Lemur History, a cautionary tale

A dispatch from EMMUTTMAX (Lemur Alliance)

I see my friend Thamus, the Bard O Tipperary, has been tipping a few glasses too many of fine Irish whiskey again. He has once again posted an ill-conceived--and some might say, "Deranged"--diatribe on the imminent invasion of the dreaded lemurs from outer space on his blog, thamus.stumbleupon.com [stumbleupon.com] . Poor sod. In order to prevent full-scale hysteria, I feel a short tale is in order.
Once upon a time, many, many years ago, on a small, emerald green isle, there lived a group of lovely, peaceful and highly intelligent creatures called o'lemurs. Their lives were governed by harmony, fairness, industriousness and a general love of life. If you are biblically inclined, you might say they lived in a veritable Eden.
Thousands of years passed, and one day the winds blew in debris from the east. Clinging to life on the debris, were humans. Some say they came from the far shores of Scandinavia, others swear it was from the Normandy coast. No one believes they came from the island 60 miles east. Anyway, the o'lemurs rescued these half-dying immigrants and welcomed them onto the shores of their homeland. The new arrivals proved to be a rather dull lot. They were not proficient at farming or building. The o'lemurs spent years trying to help them develop some sort of skill with which they could sustain themselves, but the immigrants failed miserably in almost every endeavor except two: arguing and distilling whiskey.
The new people were content to argue amongst themselves at first, and things progressed smoothly for hundreds of years. But as their whiskey became sweeter and stronger, their unhappiness with their lot in life increased to the point where they began to blame the o'lemurs for their fate.
It started with snide comments about tails and quickly (in historical terms) escalated into hanging effigies of o'lemur nobility all out assault on the creatures they owed their lives to.
Fearing decimation of their species, the o'lemurs--led by that epic hero Ring-tailed Rory--staged a counterattack. Many o'lemur lives were lost due to the overwhelming size and strength of their foe, and in resignation the creatures knew they must flee their ancestral home if they wished to survive. Sailing in longboats made of the finest cat skin, the o'lemurs set sail into uncharted waters, eventually coming to land on another island, known today as Madagascar. There they settled, cut the "o" from their name, and live in peace today.
There are a great many individual stories of heroism I've had forgo for brevity's sake, but that is the gist of the sad tale. Perhaps now you may be able to understand Thamus's simmering generational antipathy for the most wonderful animals to have ever walked the earth, or swung from its trees.