I love political puppets!

I mean the kind of cloth-and-stick puppets that people make to protest or poke fun of politics and politicians.

One example from Kenya:

At a recent prayer breakfast in Kenya, religious matters were pushed aside and instead gluttony was the order of the day.
President Mwai Kibaki struggled to eat a whole chapatti in one go, Prime Minister Raila Odinga spilt tea down his suit and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka struggled after getting a sausage stuck in his mouth.
Luckily, these were just puppets being filmed in the cramped dining room of a Nairobi home for the latest of 13 episodes of the XYZ show.
The satirical puppet show, which was influenced by the British 1980s show Spitting Image and France's Les Guignols, is a chance for a group of scriptwriters and puppeteers to delve into the murky world of Kenyan politics.

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Theater for the brain

From Cognitive Daily:

Researchers Helga and Tony Noice believe that training in the theater arts has similar cognitive benefits, with the added benefit of actually being quite enjoyable to its participants. Together with Graham Staines, in 2004 they developed a controlled study to test their idea. They recruited 124 older adults, age 60 to 86, to participate in one of three study groups, by posting notices in senior centers in DuPage County, Illinois, offering a chance to participate in "arts training."

After everyone agreed they could attend all nine 90-minute sessions over the course of a month, one group was assigned to participate in a theater workshop, one group studied visual art, and one group received no training at all. Each group took a variety of cognitive tests at the beginning and end of the month. Everyone was paid $50 after completing the study.

Click here to see the results.