WACKY WEDNESDAY

I have never had a Wacky Wednesday before. I have had some Wacky Pack stickers when I was a kid, but none recently (see photo above). Wacky Packs - which were out in the 70s - were like advertising media meets Mad Magazine. Kids, including myself, loved them. Well, back to Wacky Wednesday. There are a lot of crazy stories in the news, and I am taking advantage of today to put it out there. Wacky Thursday just doesn't have the same oomph.

OK to start, how about the story with the chimpanzee? Sandra Herold (70 yo), owner of a 200 pound chimp named Travis, was having trouble controlling her pet. So, what would anyone in the same situation do? Well, I am sure the same as Sandra did - give the chimp a cup of tea, a Xanax, and telephone your 55-year-old female friend to help you get the animal in the house. As a result of this decision, Sandra Herold's friend, Charla Nash, was terribly mauled by the chimp and is currently in critical condition with face and hand wounds. The chimp was shot dead by police; the owner had eventually called 9-1-1 once her friend was being mauled. Somehow I bet that if Sandra's 200 lb husband (I don't actually know if she has one, but for story-telling effect) was out of control and taking Xanax, that she would have called the police first, and her friend, second. But, who am I to judge? Look, we humans have larger frontal lobes than chimps, and we still have increasing trouble controlling our behavior. So, with a nice segway - below is the next wacky story that I saw today.

Speaking of frontal lobes, the NY Times is reporting that Air New Zealand is hiring people to have their heads shaved in order to display a temporary tattoo (see photo above). The tattoos read, "Need a Change? Head Down to New Zealand." It is kind of catchy. Well, in these terrible economic times, 30 people have decided to become, "cranial billboards." That is what those in the advertising biz are calling it. The NY Times writes, "For shaving their noggins and displaying the ad copy for two weeks in November, they received either a round-trip ticket to New Zealand (worth about $1,200) or $777 in cash (an allusion to the Boeing 777, a model in the airline’s fleet)." Speaking of bad economic times...below is my next (and last) wacky tale.

Today's New York Post featured the cartoon shown below, in which cartoonist Sean Delonas relays the concept that the economic stimulus bill was written by a chimp:

This cartoon is bound to generate controversy - in so many different directions and ways. I guess that is what the cartoonist was trying to do. I have to say, not as a defense but just for historical purposes, that George W. Bush was portrayed as a chimp many times in his cartoon lifetime. Reverand Al Sharpton has released this statement:

"The cartoon in today's New York Post is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee that "Now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill."
"Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?"

I am sure that there was much more craziness out there, but that is what I have to offer for today. I wonder what Thursday will bring? Let's see...thirsty Thursday...thistle Thursday...thundering Thursday...