[TheForge] Important Stuff / slightly off topic

[lama]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Phil Rosche <blacksmith@about.com>
> It is awful quiet.  Maybe someone should bring up a controversial topic?
> _______________________________________________

OK Phil, you asked for it, here's the real issue
now facing the world of public art...

    Pink Flamingo Villainy

 Something sinister has been done to the world's preeminent icon of
 the art and science of bad taste -- the plastic pink flamingo.

 Don Featherstone designed the plastic pink flamingo in 1957 -- an
 achievement for which he was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize some 39
 years later.

 Recently the manufacturer, Union Products of Leominster,
 Massachusetts, altered the flamingo mold to remove the Don
 Featherstone signature that has graced the rump of every genuine
 Featherstone-designed flamingo manufactured since 1986. They have
 been refused to answer inquiries from the public or the press.

 On the scale of world events this is not important, but it is
 wrong.

 The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) has teamed up with the
 Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) to call for a boycott. Before you buy a
 new plastic pink flamingo, peer at its butt. If you don't see Don
 Featherstone's signature, go buy a used bird instead.

 To see photos of (1) a good flamingo and (2) a mangled, de-
 Featherstoned flamingo -- and for basic info about the boycott --
 see <http://www.improbable.com/projects/mingo/flamingo-protest.html>

 Please join the boycott! Please spread the word!
dave m.