Off-Kilter

When Animals Attack III: Here at Off-Kilter, we believe it’s not enough just to tell you about the most important news of the day. We also try to look at the big picture. So let’s review: In recent weeks, we’ve reported on dogs shooting their owners with guns, monkeys attacking humans in Japan, baboons raiding a hospital in Africa, a deer breaking into a U.S. motel room and locking itself in the bathroom, Brazilian ants devouring computers, and British pigs escaping a slaughterhouse by swimming across an icy river and eluding helicopters. Not wishing to alarm you until all the facts were in, we have withheld reports about alligators popping up in hotel bathtubs and a penguin that escaped a German zoo.

But now it’s time to admit what’s happening: We are on the verge of a worldwide animal revolt. The seemingly isolated escapes and attacks are apparently just dry runs for a full-scale uprising. With emotions stoked by animal-rights kooks and West Virginia’s plan to legalize the eating of road kill, animals are finally fed up.

Unfortunately, our military may prove powerless to stop the interspecies war. According to the Weekly World News, the U.S. government has embarked on a secret plan to save $75 billion a year by replacing high-paid Washington bureaucrats--including those who run the Pentagon and IRS--with cheap Mexican labor. Opponents of the plan are outraged that minimum-wage immigrants could soon be deciding where to deploy Cruise missiles. So in the meantime, consider all animals dangerous and possibly armed.

Mona Lewinsky: There’s just no escaping Monica Lewinsky. Now that her 15 minutes of fame has stretched into an interminable miniseries, even the Internet has more than 200 sites devoted to her, says U.S. News & World Report. One of the oddest is at https://www.pcmagic.net/cpinckney/fauxart2.htm, where computer users can find her face superimposed onto various art masterpieces, such as the Mona Lisa.

Desperate Museums Department: A vintage 1958 box of Crayola crayons will be enshrined at the Smithsonian Institution this week. And, to capitalize on the event, Crayola is releasing a limited edition replica of the 64-crayon set. The price: $4, or roughly four times the 1958 price.

Alarming Dates in History: On this day in 1953, the forces of darkness brought forth the life form now known as Michael Bolton.

Fortunately, Feb. 26 isn’t a total wash. It is also the birthday of Johnny Cash, who owns a see-through toilet seat with barbed wire inside (which he calls his “burning ring of fire”), Mitch Ryder, Buffalo Bill Cody and Fats Domino.

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Did Fidel Castro Kidnap the Pope--and Replace Him With a Double?” (Weekly World News)

Apparently he did, the WWN says. One clue: Vatican insiders say the man who returned to Rome has a different personality and is “unable to speak the pope’s native Polish without a distinct Spanish accent.”

* Roy Rivenburg can be reached by e-mail at roy.rivenburg@latimes.com.

Contributors: Wireless Flash, https://www.tabloid.net