|
For my inaugural post, I would like to come down firmly on one side of the monkey issue. Monkeys, I regret to inform you, are bad.
Lately, the bad-monkey meme has been like a baboon's ass: florid, stinky and stuck way higher up in the air than is really prudent. It seems that on Monday a trained "service-animal" macaque monkey named "Darla" bit a small child in a supermarket. Astute news readers were unsurprised to learn that Darla's owner/employer is a handicapped man who has previously served prison time for dealing cocaine. Yet despite the child's injury, there is no statute that forbids irresponsible people from bringing these stinky, dirty little primates into supermarkets. (And it turns out monkeys are allowed, too.) An expert has pronounced that the cereal aisle is no place for a macaque.
Since the event, monkeys have replaced pandas as the most oft-discussed animal with thumbs at Gothamist.
This is not Darla's first child attack. Her previous victim, 8-year-old Shayna Wasserman, was eager to speak with the New York Post about her ordeal. Says Shayna: "It was very painful...He just ripped the skin off. After that, I was afraid to go outside. I hate monkeys now. There should be no monkeys in the world."
Predictably, liberals are already lining up on the anti-anti-monkey side of the equation. It began with an assault on Glenn Reynolds, aka "Instapundit", wherein he was labeled a racist for wearing a t-shirt that it turns out he didn't even wear. When the accusation against Reynolds collapsed, liberals attempted to salvage the matter by scurrilously suggesting that people who don't like monkeys are also racist.
Call me foolhardy. Call me overly sentimental. Call me a racist if you must. But just don't call me late for the monkey slaughter, because I've got a shiny new .357 magnum that I'm dying to try out on one of those little bastards. (I bet it'll blow their little heads clean off.) My conscience demands that I stand with all the little children who have been victimized by monkeys.
I close with the immortal words of Peter Gabriel:
Shock! - watch the monkey get hurt, monkey
Cover me, when I sleep
Cover me, when I breathe
You throw your pearls before the swine
Make the monkey blind
I'm sure Kim's siblings appreciate the sentiment, Matthew.
And "I am unhinged" from a real-estate blogger is like hearing "I'm numb" from an anesthesiologist. A real Tom Swiftie.
Posted by: mike on August 5, 2004 09:36 PMSterling! You're back to posting! Brilliant.
As for the panda coverage on Gothamist, just you wait until I get back from the San Diego Zoo!
Posted by: Jen on August 5, 2004 09:42 PMWell, the first 'victim' actually ran over Darla's tail. Doesn't Darla have some second amendment right to bear teeth in her defense? I'm sure want to vociferiously promote this with your spanking new virility aid.
Posted by: miss representation on August 5, 2004 10:42 PMYeah, Jen - I'm like a bad penny. I was planning to start a blog called "Richmondist" about pandas and local events and Civil War re-enactments and pandas, but thanks to a tenuous college connection to one of the guys who posts on Memefirst, they invited me here. I've also promised Calacanis that I will being to post again on my Weblogsinc blog, and so I'll be doing that, too. (He's a puppy-eyed slave-driver, that Calacanis.)
Posted by: Sterling on August 5, 2004 10:55 PMWouldn't a blog from Richmond be called "Tobacconist"?
Posted by: mike on August 5, 2004 11:31 PMOr Davisland?
And why is our connection 'tenuous'? After all the flowers, all the champagne, is that all I am to you?
Posted by: jame on August 10, 2004 04:04 PMIn the framework of this blog, it's tenuous. The fact that I see you two or three times a decade and correspond once or twice a year would not in itself be sufficient grounds to merit participation in Memefirst. I just happen to be the most convenient knuckle-dragging neanderthal for the purposes of this blog's secret cabal of shadowy rulers.
(Don't think I'm not aware that I'm being used.)
Posted by: Sterling on August 10, 2004 05:20 PMI must admit I quoted Peter Gabriel specifically for the benefit of Jame, who listened to the "So" album all the way through at reasonably high volume (thank Christ he didn't have Vince's speakers) approximately 6000 times during the 2.5 years we shared a floor.
Posted by: Sterling on August 10, 2004 05:23 PM