The Penn State THON is a 46-hour, no-sitting, no-sleeping dance marathon that benefits The Four Diamonds Fund, a pediatric cancer program at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital. Tucker was diagnosed with cancer at 2 years old but has been cancer free for a good three years now. Even Khloe Kardashian is trying to help out the cause.

As you may have heard, yesterday a trainer (Dawn Brancheau) at the Sea World in Orlando, Florida was killed as she was pulled or slipped (there’s still debate) into the whale tank. The reports are a little vague at this point put but what is stated is “she was then fatally injured by the whale”.

The whale in question here is the bull orca Tilikum. Here is some info about craze-eyed beast:

• He’s 29 years old
• Captured near Iceland in November 1983 at two years of age
• Measures 22 feet 6 inches long
• Weighs 12,300 pounds
• His pectoral fins are six and one half feet long
• His 6-foot-tall dorsal fin weighs close to 200 pounds alone
• He is the largest Orca in captivity
• He has sired 13 offspring, 10 of which are still alive (a record)
• His name means “friend” in Chinook

Now you may be saying to yourself…he seems like a good guy from these above points…don’t let his name fool you. What may not be as widely known is that he is a literal cold-blooded killer whale.

In 1999, Tillikum was blamed for the death of a 27-year-old man whose body was found floating on his back in a tank at SeaWorld, the apparent victim of a whale’s “horseplay,” authorities said then. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office said the man apparently hid in the park until after it closed, then climbed into the tank.

Tillikum and two other whales also were involved in the drowning of a trainer at a Victoria, British Columbia, marine park in 1991. The trainer fell into the whale tank at the Sea Land Marine Park Victoria and was dragged underwater as park visitors watched.

So now that puts his kill count at 3 in the span of his 27 years in captivity.I don’t know about you but I’m going to find it a little bit harder to sleep tonight knowing that this lunatic of a whale is still out there murdering people Willy-nilly.

*Must I really state that this makes a point that maybe we shouldn’t be holding animals in captivity and “teaching” them to dive through hoops and splash patrons all for our enjoyment. I’m for one amazed at how these majestic creatures are treated. It’s sad that someone (or in this case multiple) people had to die for this to come to light but these tragedies occurred because of his situation…not naturally.

So the good folks at eSmart Tax have given us a few $100 Visa giftcards to divvy out to you, our loving readers. We wish we had 1 million to give out so you all could get one but sadly just like my Mom picked my little brother as her favorite, we have to decide between 4 of you.

In order to win you must:

send a Tweet stating what you plan on doing with your tax returns this year and be sure to include the #eSmartTax and @TopCultured. For example: “Hey @TopCultured I plan to blow my tax return on the new iPad #eSmartTax”


Four (4) winners will be chosen at random on Monday, February 1, 2010. You can tweet as many times as you like, each tweet counts as an entry and you are thus more likely to win the more tweets you send.


And if you haven’t already done so, be sure to check out eSmart Tax’s website. They offer several easy and affordable packages for filing your tax returns and they claim to “offer you return-maximizing tools to make sure you’re getting the biggest tax refund possible.” Also if you happen to have the last name Johnson you can get your returns filed for free!

So Tweet away you beautiful people and you could find yourself $100 richer thanks to eSmart Tax and Top Cultured.

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