News from Florida:
State labor officials asked their inspector general Monday to investigate why a Central Florida agency wants to spend public money to furnish the unemployed with capes.
Dubbed the “Cape-A-Bility Challenge,” a $73,000 public-relations campaign by Workforce Central Florida features a cartoon character named “Dr. Evil Unemployment” and includes handing out about 6,000 red superhero capes to jobless Central Floridians.
The campaign, revealed Saturday in a report in the Orlando Sentinel, was met with derision by many unemployed who questioned spending more than $14,200 on capes and $2,300 on foam cutouts of “Dr. Evil Unemployment.”
I must say that Dr. Evil Unemployment is as ridiculous a cartoon character as anything Raleigh dreamed up. On the plus side, he is marginally more winsome than the North Carolina Zoo’s Snotty the Snot Otter.
Also … No capes!