5 Things: Massive head edition

I find vegetarians fascinating. I'm friends with a fair amount of vegetarians and even dated a vegetarian for a few years back in college. She was a cute little red-haired near-hippy [I say near-hippy because she wasn't the full-fledged, disgusting variety of hippy. She smelled pretty good and wore shoes when appropriate]. We were quite the odd couple [I wear a shirt with a collar every day], but it worked well for a while. Anyway, I had a million questions for her and my other leaf-eating friends about the philosophy behind vegetarianism. Of course, my main question was always, "what the hell are you thinking? Don't you know that meat is awesome?" And it is awesome. It tastes delicious, is a great source of protein, and a whole genre of summer partying revolves around it. But the awesomest thing about meat is that it is the reason that we human beings are so got-damned brilliant.

You see, three million or so years ago, there were a handfull of different human-like creatures (or "hominids" as we wannabe scientists call them). The two most notable are Homo Habilus (or "handy man") and Australiopithecus (or "Keyshawn Johnson"). Homo Habilus was a little smaller and weaker than Australiopithecus and was an omnivore. Australiopithecus was bigger and stronger but only ate grass. Because Habilus ate meat, he had to catch meat. Hunting, however, is hard. Especially when you are a small, mostly hairless ape. So Habilus had to coordinate. He had to plan. Also, regardless of your plan, hunting is hard when you're carrying around little baby Homo Habiluses. This forced Habilus to cooperate. Some of them would hunt (we'll call this group "men") and others would take care of children and vacuum ("women"). Then they would all share the food. Once this process began, it kept reinforcing itself. Hunting parties developed better plans, and even started making tools, while work-sharing became more structured. Society flourished and Homo Habilus got smarter. After a million years of this, Habilus doubled the size of his brain! And eventually, he became us. Nice work Homo Habilus, nice work. Because Australiopithicus didn't eat meat, he never needed to cooperate and therefore never developed any kind of society. And obviously, his brain stayed the same size. It didn't take long for Homo Habilus to completely wipe Australiopithecus of the globe. So essentially, we're smart because we eat meat.

The other lesson that we should learn from this bit of history is that big heads are sweet. So maybe we shouldn't be so hard on Barry Bonds. Bonds is inevitably going to Break Hank Aaron's career homerun record, and for some reason, a lot of people are upset about this. I believe this is because Barry Bonds has a fricken huge mellon. But we should not hate those with unusually large noggins. Many huge-headed people have accomplished greatness, and we should honor their accomplishments regardless of the ridiculous size of their heads. So this Thursday's 5 Things list is 5 people with massive heads that have improved the world:

1: Barry Bonds

Barry is inevitably going to break Aaron's record. Rooting against him is like rooting against glaciers. Whether you like him or not, Barry is one of the greatest baseball players of all time. And even though he didn't always have an enormous head, he was always a great player. Barry, go hit those last five dingers.

2: Dave Navarro

Dave Navarro was the lead guitar player for Jane's Addiction for a while and I think, after that, he joined the shittiest band in the world for one album called "One Hot Minute" which I'm sure is full of songs about California. However, he is probably most famous for having a huge head, being really ugly, and dating Carmen Electra.

3: Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln was our 16th President, the founder of the Republican Party, an avid theater-goer and a dude with a huge head. He is known for preserving the union and ending slavery. Abe, we commend you and your big head.

4: Christina Ricci

Christina Ricci has been praised for her acting since she was cast as a child with a big head in the The Addams Family in 1991. Since then she has been nominated for many awards and, in films like Sleepy Hollow, has made me think she might be a little hot, despite (or maybe because of?) her big head. Yeah, I kinda do...

5: Tony Snow

Tony Snow is, of course, President Bush's press secretary. His massive head distracts us from the lies coming out of his mouth, which helps us to be at peace in our ignorance of what's really going on in the world. I especially like this picture of Tony. The American flag and dipshit grin really help to bring out the size of his massive head. Thanks for keeping us safe with your big head Tony.

Just remember kids, big-heads are people too. If it weren't for big heads, we'd all be eating grass and twigs and picking the bugs off of eachother like hippies or Australiopithecus.