Chimps, Tampons & Arianna Huffington

Now that Arianna Huffington has dismissed the plight of the Kurds as being irrelevant to any discussion about what we’ve accomplished in Iraq (”So what?” she rhetorically asked Bill O’Reilly when he reminded her that Saddam Hussein had persecuted and murdered Kurds prior to our arrival), it’s time to focus on truly meaningful issues.

I’m talking, of course, about chimp equity and sea sponge tampons.These two pressing issues have only recently ventured onto my radar, so I’d like to deflect your attention away, temporarily, from Arianna’s new website, www.minimizethekurds_beforeconservativesmakeapoint.com, and have you take a look at these instead.

First, someone recently sent me a “Monk-E-Mail,” using a cute little interactive device employed by a popular resume/job-seeker database website. The idea is simple: type in some text, select an animated graphic of a monkey, and send the whole thing in an email to your friend. The message you type will be delivered in the form of a poorly animated talking monkey, using speech-reader software that sounds like it hasn’t been updated since it debuted on Stephen Hawking’s Commodore 64.

In reading a little about Monk-E-Mail, I was surprised to learn that some people actually oppose it. Their objection? That it exploits chimps for entertainment purposes. In following up, I learned that there is an entire movement afoot to abolish the use of apes, chimps, etc. in the entertainment industry altogether. I was astounded to realize that some people (oops, I mean some further-evolved apes) actually want to deprive future generations of that most hallowed of birthday traditions, the monkey card. Groups advocating this position probably thought their relevance would be forever tied to television showings of “Every Which Way But Loose,” or worse – re-runs of “Lancelot Link” over on TV Land. But their cause once again becomes newsworthy as the wildly popular Monk-E-Mail spreads like a virus across the Internet.

The second issue that might divert our attention – at least momentarily – is the campaign encouraging women to stick sea sponges into their vaginas in an effort to reduce the number of cotton tampons in our landfills and sewer systems. Apparently, sea sponge tampons are a “green” alternative to manufactured feminine hygiene products. They need be replaced no more often than the cotton variety, but they ultimately last longer and are environmentally friendly because they are reusable.

In addition to the inherent “ick-factor” associated with cleaning a tampon – any tampon – for reuse, I’m just not convinced that sending Spongebob up there is a good idea no matter how absorbent he is. What about bacteria? Parasites? The fact that they are living creatures? (Okay, formerly-living creatures. Still, would you stick any other dead animal into any personal orifice? I think not!)

In fact, the only thing that might persuade me to give them a try would be a television commercial featuring a talking chimpanzee in an Arianna Huffington costume, as long as he doesn’t use the words “green” and “vagina” in the same sentence.