to Layth for turning the nation around for the better.) I thank you for your time here, and keep enjoying the Olympics. -------- [color=black][b]THE END[/b][/color]