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GoldenPalace.com Monkeys with Nature
04.20.05
Total posts: 16 By Lance Ulanoff
Online hucksterism has officially reached its nadir: GoldenPalace.com has paid a wildlife park $650,000 for the right to name a new species of foot-tall monkeys. This is no joke. The poor, furry creature will henceforth be known as "The GoldenPalace.com Monkey."
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Pardon me a moment while I hold back a retch. Look, I'm thrilled that the online casino is giving almost three-quarters of a million dollars to the wildlife preserve. The company won the right to name the monkey by being the top bidder in an online auction conducted by CharityFolks.com. The auction served as a fundraiser for the Madidi National Park in Bolivia. In fact, more companies should be donating that kind of money to park preserves because these animals have fewer and fewer unspoiled places in which to live. Altruism usually requires some kind of selflessness. GoldenPalace.com's act, however, is all about self, or more accurately, self-promotion.
The company's CEO, Richard Rowe, can only be thrilled knowing that because of this publicity stunt, for all perpetuity anyone who sees these titi species monkeys—in a park, in the rainforest, at a zoo—will have to refer to them as the GoldenPalace.com monkey. Maybe for another major donation the company could convince zoos to have the little primates wear T-shirts emblazoned with the site's logo. And how will textbooks describe this creature? Let's see… I guess his genus would now be "Golden" and species "palace.com"? Double retch!
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Worse yet, GoldenPalace.com's name will eventually be plastered on zoo walls and display placards: "The GoldenPalace.com monkey, along with viscachas in their native Bolivian habitat." Or how about in a museum? Dioramas will display the name, and the recordings we listen to while viewing the exhibits will intone, The GoldenPalace.com monkey swings from tree to tree in its never-ending quest for food. Gag! What's next? If I have another kid, perhaps I can convince my own company to pay me to name him or her "PCMag.com" It would be a great way to promote the site. Or maybe eBay can donate a million dollars to a leading heart-surgery hospital. Then we'll have "The eBay Center for Heart Disease and Surgical Recovery." The only change in the actual hospital will be that surgery charges can be handled either through insurance or a new "Buy Now" feature that offers faster surgery, but at a slightly higher price. Thankfully, eBay is no GoldenPalace.com.
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I really shouldn't be surprised, since GoldenPalace.com, is a sort of bottom-feeder enterprise—an online gambling site that only exists to take people's money. In fact, I just realized that GoldenPalace.com has succeeded with its publicity stunt once again. In this column, I've mentioned the site's name a dozen times, including the headline. Aarrrgh! For the remainder of this column, I will refer to that site as tarnisheddump.com. Perhaps I can speak for all other online enterprises and apologize to the poor monkey and the animal kingdom, in general. There may be some comfort ahead, however. As the tarnisheddump.com president noted, the species name will live on forever, but my guess is that tarnisheddump.com will not. And when the company is gone and enough time is passed, one can only hope that someone will rename the poor monkey. Discuss this article in the forums.
More articles from Lance Ulanoff: • GoldenPalace.com Monkeys with Nature • Who's Afraid of Mature Games • Welcome to Spyware City • Spam Ain't Dead Yet • Firefox Plays David to IE's Goliath • more
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