✍
TODAY’S QUOTE
“… Tammy Faye calls me and Ron Jeremy calls me. Erik Estrada sends me a Christmas card every year.” — reality show mannequin Trishelle Cannatella, testifying that even celebrity zombies enjoy Christmas.
♢
A GIFTMAS CAROL
Hah! The Herald Times put my mug shot up. Must be a slow news day.
♢
ANIMAL MECHANICS
Some pretty smart cookies live and work at the Indy Zoo. And I’m not just talking about the keepers and the animal researchers there.
Rob Shumaker is one of the alpha males at the zoo. He’s the boss of the Life Sciences department and is a world renowned expert on orangutans. He and two other critter scientists have written a book that dispels many of the notions we have about animals using tools. I’m not revealing too much by saying it isn’t just monkeys, apes, Republicans, and humans who use tools.
Shumaker
✍
The book, “Animal Tool Behavior,” co-written with Kristina R. Walkup and Benjamin B. Beck, asserts that brain size and general smarts don’t determine which creatures use tools, as has been considered gospel until now. Wasps, spiders, dolphins, polar bears, and a host of other species could just as easily as Tim Allen been the star of “Home Improvement.” Maybe easier.
Guess: One Of These Two Is An Animal, The Other Is A TV Star
✍
Wasps use rocks to smooth out soil. Some spiders throw sticky balls at flying insects and reel them in for supper.
The more we Homo Sapiens sapiens learn, the more we realize we (and Republicans) ain’t so special after all.
♢
YES, BUT DO THEY USE TOOLS?
So, Nike has introduced a new pair of ugly sneakers, the Air Jordan 11 Retros. And — wouldn’t you know it? — some of Indianapolis’ finest citizens rioted at a couple of locations when they went on sale yesterday.
Just Looking At These Makes Me Want To Go Out And Break Windows
♢
WE DO FACEBOOK SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO
A no-spamily, no-brattle zone.
◗ Bloomington author Julia Karr scored big with her teen dystopia novel “XVI.” Now, she’s back with the sequel, “Truth.”
Don’t take chances; buy both.
✍
◗ Don’t these guys ever learn? The business-suited baboons at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange are discontinuing their charitable giving for 2012. This despite the fact that the mob of them made a pretty penny — $826 million, to be more precise — last year. Oh, and the cartel also has some $750 million just laying around — cash reserves, they call it. But, sorry kids, there ain’t enough to spare for your schools.
✍
◗ Hundreds of football ironheads from Penn State University have signed a fawning letter of support for their embattled former coach, Joe Paterno. Sports yapper Dan Bernstein of CBS-owned 670 The Score dismantles the letter point by point. Paterno, you may recall, heard about his pal Jerry Sandusky being seen sodomizing a little boy in the Penn State shower room. He grudgingly told his putative superiors (in truth, no one at PSU was superior to Joe Pa) and promptly forgot the whole thing. Meanwhile, Sandusky allegedly continued to have his way with young kids.
This is a tough thing for me to say in Bloomington, Indiana, but the more I learn about big-time college sports, the more it turns my stomach.
♢