Will someone please think of the penguins?

So, I may be one of the only people who didn't like "March of the Penguins", that oh-aren't-they-cute-even-when-they-freeze-to-death documentary that, well, everyone loved. It's not as if I hated it--it's just that if you take away Morgan Freeman's voice, it's really no different than any other nature doc most people would flip past on PBS. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's funny what people decide to get excited about.

The reason I'm dipping into the old news bucket is that another penguin movie, "Happy Feet", just won the Best Animated Feature Oscar (March won a gold dude last year). Is it a trend, a fad, or a conspiracy? (Sources inform me that a majority of government officials are, in fact, flightless. Hmmm.) The little tuxedoed guys even starred in the most challenged book of 2006. Not that there's anything wrong with that, either. The best player in hockey? Just guess which team he's on.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of penguins. I wish I had one. I'd give it sunglasses and an earpiece and have it waddle around like my own cuddly secret service agent. (It would be unarmed, of course--no thumbs.) But as I learned many years and many bites ago, you're not really supposed to dress up wild animals. And it's because I respect them that I don't want to see them get over-exposed and end up like the Lindsay Lohan of the Antarctic. Why can't we be content with just appreciating them as nature intended?

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