Thomas Edison and George Clooney?

The fact that good ol' Tommy boy here stole most of his ideas from people who worked for him and then released them under his patent is pretty annoying and unjust in itself. To add to this, I learned today that in 1903 Mr. Edison publicly electrocuted a circus elephant named Topsy in front of 1500 people. Apparently, Topsy's owners were going to have her hanged after she killed her trainer, who had fed her a lit cigarette, but there was a public outcry against it. So they called in Tommy who at the time had been on a spree of electrocuting stray cats, dogs and the occasional horse or cow. Electrocuting an elephant is far more humane than hanging it, obviously. Edison thought an elephant would be quite the challenge since he had never shocked an animal of that proportion. After having Topsy strapped into copper sandals he shocked her with 6600 volts of electricity killing her in about ten seconds. The whole thing was captured on film. Apparently Tom was going around doing this to prove that his arch nemesis George Westinghouse's alternating current was dangerous. At least he was trying to prove a point, right? I had the unfortunate opportunity of seeing the video.

I have really mixed opinions about PETA but if this were done today I'd be glad to allow them to throw tomatoes and red paint all over him. When a kid goes around zapping animals now they have them in a shrink's office faster than you can say "Daddy issues". However, 105 years after Edison, I'm not sure how far we've come with learning how to prove our points with words rather than violent action. What with the more recent outcry over the Costa Rican artist Guillermo Habacuc Vargas starving a dog to death in an art exhibit to "prove a point" of social hypocrisy.



On a far less sobering note, yesterday I went out to dinner with my dear friend and former roommate Meredith. We got on the topic of sexy older men and obviously the man above came up. I don't know what it is about him, but I have had a serious celebrity crush on him since I was a kid. He can operate on me or rob my casino any day.