Model Presidents, And An Updateable Heirloom

I'm a huge fan of The Atlantic Monthly, but sometimes I suspect it's less for the articles and more for the ads. This month's edition, for example, has two notable products up for grabs.

First, there's the Toypresidents, limited edition 12" talking action figures which are "not just electable, but collectable" ("Each collectible comes with its own individually numbered Certificate of Authenticity"). The ad in the mag includes a figure who could be more or less anyone, but turns out to be Bill Clinton. He says things like "Education is a critical national security issue and politics must stop at the school-house door".

For $30 one is yours. Who would want one of these things? Apart from me, I mean. As the Christian Science Monitor reported last week, the dolls "demonstrate an American adage": If you make it, someone will buy it.

That may well go for globes currently being advertised by Eureka Globes, which are both antique-looking enough to qualify as "heirloom quality" but also, apparently, "updateable" ("A removable pin releases the globe from the meridian for easy replacement"). Nothing like an heirloom that you can pass onto your grandchildren, confident that they can easily update it to reflect changes in geopolitical boundaries, loss of land-mass to global warming, etc etc..