Are Chimpanzees Evolving Beyond Us?

It has been no secret that humanity is slipping from atop the evolutionary totem pole. If you watch the ever-plummeting stock market or if you’ve sat through a miserable few minutes of Dancing with the Stars, you’ll know that we as a species are no longer all that impressive. It’s nothing to be ashamed of –- we’ve had a good run of it -– but the whole thing just isn’t working out anymore. The only question, really, is which species will be taking our place to become the new lords of the Earth. We here at the Puke still firmly believe that a race of jaded, semi-reptilian aliens has been staking out our little planet for a suitable vacation home, but in the last few weeks a new candidate has emerged to fill the power vacuum. And that candidate is, of course, our own close cousin the Chimpanzee.

We’ve all heard about Travis the Chimp, who, just after bellowing the cry of bloody revolution on behalf of Monkeykind, was coldly shot down by a human police officer. But what most don’t realize is that Travis, though expert in the art of violence, was merely a member of the B-team and not in the vanguard of the coming Chimpish Intifada.

Familiarize yourselves with Santino, a macho alpha male who lords over a harem of six female chimps, all of them imprisoned in a Swedish zoo since birth. Santino prefers love poetry to idle gossip, Cuban cigars (if properly rolled) to ripe bananas, and a white hat to a dark tan, but he also prefers armed struggle to being gawked at by a bunch of slobbering Swedes. Santino begins his day by gathering rocks and planning attacks against human visitors to the zoo, finally unloading his stockpile on any Swede he deems an enemy. The victim’s only crime may be walking too close to Santino’s troop of concubines, or just simply possessing a stupid smile that rubs Santino the wrong way. (Incidentally, Santino was cruelly castrated for this behavior, and has become yet another martyr for the Monkey Cause.) But the point is that Santino knew there would be trouble, and he prepared for it.

Experts say this kind of behavior is evidence of planning among the lower primates, and that chimps in the wild have been known not only to stockpile ammunition and fashion weapons from stones, but also to fortify positions and plan sophisticated group attacks.

What the experts don’t talk about is how far along these simians are in their plans, and what sort of infrastructure they’ve built up. Do they bail out banks when necessary, or do they let the free market solve its own problems? Are they Keynesians or Supply-siders? Do they have a health care plan? Dammit, you stupid experts and so-called journalists, we have to know these things. Well, we did have to know these things when we still had a civilization that was still worth the cheap plastic it’s made of. So, carry on stockpiling ammunition and fortifying your homes, but do it quickly –- the Chimpanistas are coming to foreclose on our dominion.

2009 Puke Award for Best Retort Ever

In response to a pro-Darwin billboard in the world’s capital of ignorance –- uhh, I mean, in Rhea County, Tennessee -- where the original Scopes Monkey Trial was held, an angry group of residents with small-ish frontal lobes decided to put up a billboard of their own:


It's an especially artful billboard. Notice the way they didn't just write their message plainly and clearly, but placed it on the bulletin lightbox of a weird mountain revival church and then took a picture of the bulletin. We can only assume the shack doubles as a taxidermy depot or chewing tobacco store and has an all-Mountain Dew soda machine in the back that gets sold out by mid-morning. The whole tableau gives the impression that the billboardists just danced with some rattlesnakes to the tune of 'Shout to the Lord.'

‘Evolutionists come from monkeys,’ says the bulletin. Clever, to use a retort like that, something evolutionists wouldn’t disagree with at all. After all, evolutionists do come from monkeys. And so do US Senators and accountants and ice fisherman and slutty pseudo-celebrity hotel heiresses and short order cooks and pot-smoking Olympic swimming record breakers and Chinese villagers in the remote Yunnan province. The only exception is Rhea County Tenneseeans. They are descended from monkeys. They just have not evolved from monkeys. Not yet, anyway.

Other billboards the group is planning:

1. ‘The Special Theory of Relativity is biased against NASCAR fans.’
2. ‘Socialism is wrong. Stop taxing my welfare check.’
3. ‘Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. With guns. Especially Hatfields killing McCoys or McCluskeys killing Abernathys. Those effers deserve it.’