GorillaOffTopic, Everything But Gorilla Trades

What is it with Mother’s/Guardians forgetting their kids in hot cars, while they attend meetings or go to work? No, the Gorilla is not talking about those who intentionally (that’s sad enough) leave their kids behind, locked in their cars. He is referring to those parents, who actually forget that their kids are in the car-and leave them there to die! The latest incident was yesterday, when an 18-month old toddler died after a Hooters employee in Phoenix, Arizona went to work leaving her child in her hot car for her entire 7 hour shift of work. The woman discovered the child after her shift was over. Authorities said the woman was supposed to drop the child off at daycare before starting her shift, but forgot, and the child was left to die in the sweltering heat. Believe it or not, this incident is not that uncommon. Remember the story last month of the Assistant Principal in Ohio, who changed her daily routine and forgot to take her child to the sitter? This little girl died as well; the mother “forgot” the child  was still in the car seat in the back, and she proceeded to go to work -at a school of all things- all day long.  

Hey listen, we all get busy, and yes, it’s easy to let our minds get bogged down with the daily stresses of life. One can easily be forgetful, especially when a baby is snoozing quietly in a car seat in the back of a car. But for heaven’s sake! Don’t these guardians have a mental checklist in place like most responsible adults? The Hooters girl for instance, was she a young mother whose priority may have been partying and making the rent? (The Gorilla does not mean to stereotype.) What about this other woman in Ohio, the assistant principal? Surely she had a checklist of sorts. One would think. After all, she worked with children! Apparently, these people need to shift their priorities.

In the last 10 years, there have been 340 heat-related deaths of children left in hot cars. That may not seem like a lot, but if you break it down annually, that’s over 30 deaths per year. Charges were filed in only half of those cases and of those, only half ever went to trial. Luckily over 81% of those resulted in a conviction or guilty plea. Thank God there’s at least some justice for these innocent children. Unfortunately, the Gorilla is sad to say, these incidents are becoming more and more common.

The Gorilla hates to do it, but he absolutely MUST write something Halloween-ish, being that it’s a mere one day away. While out shopping the other day, the Gorilla had the rare opportunity to check out one of those temporary strip mall Halloween stores. It was mostly the scary sound effects and creepy fake fog that actually brought him in to take a peek. What he saw was an interesting scene. 

There were plenty of “scary” costumes in the store- you know- traditional vampires, your well-known hockey mask character, witches and…more witches. There appeared to be rows and rows of costumes for women, much more so than for men, and although that, in and of itself, may not be unusual, the nature of the costumes themselves certainly was. The Gorilla didn’t notice it at first, as he scanned the store for a “scary” Ben Bernanke mask for his Halloween party. (Yes, even the Gorilla gets into the spirit of things!) He didn’t pay much attention to the little girl, who appeared to be about 8 years old or so, who went skipping happily into the dressing room carrying a costume. The mother paced about, telling the little girl to “hurry up.”

As the Gorilla continued searching amidst the hustle and bustle of people (mostly teenagers), he glanced over to see the little girl emerge from the dressing room. At the same time another girl, around 16 or 17 also emerged. Now the Gorilla tends to mind his own business and certainly would never stare, but to his surprise, both had on the very same costume. It was a policewoman sort of thing, but half the clothes to be sure. Both girls bared their midriffs and wore black boots up to their knees and had a form fitting low cut tops. The Gorilla was disturbed to say the least. As inappropriate as this costume was for a 16 year old to wear, to see the 7 or 8 year girl with it on was shocking, and frankly, embarrassing.

Meanwhile, as the Gorilla made his way toward the checkout with his own scary Ben mask, he overheard the little girl’s mother excitedly tell her daughter that “YES! Of course she could get “that one,” and continued to rave to the little girl about how “adorable she looks in it.” After checking out and leaving the store, the Gorilla remembered watching a show in which several female teenage trick-or- treaters came to a woman’s home and when she answered the door she stared in amazement at the clan of young girls. ”Okay, she said, trying to identify each girl’s outfit, “sexy witch, sexy bunny, sexy uh what? Prostitute?” Okay, so go ahead and call the Gorilla “old fashioned,” but what if your 8 year old, 12 year old, or 16 year old went out trick-or-treating dressed in such a suggestive way? Would you be okay with it if you knew the next doorbell they were ringing was a sexual predator’s, or pedophile’s? The Gorilla wanted to go back into the store and shake the woman, so obviously caught up in being her daughter’s friend that she forgot to be her advocate and protector! Are the days of telling kids NO simply gone?

Alex Rodriguez opted out of his whopping $252 million, 10-year contract with the Yankees on Sunday, apparently ending his not quite long enough career with New York’s beloved Yankee organization. The announcement came on the heels of game four of the World Series, making A-Rod eligible to be a free agent. New York said it would not attempt to re-sign A-Rod if he opted out of his contract. A-Rod will now lose the remaining $72 million, which was guaranteed in the contract, and of which $21.3 million was to be covered by payments from the Texas Rangers to the Yankees. Good news for Texas, who made out pretty good in the whole deal, saving the remaining money it would have had to pay New York as part of the 2004 trade. But the Rangers are still responsible for $3 million in annual deferred money A-Rod is owed under the contract.  A-Rod’s agent Scott Boras said that A-Rod made his decision based on not knowing what some current teammates were going to do. Boras explained, ”He really didn’t want to make any decisions until he knew what they were doing.” Meanwhile, A-Rod will likely win his third AL MVP award next month and is likely to make his decision before the Yankees announce a replacement for Joe Torre. (Joe Girardi and Tony Pena are both being considered for his position.) Rodriguez continues to dominate and hit .314 this year to lead the major leagues in home runs and RBIs. He was also announced as a winner of a Hank Aaron award for offensive achievement during game 4 of the World Series, but was not present to receive it. The Gorilla cannot help but wonder if this was just an excuse a greedy baseball player (but currently the best, for sure) used to garner even more money. In any case, it will be interesting to see who offers the most money to this larger-than-life big leaguer!

While freedom of speech may be our First Amendment Right in this country, does it mean then, that freedom gives us the right to act like a bunch of jerks? That is the question in a case today of a grieving father, who is suing a Baptist church group for protesting at his son’s funeral this week.

In Baltimore, this week, the father of a Marine killed in Iraq took the stand to state his case against a church group that makes a practice of picketing soldiers’ funerals in an effort to show the world that “death is the punishment for this country’s immorality.” Albert Snyder said that he had hoped for a private funeral for his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, but with all the protesters outside the funeral, that was certainly not the case. What he got instead was a media circus that he said made him “sick to his stomach.”    

Snyder testified that, ”They wanted their message heard and they didn’t care who they stepped over. My son should have been buried with dignity, not with a bunch of clowns outside.” Snyder stated that the Topeka, Kansas Baptist church went overboard when they carried a sign which read, “Thank God for fallen soldiers,” and cited that the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan were simply “punishment for this country’s tolerance of homosexuality!”

Mr. Snyder is seeking monetary damages in an unspecified amount, claiming that the Church’s action caused him “emotional distress” and is suing for invasion of privacy. The church’s protests have inspired several state and a federal laws about funeral protests, but the Maryland suit is believed to be the first filed by the family of a fallen serviceman.The case tests the limits of the First Amendment right to free speech. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Bennett instructed the jurors before the start of testimony Tuesday, that the First Amendment protection of free speech has limits including vulgar, offensive and shocking statements. He added that jurors must decide “whether the defendant’s actions would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, whether they were extreme and outrageous, and whether these actions were so offensive and shocking as to not be entitled to First Amendment protection.” Snyder said American military personnel are in Iraq fighting for freedom of speech. “They’re not fighting for hate speech. I pray for their children. Their children need help. To be brought up with that kind of hatred,” Snyder said. “My God is loving God,” he said, adding later, “I don’t look for hatred in the Bible.”

The Gorilla could not agree more with this statement and was personally outraged to hear that a church group would do such a thing outside a funeral of one of our soldiers. Whether you agree with the war or not, this is someone’s son who died, and a family who is grieving should be able to put their child to rest with a little dignity-not with a bunch of opportunists, using the situation to try to get their own agenda across. The Gorilla would love to hear YOUR thoughts on this matter!

David Copperfield. The name invokes thoughts of mystery, magic, and suspense. Most of us are familiar with him (you’d have to be living under a rock not to be) and many of us admire his work and talent. But now, a cloud of suspicion hangs over him, as accusations of sexual assault loom in his future. The charges were brought this summer by a Seattle woman, who claims the incident occurred in the Bahamas. Glenn Miller, chief superintendent in charge of the detective unit of the Royal Bahamas Police force, told CNN he had no official reports of any incident involving Copperfield. Hmmm. (The Gorilla finds that to be odd.)  Be that as it may, the FBI is investigating the case, which is based in Seattle, Washington. It was not specified exactly what type of allegations have been made. A source for CNN cited that at least a dozen FBI agents stormed Mr. Copperfield’s Las Vegas, Nevada warehouse, seizing a computer hard drive, a digital camera, and $2 million dollars in cash, which was being kept in a safe. They also searched the Hollywood Theater at the MGM Grand Hotel, where the famous magician performs. There is speculation that Copperfield’s employees were given instruction (by him via signal) to profile specific attractive women in the audience, gathering personal information, such as where they reside and if they would be interested in participating in  show if Copperfield were to come to their city. Supposedly, the employees went so far as to ask the women if they enjoyed vacationing in the Bahamas (where Copperfield ironically owns a $50 million piece of property and where THIS incident allegedly occurred.) In a statement earlier this week, Copperfield’s attorney, David Chesnoff  made this statement: ”Mr. Copperfield’s reputation precedes him as an impeccable gentleman, so we’re obviously disturbed that those kind of allegations are being made, but we believe that that’s a common event now, unfortunately, for celebrated people to be to be falsely accused. Copperfield has been recognized as a highly respected celebrity and master of illusion and was even named a “living legend” by the Library Of Congress. According to Forbes, the magician made $57 million in 2005! Is this a case of someone taking advantage of this man’s celebrity, status and money, or a real true act of irresponsibility and indiscretion on the part of someone who thinks he is above the law?

With all the wildfires burning in California, the Gorilla has to ask, “Is this a result of global warming or is it a result of a season of very dry weather?” One would think it is obvious, but it really is not. An environmental researcher from UCLA commented last night that although global warming would seem the “likely answer,” it may not actually be. He went on to say that you can’t “judge by one season of bad weather.”  Of course this was his own professional opinion, but the Gorilla, being an analytical, but also common sense primate, believes in the old adage, “if it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, it probably is”…. well you get the point. It is believed that although the U.S. is avidly working to cut back it’s emissions (due, in part, to the efforts of good ole’ Al Gore) many other countries, including China and Japan are spewing more carbon monoxide into the atmosphere than ever before! If something isn’t done to regulate these countries emissions as well, what will become of the global environment?  The Gorilla would love to hear what YOU think about this issue. 

In World Series news today, (the Gorilla loves baseball!), Colorado Rockies officials said that Monday,World Series ticket sales were the target of an “external malicious attack.” However, online ticket sales were to resume at noon on Tuesday. Details of the online attack have yet to be released, but to put it mildly, of the 8.5 million attempts to connect with the computers in the first 90 minutes after ticket sales started, only several hundred tickets had been sold before the system had to be shut down, temporarily suspending all ticket sales to the event. A Rockies spokesperson couldn’t provide details, but did say that nearly 18,000 tickets were available for each game in Denver-games 3, 4, and 5, if necessary-on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. That had the Rockies putting as many as 60,000 tickets up for sale online only and team officials said their computers were “ready to handle the expected crush”. But just 2 hours after they went on sale, many reported they could not get access to the ticket-sales Web site. The attack occurred at the Irvine, California-based Paciolan Inc., which runs the computers for the Rockies’ World Series ticket sales.  “Back-up” plans are now in place should this happen again. Paciolan CEO Dave Butler said the crash affected the company’s entire North American system, and stated ”this is not the Rockies’ fault whatsoever” and “ we are working hard to address the problem.” Meanwhile, people were so eager to get tickets that many lined up in near freezing temperatures outside the Denver Public Library before it opened in hopes of using public-access computers to score tickets. Clayton McLeod, a 26 year old heavy machine operator, took the day off in hopes of getting his tickets and suggested that if people weren’t able to get the tickets there, they may have to pay anywhere from $200-$300 above face value to get them. The Rockies limited sales to four per person per game. The tickets were originally to be sold at Coors Field and Rockies’ Dugout Stores in the Denver area as well as online, but the team announced Wednesday that all sales would be online, saying that would be “more fair.” The Gorilla thinks this is a good example of how easily computer security can be breached, no matter who you are! Being a baseball fan himself, this scenario would be extremely frustrating.

From the desk of the “Bizarre,” comes a story the Gorilla had to read twice to believe himself. This weekend in New Delhi, India, the deputy Mayor, S.S. Bajwa, was killed after he was attacked by a gang of wild Rhesus macaques, which caused him to fall of off a balcony. He then succumbed to head injuries sustained as a result of the fall. Although this incident occurred at the Mayor’s own home, many government buildings, temples, and residential neighborhoods are overrun with Rhesus macaques. The wild macaques, are known to scare tourists, and passers-by, snatching  food and occasionally biting unsuspecting visitors.The occurrences are so frequent that last year the Dehli High Court reprimanded city officials for failing to stop the animals from terrifying its residents and visitors and asked them to find a solution to the problem. They did not, and the problem persists. You may be asking why the city officials would not want to find a solution and the reason is complicated. You see, devout Hindus believe that moneys are a manifestation of the monkey god Hanuman, so they feed them bananas and peanuts regularly in order for them to frequent public places. Yes, the Gorilla said it-they WANT, and almost encourage, the monkeys to be there- even at the expense of losing their own mayor! If this occurred in the U.S., this scenario would certainly scream “LAWSUIT”!

The Gorilla really likes hearing cute stories of civilian justice every so often, and this one is quite amusing: When Adrian and Tiffany McKinnon returned from a week-long vacation to their Montgomery, Alabama home on Thursday afternoon, they were met with an unexpected surprise. They walked in to find that they had been burglarized, and almost everything the family of five owned had been emptied. The house was in shambles, with piles of garbage all over the place. Adrian McKinnon sent his wife to her sisters so he could assess the situation. But when Adrian McKinnon went to inspect the sunroom, to his shock, the thief ran right into him, still wearing one of Adrian’s hats! Instead of panicking, Adrian took over the gun, and held the thief, 33-year-old Tajuan Bullock, at gunpoint. Mr. McKinnon then made the thief clean up the mess he had made in the house and put things back where they belonged.  ”We made this man clean up all this mess he had made, piles of stuff he had thrown out of my cabinets and drawers,” Tiffany McKinnon said.Even more humorous was the fact that when the police arrived, Bullock actually complained about having to clean up, while being held at gunpoint. “This man had the nerve to raise sand about us making him clean up the mess he made in my house,” she said. “The police officer laughed at him when he complained and said anybody else would have shot him dead.”  Police arrested Bullock on burglary and theft charges. The Gorilla is quite sure, given the same situation, he would do exactly the same thing. More and more people are taking a zero tolerance attitude when it comes to being victims of crimes these days. After all, don’t people have a right to protect themselves, their homes, and their families? Good for the McKinnons!

Every time the Gorilla hears about the recent OJ Simpson troubles, he has to giggle a bit. Karma really is something, isn’t it? In recent news, a co-defendant in the Las Vegas, Nevada armed robbery case in which OJ was the “star” stated that OJ was well aware that there were guns present during the alleged attempted robbery. OJ even asked two other defendants in the case to bring the guns to the hotel room, where he planned to recover items from a memorabilia dealer, which he believed belonged to him. The other suspect in the case, Robert Alexander, stated that he and another man showed up with guns at OJ’s request then headed for the casino hotel room, where the memorabilia dealer was staying. It was reported that OJ just wanted to “scare” the man and never planned to use the guns. Right now, OJ’s charges include kidnapping, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and conspiracy. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in  Las Vegas Justice Court on November the 8th. If OJ is found guilty, and convicted on the Kidnapping charge, he faces life in prison with parole. Could this mean that OJ Simpson will finally get the comeuppances he so deserves? There may be a “Double Jeopardy” law in regard to murder cases, but thank God for OJ’s stupidity, as it may at last be the one thing that gets him what he has been so deserving of all these years- a long overdue punishment!