This world is seriously in need of whimsy. We could use a dose of Robin Williams or Mel Brooks or Monty Python right now.
Sara Garrett of North Little Rock, in her letter printed Tuesday praising fellow letter-writer John McPherson, noted such a need "in the midst of the gloom and doom in the news." Too right.
You want whimsy and good news? Comin' right up!
• An 11-year-old Florida boy has made it his mission to thank police officers in every state by giving them doughnuts. So far, Tyler Carach, "The Donut Boy," has made it to 42 states, and often uses school breaks and summer vacations to make the road-trip deliveries for his I DONUT Need A Reason To Thank A Cop. He finally reached Arkansas just a few days ago, delivering pastries to officers in the Little Rock area and in Washington, Benton and Carroll counties (and gave at least one officer bunny ears in a photo ... I like this kid). He plans to make it to two more states during spring break this week, getting him up to 44 states.
Cue the cops and doughnuts jokes, but then thank an officer, please.
• The MIT Technology Review recently published a study titled "The Hipster Effect: Why Anti-conformists Always End Up Looking The Same," and with that piece included a Getty Images stock photo of a typical hipster: bearded and wearing a flannel shirt and a beanie. An unidentified man then threatened to sue the publication, claiming his photo was used without his permission.
Yeah, it wasn't him. After checking with the art department, Getty, and Getty's legal team, the publication told the man it didn't think it was him, and he agreed. The publication's editor-in-chief Gideon Lichfield tweeted: "The guy who complained wasn't even the guy in the picture. He'd misidentified himself. All of which just proves the story we ran: Hipsters look so much alike that they can't even tell themselves apart from each other."
As Emily Litella would say, "Never mind."
• A very fat rat (not the German record producer/musician; I'm not kidding) who got stuck in a manhole cover in Bensheim, Germany, was rescued after children noticed the distressed rodent. A team of eight men from an animal rescue group and the local volunteer fire brigade managed to, after about 30 minutes of maneuvering, pop the rat out of the hole and release it back into the sewer from whence it came. And gave the Internet something else to talk about rather than rage tweets by a certain individual, one who makes it hard some days to have a few nice, quiet hours.
Thank you, fat rat.
• In Fair Haven, Vt., the new mayor was sworn in and immediately pooped on the floor. To be fair, the mayor (honorary, by the way) is a 3-year-old female Nubian goat. The town manager decided to raise funds for a new playground by charging kids (ahem, parents) $5 each to vote for an animal mayor, and Lincoln the goat beat the other 15 candidates with 13 votes. The idea only raised about $100 of the $70,000 goal, but the goat has gotten worldwide attention, with even the French embassy wanting to know what these people were doing.
The best quote of all had to have come from a Boston Globe article, from Police Chief William Humphries: "Not the first time I've been pooped on by a town official."
OK, now I want to know what these people are doing.
• In honor of Pi Day on Thursday, the Lismore Comprehensive School in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, gathered 1,170 people to form a gigantic pi symbol and break the previous world record of 847 set in Portugal last year. The event was also in memory of a student who died earlier in the year due to complications from diabetes, and raised funds for Diabetes U.K. On Sunday, 1,200 people in green ponchos in Elmira, N.Y., formed the largest human shamrock, beating the previous record set in 2013 by schoolboys in Dublin, Ireland. The Elmira shamrock would have been larger, but the organizers underestimated the number of people who'd show up and ran out of ponchos.
Oh, for the days when we could be satisfied with being out standing in a field.
Thank you, I'll be here all week! Tip your waitress!
I would love if this were the kind of news I dealt with most of the time. Sure, it might get a little boring after a while, but it would be preferable to what we have now.
Sometimes it seems as if the world is determined to keep us in a depressed state, if only for some to get away with things we ordinarily would notice if we weren't so down. There are family issues, work problems, governmental over-reach and, as if that weren't enough, there are the mass assaults (shootings, bombings, etc.) that are picked apart by hyperpartisans (the better to cherry-pick, my dear) for political attacks.
We're becoming numb to the idea that there is danger we're not paying attention to, that a segment of the population seems to be doing its best to eliminate those who don't fit into their worldview and is helped by easy access to the weapons to do just that. But that would mean facing truths, and we just don't do that anymore, apparently.
I really need to pet a goat right now.
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Assistant Editor Brenda Looper is editor of the Voices page. Read her blog at blooper0223.wordpress.com. Email her at blooper@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 03/20/2019