Pun Salad

Some Pun Salad readers may avoid the more lurid mainstream news outlets (i.e., most of them) and not have heard about the pet chimp in Stamford, Connecticut who (after years of sweet behavior) attacked a woman, and was eventually shot by the cops. If you want, there's a news story about it here.

So anyway: the NY Post carried the following cartoon today (click for a bigger version if you'd like):

This came to my attention via the Huffington Post. And… guess what their take is?

Excuse me,…what?

Racial undertones? Really?

Well, of course, if that's the way your mind works.

And Al Sharpton also weighs in:

Oh. My. God.

Now, to be fair, the HuffPo writer does manage to drop a hint that he's not totally oblivious to reality:

Geez, ya think!?

Except that for "At its most benign", I would have substituted: "It is obvious to less race-obsessed people that"

To its credit, the Po also links to a Post statement about this phony controversy:

In other news, water still wet.

I read this after reading a different story. Attorney General Eric Holder's speech to Justice Department staff was widely quoted:

Well, that's attention-getting. None of that "land of the free, home of the brave" BS for AG Holder!

What does he mean?

Oh, that.

When did we last get lectured that we "don't talk enough" about racial issues? Oh yeah, last March, when candidate Obama gave his "race speech" in Philadelphia, bemoaning "the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through". I wrote a long-winded post at the time, which (I think) still holds up pretty well. But if you want the five-cent summary, it's this quote from Jonah Goldberg:

True then, and as Sharpton and the HuffPo writer demonstrate, still true today.

Watching a 2-D version of an originally-3-D movie can work, if you watch for the 3-D gags and use a little imagination. When the yo-yo gets thrust at the camera, duck out of the way! It's fun!

Brendan Fraser plays Trevor, a university geology prof. He's disrespected by his department chair (SNL's Seth Myers). He's troubled by the years-ago disappearance of his brother. And his sister-in-law has just dropped off his nephew, a resentful 14-year-old; she's also dropped off a box full of his brother's belongings.

Will that box contain a clue to fate of Trevor's brother, and lead to a fantastic danger-filled voyage to … you know where? Good guess. Accompanying Trevor and the kid is Icelandic Hannah Ásgeirsson, guide to the scenic volcanoes that now and then open up to send unwary travellers to a place where the sun don't shine.

This is a movie aimed squarely at the PG set, but it's fun for adults in the right mood as well. The 3-D stuff is played for shock and laughs. A sour note (which I won't spoil) is totally out of whack with everything else in the flick; wish they'd figured out some other way to handle that plot point.

An entertaining extra on the DVD is a small documentary on believers in various "Hollow Earth" theories. This included Edmond Halley, of cometary fame. I did not know that!