Dowbrigade

When
I teach marketing and we get to the unit on packaging I always bring
a banana to class and use it as an example of perfection in packaging;
colorful, iconic, easy-to-open, bio-degradable. Common sense tells us
that in this case nature cannot be improved on.

Leave it to the Germans to prove common sense defficient. Detlef Kruse
has invented a special lunch box for bananas. "I’d take a banana in to work each day, and eventually, you get
angry because they end up all brown and mushed up," he said.

from
Ananova

It is my confirmed belief that there are really no such things a Coincidences.
Everything in this universe is connected, its just that some of the connections
are obvous and some are obscure and indecipherable. Like why a worldwide icon like Arnold Schwartznegger
would even want to BE Governor of California. Look, for example, at the
Saga of Little Joe.

Little Joe is a 300-pound gorilla, until recently happily enscounced
in Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo, or as happily as any sentinent creature
restrained
against its will and put on display before a voyeuristic public can be.
Then, this past August, as reported in the
Dow Brigade, Joe escaped his
enclosure
briefly until he was scared by some random Roxbury teenagers at the zoo
for a summer work/study program (who wouldn’t be) and promptly returned
to his enclosure.

Most of us had forgotten about the Saga of Little Joe until yesterday,
when the Boston Globe came out with a front page story under the title
"Restless
Gorillas," resurrecting the escapade and wondering how it could
have happened. "The
gorilla exhibit at the Franklin Park Zoo was supposed to be escape-proof..
Its 12-foot-wide,
12-foot-deep moat was intended to prevent even the most agile ape from
leaping across to the human side of the divide. Little Joe, a 5-foot-tall,
300-pound adolescent gorilla who, like human teenagers, was increasingly
restless with life at home, was able to scale a steep wall
and cross the moat because he has not yet gained the weight to fill out
his long arms and body. Though no one was hurt, the incident alarmed zoo
staff since there had never been a successful gorilla escape before."

Well, great. It’s good to see that the zoo was taking Little Joe seriously,
although slightly unnerving to find that the zoo was using drugs
to control his agressive behavior."Linehan said that the Franklin Park Zoo
experimented with low dosages of antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications."
Well, that’s something else we have in common.

Appearantly, however, the drugs aren’t working or Little Joe is tired
of being grounded for life, because yesterday, THE SAME DAY the Little
Joe follow-up appreared in the Globe, the darn guy escaped again! Today’s
headline ran
"Franklin
Park gorilla escapes, attacks 2" and describes a much more serious
incident.

"The gorilla escaped just before the zoo’s 6 p.m. closing time. According
to witnesses, the ape attacked 2-year-old Nia Scott and 18-year-old Courtney
Roberson, a family friend and off-duty zoo employee who was with her. The
animal bit Roberson and deeply scratched the toddler before attempting
to attack other zoo workers huddled in fear inside an enclosed ticket booth."

Now, I don’t know if yesterday’s article inspired or pissed Little Joe
off. Maybe he had issues with the Globe and was heading to Morrissey Blvd.
to discuss the matter with reporters and editors. Perhaps he was upset
to read in yesterday’s article that "Linehan said that the exhibit groups
might change or Joe may have to be moved to a new zoo in the future." Maybe
he just wanted to see Mary J. Blige at the College Fest at Hynes Convention
Center. But my bullshit detector is ringing off the wall when they try
to tell me it
is just a "coincidence" that the Globe publishes a front page article on
this incarcerated gorrilla and he makes a break for freedom THE SAME DAY.
How dumb do they think we are? What are they trying to hide?

Little Joe was finally subdued by FOUR shots of a powerful tranquilizer,
and returned to his pen. That party animal! He gets all the good drugs.

from the Boston Globe

In
the biggest deal in recent Boston business history, the 141-year-old
John Hancock Financial Services has been sold to Manulife, a Canadian
insurance and financial services conglomerate, for $10.9 billion. In
an incredible "coincidence", the presidents
of the two companies HAVE THE SAME LAST NAME. And yet, an ingenuous press
expect us to believe they are NOT RELATED. According to the Boston
Globe, Hancock chief executive David D’Alessandro and Manulife chief
executive Dominic D’Alessandro are not related.

For those of you not from around here, D’Alessandros are not exactly
running rampant through the streets of Beantown like Curleys, Kennedys
and Corcorans. When a 10 billion dollar deal goes down between two guys
with the same name, eyebrows need to be raised. I know that in Massachusetts
when you buy a used car from a member of your immediate family you can
avoid paying excise tax. Is that what’s going on here, or something even
more sinister?

from
the Boston Globe.