In her will, the late Leona Helmsley left a few million dollars to her dog and a few billion dollars for dog welfare in general, or some such nonsense. Reasonable minds may think this daft. But the thought passes, rather quickly. Not so, for Liz Ciancone. The Tribune-Star gave column inches to its retired reporter to analyze Helmsley’s will — a smoking hot topic on the streets of Terra Haute, Ind., apparently:
Remember Leona Helmsley?
Her famous statement, “Only little people pay taxes!” brought the attention of the IRS for a closer look at her tax returns and she was invited to enjoy free room and board in a federal facility with we “little people” picking up the tab.
Umm. What? She went to prison for committing a crime, and somehow your concern is that prisons are publicly funded? So, maybe a better punishment would have been…uh…no “free” prison time?
My head hurts. On to the will:
Some of the money has been used to create a sort of fun park for the exclusive use of dogs in the Washington Square area of New York City. I guess that’s a good cause, at least for the dogs in that area, but it brought to mind a bit I read the other day that if every man, woman and child in this country adopted four stray dogs (that’s eight for me and my Best Friend!), there would still be strays wandering our streets.
Most of those dogs are unable to access Washington Square, unless some of that $8 billion could be used to transport bus loads of them to the Big Apple.
I can’t believe I’m even wasting my time with this. But, here goes…
Sounds of Bosie furiously scribbling with a No. 2 pencil on the back of an envelope.
One park = bad, because it can’t help all the stray dogs in existence.
Every man, woman and child = dramatic way of saying everyone.
All the strays divided by all the people > four.
Pulls an engineering calculator from his Hello Kitty backpack.
Carry the seven…
Got it: everyone should adopt more than four strays. No wait. We could use the $8 billion to clone enough people to adopt exactly four strays each. Problem solved.
Dismissing what $8 billion could do toward reducing the national debt, think what it could do for human beings in need of health care!
Nothing because it was her money and she didn’t leave it for that purpose. Bad idea, but nothing we can do about it. Again, why the hell is this a column?
I’m done. Let me know when the clones hatch.
3 Comments
August 15, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Imagine what $8 Billion could have achieved if she had given it to me.
August 15, 2008 at 2:04 pm
An Olympic swimming pool full of gin, the assassination of Fidel Castro and scores of underwhelmed hookers?
A diamond-encrusted leisure suit, a pet Indian elephant and a papal knighthood?
Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes?
August 15, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I refuse to build a comedy pyramid of two. It would be nice to have readers at a time like this.