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THE YEAR OF THE MONKEY? GIMME A BREAK!!

As long-term readers of PLM are well aware, my relations with monkeys have not always been of the best, given the utter lack of diplomacy and consideration, not to mention general social and other niceties, on the part of the simians as distinct from myself (when there aren't any monkeys in my garden) and my species, which disparity has led on a number of local occasions to the reactionary hurling of insults and such various physical deprecations as sticks, stones and other rock-bottom diplomatic exchanges, and since this is the year of the monkey and NOT THE YEAR OF THE HUMAN, I must state for the record that I feel this lapse to be extremely unfair in view of the simian record, which is as long as their arm, a record right there in ravaged onions for all to see, and as a result perhaps join me in the diplomatic propulsion of sticks and stones and anything else we can get our diplomatic hands on when the highly honored monkeys try to steal tomatoes or a year.

I do want to be fair about this and I know the Year of the Monkey et al. is largely metaphoric, but can't we find a better metaphor somewhere? Giving those howling brigands a year of their own? Come on! I know we're noble creatures and all, but how noble can you get for godsake? We don't have our own year, do we? The monkeys have their year, even snakes have their year, rats for cryinoutloud, even dragons (that's cool, I'm a white metal dragon, myself) and the others, but not a year for us, the noble, seed-planting, garden-guarding, calendar-making species? I ask you, is that fair? Who started all this anyway? That's right, us: who else would care enough to stick a monkey in their face for a whole year?

It all started way back when we were still monkeys ourselves, still invading paradise (as we came to call it in our many one-and-only holy books) to steal apples and onions and whatever else we could get our hands on, initially without that twinge of guilt we soon picked up thereby, given our innate nobility, guilt that has made us the supreme beings we are today, creatures who feel so guilty that we give monkeys their own year, of all things... doesn't such selflessness deserve a year of its own?? And who else is going to give it to us but us? Forget about asking the monkeys.

So let's hear it for The Year of the Human!! Trouble is, though, we'd have to live up to it...