From the Green Room: Paul the Octopus
Thursday, July 15, 2010 
With the advent of modern technology, you’d think that BP could find a way to cap the oil well; that a poor Texas woman wouldn’t have contracted a staph infection from her 38 KKK breast implants; and that Apple could make a phone that wouldn’t drop calls when you hold it in your hand.
Especially when you consider that an octopus can infallibly predict the winners of the World Cup.
Paul, the Prophetic Octopus, was a media sensation for the last eight games of the FIFA tournament, when he, from his tank, chose the winners of the finals. Flawlessly. Not bad for something without an internal or external skeleton. Although Octopi are known for their problem-solving capabilities, forecasting sports results isn’t usually among their skills. Finding shells on the ocean floor to use as protection from predators? Check. Figuring out the line on the Dallas / Washington game? Not so much. Until now. 
No one knows how a cephalopod mollusk can be prescient, but bookmakers in Vegas are already investing in calamari futures. There’s no data as of yet to suggest that squid are also predisposed to uncanny intuition, but I suppose that even if they don’t prove to be psychic, they’re still pretty tasty when fried and slathered with Fra Diavolo sauce.
The world went buck wild for the Clairvoyant Coleoidea to the point where he actually received death threats. Those crazy soccer fans. If they’re not shooting a goalie, they’re menacing hectocotylus-baring creatures with expressions of intention to cause harm. But what the erstwhile aquatic assassins have actually done is effectively validate the eight-legged, suction-cup-laden animal’s status. He is now considered a credible resource, one that can be exploited for the gain of us homo-sapiens. It won’t be long before octopus breeding farms start cropping up in hopes of developing the next Slimy Kreskin From the Deep to help solve the world’s problem through the uncanny wisdom of one of the creepiest looking occupants of the sea. Saltwater tanks instead of think tanks.
Which is why it’s somewhat disappointing that “Paul,” prior to his retirement, used his powers of prognostication to set the odds at the many sports books around the world and not to solve the many woes of mankind.
Unless, of course, he didn’t have any ideas about how to cap the BP oil well either.
