Everything I Know, I Learned From The Simpsons

IT MIGHT BE TIME to officially declare Heather Mills "bat-shit crazy." Up to this point, I've just thought she was kind of a mean lady and left it at that. And like most people, I watched her on "Dancing With The Stars" sorta, kinda hoping to see her high-kick her prosthesis into the crowd. Sure, who didn't? And of late she's said some weird-ass shit regarding her split from The Cute Beatle. But this really takes the cake.

Are you ready? I'm not sure you are, but here goes.

In order to combat global warming, Heather Mills, a vegan, wants people to drink rats' milk or dogs' milk.

Wha?

I mean, what the?

I mean, wait a second, this is straight out of a Simpsons episode. The one where Homer becomes a bodyguard for Mayor Quimby and finds out that Quimby is allowing Fat Tony to supply the schools with rats' milk, instead of milk from cows. It also features a hilarious turn by Mark Hamill playing a sad version of himself singing "Luke Be a Jedi Tonight" (to the tune of "Luck Be a Lady Tonight"), but I digress.

Here's the logic from the crazy lady herself: "Eighty per cent of global warming comes from livestock and deforestation. I'm not telling people to go vegan overnight. But if they stop drinking their cows' milk lattes, maybe this sort of thing won't have to happen."

Okay. I can be on board with this so far. At least theoretically. But there's more!

"There are many other kinds of milk available. Why don't we try drinking rats' milk and dogs' milk?"

Hmmm. Why don't we try drinking rats' milk? Wow. First of all, I think it is fan-fucking-tastic that someone actually said this and meant it. But let's just address some of the really crazy aspects of all this.

ONE: This is being said by a VEGAN. Normally, vegans aim to move people away from using any animal products at all. Instead, this one is suggesting we shift from cows to rats...and dogs. It's a little bit like a vegan saying, "Don't eat a hamburger! Eat a kitten instead!"

TWO: Global warming comes from livestock and deforestation. So, let's turn rats into livestock so that we can harvest and process their milk and save the planet? I mean, her idea might work...if there were giant pools of naturally occurring rats' milk and dogs' milk just lying about. (And who hasn't had that magnificent dream?)

THREE: Why am I even breaking this down? Holy shit! Rats' milk? Are you fucking crazy, lady? Wait! I know the answer to that. Yes! You are!

Terrorists vs. Bananas!

PROTECT YOUR BANANAS, PEOPLE! And I mean that literally. It's not some goofy slang for "wear a cup when playing sports" or anything. I'm talking about bananas, and the cost of protecting them, and that Chiquita was just found guilty of paying about $1.7 million in protection money to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (or the AUC) one of Columbia's biggest paramilitary groups (referred to by the press and the U.S. government as a "terrorist group"). Me, I'm not so smart. So I really don't know whether they're "terrorists" or just misunderstood. I'd like to just think of them as "gun-friendly". Here's a quote from today's AP story:

The AUC has been responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia's civil conflict and is responsible for a sizable percentage of the country's cocaine exports. The right-wing group was designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization in September 2001.



Prosecutors said the company made the payments in exchange for protection. The company also made similar payments to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, according to prosecutors.

Chiquita will pay a $25 million fine, but get a load of this weird tidbit: Colombia's banana-growing region is a zone that has been viciously fought over by leftist rebels and far-right paramilitaries.

The whole thing reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Marge starts selling pretzels from a pretzel wagon, and Homer tries to help out by paying Fat Tony to ensure that Marge's pretzel endeavor is successful. ("The Twisted World of Marge Simpson", season 8, episode 11 -- an episode which came up in conversation during our regular Tuesday Poker Night last night.) Eventually Fat Tony confronts Marge and says to her: I'm afraid I must insist. You see, my wife, she has been most vocal on the subject of the pretzel monies. "Where's the money? When are you going to get the money? Why aren't you getting the money now?" And so on.