Penquin Awareness Day

A Beige Penguin?

January 10 2008

Grover:

I came across a news report about a beige penguin today. Because “beige” is a highly regarded color in the Dull Man spectrum, I think this situation is a worthy cause for all Dull Men to participate in.

The headline and byline of the story is Beige lovers adopt shunned penguin . It is by Paul Easton and is in The Dominion Post (New Zealand), click here.

The lead in to the story, “A freak penguin being bullied because of its unusual light-brown colouring has won support from champions of all things beige. . . . .”

The “champions of all things beige” is the Beige Brigade, a group of Kiwi cricket fans that love the brown and beige New Zealand cricket uniforms from the 1980s.

The penguin, found by Australian researchers working in Antarctica, was nor wearing the penguin’s traditional black dinner jacket but instead had on a beige jacket. A penguin like this is rare. They stand out and are usually attached by predators. They are even picked on and harassed by other penguins.

A Beige Brigade spokesman said, “The poor little bugger. It was just the fact that it was being ostracized for wearing beige. We could empathize with that, it’s a much aligned colour.”

Andy DiPalma

Upstate New York

+  +  +  +  +  +  +

Dear Andy,

Thanks for this. The group that adopted the penguin — the Beige Brigade — we had not heard of them until now. Although it might be a group that’s too rowdy for us, any group that supports the color beige can’t be all that bad.

Particularly impressive is the group’s antidiscrimination position on the penguin. A penguin, like a person, should not be discriminated against because of color.

We will be adding the plight of this penguin to our Agenda of Issues of International Importance.

Sincerely,

Grover