Bury Me with It

By request, here's a little more investigative post-journalism. In contemplating how to blog out the year, I had initially decided to identify what I thought should have been heralded as the most important news stories of 2007. But someone else beat me to it, and really, in this post-modern world of ours, isn't originality so last year?

So. According to some other guy, here are the Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007! I underlined my favorites.

#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media
#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger
#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US
#5 High-Tech Genocide in Congo
#6 Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy
# 7 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq
#8 Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act
#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall
#10 Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians
#11 Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed
#12 Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines
#13 New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup
#14 Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US
#15 Chemical Industry is EPA’s Primary Research Partner
#16 Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court
#17 Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda
#18 Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story
#19 Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever
#20 Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem
#21 Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers
#22 $Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed
#23 US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe
#24 Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year
#25 US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region

You can read the full text of each story by clicking here. I've got to say, looking back at all the things that no one bothered to look at this year, I think I'll ring out 2007 with a hat-tip to Mario Savio:

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

Ah, be still my bleeding heart. In honor of Mario Savio and Dick "Halliburton" Cheney and everyone in between, my new year's resolution for 2008 is to read stories like these as they happen, and maybe even do a little throwing myself on the gears. Viva la revolución, baby!

Lost in Translation

The English language, while home to nifty words such as nifty, seems to be a bit clunky more often than not. Like its speakers, it is unorthodox and of myriad descent; at times beautiful (see "cellar door") and at times confounding (Who? Whom? Hoo?). While I'm rather fond of the English language, I admit that there are ideas and phrases that seem to lose that certain... je ne sais quoi when they enter through its New World portal. A few examples...

Before: "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre." — French General Marshal Pierre Bosquet
After: "It is magnificent, but it is not war."

Before: "Veo en tu vida todo lo viviente." — Spanish Poet Pablo Neruda
After: I see in your life all that which is alive.

Before: Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit. — Latin phrase
After: He has left, absconded, escaped and disappeared.

And finally, a particularly illustrative transformation:

Before: Esprit de l'escalier. — French phrase
After: A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late. (In effect, the wit of the stairs.)

Then again, it goes the other way too. In Star Wars III, the subtitles for Darth Vader's dying "Nooooo!!!" become "Do not want!!!" in the Chinese version**, which while in possession of that certain... je ne sais quoi seems like it would be a bit of a deathbed mouthful.

** Props to Lauren for that delightful piece of cultural trivia!

Nimble Jugglers That Deceive

What better way to bury a news story than to sneak it through on a day when the vast majority of Americans are guaranteed to be distracted by mountains of tryptophan or embarrassing antics courtesy drunken co-workers? Thanks to the internet, I bring you the top ten most common ways to bury a news story.

My favorite technique is the Friday-afternooner. Did you know that the Environmental Protection Agency lowered the clean air standards about a month ago? Me neither. But you know who did? People who watched the news at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, November 15. So that would be, um, my retired world history teacher, that weird guy who works at the gas station, and Karl Rove.

Go Team Democracy!

Peeve-ish

Speaking of truth in labeling (which I was), I have a proposed addendum to the current movement. Henceforth, whenever a restaurant decides to garnish a perfectly normal dish with some bizarre, unexpected and virtually impossible to remove substance, the customer must be informed in advance on penalty of death. By elephant trampling.

For example, if one were to order, I don't know, cheese and broccoli soup, and the restaurant had a habit of putting, oh, say, a gigantic mound of salsa freaking fresca on top, the server (under my proposed legislation) would have two options:

A. Inform the customer.

B. Submit to a painful, smushy death.

I know which one I'd choose.

So, petition anyone?

The Panopticon

Social theorist Michel Foucault was fascinated by the idea of the panopticon, an architectural structure for a prison wherein the cells are pin-wheeled around a central watchtower thereby creating the perfect surveillance machine. The watchtower itself is covered by one-way glass, and any given cell at any given time may be under inspection by a prison guard; conversely, at any given time, most cells are under no surveillance at all. The panopticon represents the ultimate utilitarian design. Prisoners internalize the possibility of external regulation and so begin to regulate themselves; the possible prison guard without becomes the eternal prison guard within.

The crux of Foucault's description is this:

Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers.

This, of course, predated the invention of even more efficient tools of power such as video surveillance and high-powered online search engines, but the implications are even more relevant in the wake of so pervasive a technology. For isn't that the ultimate outcome of new technologies that allow infinite, public access to all information — that we become caught up in a power situation of which we are ourselves the bearers? This is truly a boon for our elected hall monitors. We don't need to be regulated if we regulate ourselves, which is precisely what we begin to do if we may at any moment be the subject of intense external scrutiny. Admit it. You've googled yourself.

To better regulate myself, I have installed Google gadgets on my desktop, allowing me to surveil myself more thoroughly than ever before. Plus, it has a neat Magic 8-Ball feature.

I am such a tool. (Of power.)

Free Range Chicken Not So Free

Free or not, I don't eat chickens. I became a vegetarian during junior high school, ate meat during college largely due to an inadequate school cafeteria, and then stopped again once I graduated. (Yes, I did it backwards.) I am currently what's called "ovo-lacto-pesco" meaning the animal stuff I am willing to eat is comprised of eggs, dairy and fish.

I'd like to dwell a moment on the ovo in my ovo-lacto-pesco, particularly those eggs which, like Elsa the beleaguered lion cub, were born free. Or so I thought. When I buy eggs at the hippie-dippie-you-clearly-live-in-California grocery store where I shop, I purchase free range eggs — ostensibly lain by chickens who roam free and happy through majestic fields, dropping eggs thither and yon to be collected at the leisure of their kindly keepers. Like most product pitches that sound too good to be true and thus are, my cursory research into the nature of so-called free range poultry products indicates that animals living under "free range" or "cage free" conditions are actually not much better off than their no-range counterparts. Please, hold the gasps of disbelief.

Basically, instead of putting each bird in its own cage, most free range birds are crowded together into tiny sheds in which they can technically move about, and have a hole in the wall through which a few birds at a time can travel outside into a tiny pen; however, inch for inch they're just as hemmed in as they would be in cages, and their general health and welfare is just as poor. This is clearly a far cry from the gleefully sunbathing chickens portrayed on the front of your garden-variety (or should I say crappy-shed-variety) free range egg carton. But hey — so long as a determined, intrepid chicken could, while obeying the laws of physics, gain temporary access to some modicum of sunlight, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will allow labels such as "free range" and "animal friendly" (not a legal term) to grace the front of the packaging.

"Oh, how misleading!" you say. "I am shocked — shocked — to learn that these mercenary farmers can get away with such dastardly deeds! Will no one think of the chickens?"

Well, you can. There's an ongoing truth in labeling campaign designed to target these types of misleading statements on the food products you consume. Alternately, you can wipe your KFC-grease-covered fingers on your jeans and close this window.

Just be glad I'm not posting pictures.

Unto Us a Day Off Is Born

This blog is officially on vacation until the 26th, so for now I leave you with...

Your Moment of Zen:

The Spirit of Insert-Holiday-of-Choice-Here

Today I was at Barnes and Noble doing a bit of last-minute holiday shopping and barely made it into the store. Not because I was almost run over by a herd of ill-managed children, which I was — and why don't they have leash laws, by the way? — but due to the presence of the most adorable three-legged dog I'd seen all day . You'd think the time-frame would be a bit longer than that, but there's actually a three-legged dog I pass on his morning walk while on my way to work every day, so go figure.

I of course instantly accosted her owners, inquiring if I could introduce myself, and they (possibly fearing that I'd beat them silly with my embroidered handbag if they declined) acquiesced. After learning her life story (freeway bad, Spaniel Rescue Society good), the little tricycle and I bonded over the fact that she and I had something in common — the belief that she was utterly fabulous. Despite her missing limb, she was the embodiment of all things doggy: enthusiastic, affectionate and fuzzy. With all of the excitement, I nearly forgot that I'd gone there in the first place to be a good little capitalist, not to love all over a differently-abled spaniel. As it turns out, she was actually in front of the store as a walking, barking advertisement for the fact that the rescue society folks were manning the gift-wrap table inside... kind of like one of those little kids selling chicle down in TJ for their parents, only with more frequent access to clean water. That's actually not funny.

Anyway.

The moral of this rambling anecdote is that if a three-legged dog can have an awesome holiday sitting in front of a store having her ears pulled on by passing ill-managed children, then we humans can probably do the same.

Merry Christmukkuhkwanzyule! And watch out for freeways.

We've Come a Long Way, Baby

Sistine Chapel, located in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City.



Pathways Church, located in the former site of an out-of-business grocery store in East San Diego County.

I feel that no further commentary is necessary.

Motherless Invention

I love gadgets. I do. Give me a remote control that doubles as a flashlight, checks my email and does the Time Warp and I'm a happy camper.

But air conditioned shoes?

He's Dead Now

Bill Hicks wasn't actually a comedian, per se, so much as a preacher whose religion was criticism. Not criticism as in "why haven't you taken out the trash you worthless flâneur" but more in a Kantian "one's primary task as a person is to practice the art of judgment" kind of way. He was also irony's bitch, struck down by a rare form of pancreatic cancer in his early thirties shortly after quitting a long career as a vocally enthusiastic chain-smoker.

Ambivalently semi-thrilled though I am at the thought of Jon Stewart returning to the airwaves a month before the presidential primaries (in response to which Comedy Central and I are now at odds over something other than the fact that their programming is one part comedy and 47 parts not), I really, really miss Bill Hicks. I knew he was my soulmate the day I heard him say, "I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out."

In tribute:



P.S. If you have an aversion to the hilariously gratuitous use of words deemed socially inappropriate by the F.C.C. you may want to skip this one. And he's not so much a fan of the right wing. Or the right leg. Or the right foot. Or, you know.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Beaker

I taught the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment today (which begs for a post some other day about the insanity of the AP World History curriculum), necessitating a brief conversation about the deists — you know, those guys who wore white wigs and talked a lot about "the Watchmaker."

I almost cried in relief when one of the most avowedly Christian students in class raised his hand and said, "So basically, these guys were saying that, like, God could have made evolution or whatever happen? So it doesn't have to be either/or?"

I answered in a vague affirmative (this is public school after all), prompting a contemplative "huh" and a light bulb above his head that was nearly palpable.

Attn: Eleventh Grade Biology Teachers — in lieu of thank you notes, send cash.

It's Not a Conspiracy Theory if It's True

It's good to know that in times of intense global turmoil, with pressing issues such as war, environmental degradation and human rights crying out for public action, I can turn to the U.S. media to keep me informed in a timely and accurate manner. Why, if I hadn't spent an hour at the gym today treadmilling to CNN, how else would I have gotten up-to-the-minute updates on the breaking news story (their words) about New York's latest dumpster baby?

I mean, why would I want to know about the Senate okaying another no-strings Iraq War budget or pending legislation that would shield wiretappers or Greenpeace's latest endeavor to halt a Japanese whaling vessel (all of which happened today) when I can get a point/counterpoint on Baby Christina? (And who knew there were even two possible opinions there? Thanks CNN!)

You know, all I have to say is it sure was nice of Al Gore to invent the Internet so I can get some actual news around here.

Speaking of the Internet, it helped me shed a little bit of light on what kind of person would want his 24-hour news network to spend an entire hour covering the fact that the Hardy Boys pulled a baby out of a paper bag instead of, well, anything else. To wit: CNN is owned by TimeWarner, which is chaired by C.E.O. Richard Parsons, who happens to fill his spare time with activities such as serving on the Citigroup Board of Directors, co-chairing a commission on Social Security for President Bush and, according to insiders, very likely planning a mayoral campaign for New York City's 2009 election. I hope he's gotten together a good anti-babies-in-New-York-dumpsters platform. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that legitimate news events are being kept off of the proverbial front page in favor of a little good old-fashioned fear mongering human interest piece.

But perhaps I'm being too harsh. They did, after all, take a five-minute break from the "news" coverage to announce that CNN anchor Nancy Grace has set up a baby blog to keep her adoring public informed about her pregnancy. It's twins!

OH, I almost forgot! Laughter Shrapnel is officially one month old today. Hooray! Maybe I should set up a separate baby blog blog...

Scruffy Boom?

Really now. What kind of name for an album is Icky Thump? I suspect that the White Stripes went on one of those random title generator websites** to get the name for their most recent release. I mean, Icky Thump? Really? As though "icky" weren't inherently off-putting enough, the word "thump" makes me think of a body hitting the floor in the apartment above me. Good times.

Nonetheless, the White Stripes' most recent single "Conquest" is worth a listen. The tone is nice and Spanishy (so a word) with some spaghetti western and blues guitar thrown in. Check it out.

** And now your Moment of Zen:

Per the title generator, I am please to announce that my first novel will be named The Snake's Academy. Its sequel will be called Wizards in the Crying. As for the third book in the (of course) trilogy, I am torn between Wanton Boyfriend and Something in the Nobody. Eat your heart out, Dean "Bad Place" Koontz!

Confusion Requires Fire Trucks

Why are Americans so obsessed with serial killers? Do we recognize in their machinations our own more violent mirror — the ultimate compulsive consumer?

Whatever the source of the fascination, HBO's Dexter does an excellent job exploring the unexpectedly ambiguous nature of the beast. I just watched the second season's finale, and highly recommend the show.

Also, Dexter is much easier on the eyes than Manson. Just saying.

Why Dogs Are Better than Cats

Dogs don't bite the hand that feeds them.

(They do, however, bite DVDs. And occasionally Pepsi glasses — but that's another conversation.)

Pretty Good with a Bow Staff

Did you know there really is such a thing as cage fighting? I thought that was just something they had in post-apocalyptic '80s movies. Apparently it not only exists, but in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and other towns on the cutting edge of culture it's making a comeback. According to a fellow linked in this enlightening article, "It's like the hardest core." And that eloquent description comes from a guy who works for a Hummer dealership, so you know it's got to mean something.

Any sport requiring the rule "no fingers in bodily orifices" strikes me as a bit... I dunno, crazypants?

However. In the event that I am kidnapped by Nazi space pirates and forced to become a cage fighter, I can only hope that I am allowed to wear a traditional Mongolian fighting cap. I think it would aid me in my victory.

Birds Ate My Face

For years now I've been trying to talk my dentist into foregoing the novocain when she does her slice and dice thing. I've gotten her to switch over to carbocain, which she tells me is a weaker cousin of novocain used on heart patients and doesn't last as long. I've talked her down to half a dose of that, and then today when she did her drill and fill magic, I got her to cut it down to a third. The numbness wore off about halfway through, and it hurt like a mother. I was pretty stoked, actually.

This is not because I enjoy feeling like tiny gnomes are chiseling my teeth away from the inside out. I'm as averse to pain as the next person (and according to my husband, who has born witness more than one post toe-stub meltdown, more so). But the whole numb thing is, in my apparently freakish opinion, monumentally worse. It's like my skin has been replaced by teflon. Like bullets would bounce off of my face. Like I'm being prepped by a serial killer for a slow-moving meat grinder.

Suffice to say, I'll take the excruciating pain any day. Really. I just meditate. It's fine.

So you can imagine my utter and complete horror when I saw this: First Face Transplant Patient Makes Progress. The level of ick is compounded by the fact that her face was chewed off by her pet labrador while she was overdosing. There are literally no words sufficient to portray the extent of my revulsion.

Except, possibly, ew.

Peace, Love and Etiquette

There's nothing quite like an all ages show. Only at such an event are you likely to witness one half of the room moshing while the other half waves their lighters (or cell phones) in the air.

Of particular interest are the enthusiastic fellows who have clearly only recently abandoned the glory of the football field for their newly discovered infatuation with pot. Often seen pumping their fists in the air with index finger emphatically extended, they raise the question — why don't concert vendors start selling those gigantic foam fingers emblazoned with the names of bands instead of sports teams? I'm quite certain they'd sell.

The antics of these fans-cum-fanatics, however, pale in comparison to their flat-foreheaded brethren, the homo sapien shoulderous. This breed of concert-goer engages in the bizarre public mating ritual of placing his girlfriend on his shoulders as though he's in row 2,045 at Lollapalooza instead of at a tiny club show.

Not to be outdone are the nouveau hippie chicks, who apparently think flailing wildly at the peril of those near them constitutes dancing. Yes, perhaps you saw Janis Joplin do it. But. A) She's Janis Joplin; B) She wasn't standing fourteen inches away from me at the time; and C) She was probably too drunk to realize that she wasn't actually standing still.

And she's, you know, Janis Joplin.

Nonetheless, better a Modest Mouse show packed with barely post-pubescent pseudo-rockers than no Modest Mouse show at all (and they nailed "Spitting Venom" if anyone cares). I'm just glad I didn't bump into any of my students.

Me, Myself and Obligations

I am schisming. Half of me is closing in on 30, owns real estate and has developed a taste for artichokes soaked in vinegar. The other half of me likes distorted guitars, watches crappy teen dramas and relapses into a nocturnal schedule by day three of a vacation.

Generally I am able to relegate these two spheres of myself to opposite corners of my brain (to mix geometrical metaphors), but tonight they've been forced into uncomfortably close proximity by an unforseeable scheduling calamity. Normally possessing two tickets to go see Modest Mouse would be unequivocally of the good. But (and why is there always a but these days!) tonight also happens to be the night I'm required to stay until all hours of the evening supervising the production of the school newspaper.

Tomorrow I expect to come to work dressed in a burlap sack and a beer hat streaming black coffee directly down my gullet.

It was all very well to say 'Drink me' ...

When I was searching for poetry quotes the other day, I came across the following:

"Wine is bottled poetry." — Robert Louis Stevenson

If Stevenson is correct, I assert that the Chileans have casked "Paradise Regained". I'm sure Milton would be shocked to discover salvation can purchased for a mere ten dollars. And yet — Exhibit A.

In vino veritas.

My Name is Inigo Montoya

The only thing better than reminiscing about '90s music is settling in on a rainy day to watch movies from the '80s. Only during the decade that brought us neon clothing would it make sense to name a protagonist Marty McFly - or to give her no name at all, requiring a 9-year-old huddled up in an attic to invent one for her.

And so I bring to you, in no particular order, the ten best movies made in the decade of my nascence:

Back to the Future - Marty, Doc and rifts in the spacetime continuum. Love.

Neverending Story - When I was four, I had to leave the theatre because the gigantic talking turtle-hill scared me. So there's that.

The Princess Bride - Made even more delightful by my discovery of the book a few years ago. Read it.

The Flight of Dragons - I may never forgive my brother for taping over this beautiful animated film with an episode of The Simpsons. Damn you, sibling!

Dirty Dancing - This is the movie that made me want to become a professional dancer. Sometimes it's a good thing when dreams die.

Beetlejuice - I think this one might actually be a good movie. Cameo by a shrunken head.

Blade Runner - If there were such a thing as the science fiction film, this would be it. It's just that good.

Flight of the Navigator - I have possibly seen this movie more times than the guy who edited it.

Goonies - Now, as anyone of discerning taste knows, ninjas are far superior to pirates. But. In this movie there are pirates, and that is cool.

Labyrinth - Glitter, gnomes and people randomly breaking into song. Bowie owns me. The end.

And no room for Indy! Damn.

License Rescinded

According to Carl Sandburg, "Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance." Ask Thomas Gray, and you'll find that, "Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."

One assumes that such philosophies have moved pen to page to produce

Do you believe in always,the wind
said to the rain
I am too busy with
my flowers to believe,the rain answered

and

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

and

If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you no longer live,
I shall live on.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall live on.

Arguably, worth writing down.

I don't even like poetry (much), but I do like words to be arranged such that my brain doesn't feel compelled buy a pair of dark sunglasses, hitchhike its way down to my spleen and enter the Witness Protection Program. Why, then, do I find myself entrenched in a world in which "my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard" passes for fine balladry?

It seems an unnecessary cruelty.

Why I Want to Be a Lizard

Based on extensive observation of my bearded dragons, I have decided to convert for the following reasons:

1. They get to sit in a warm, sunny spot and stare at the wall all day.
2. Food falls from the sky at regular intervals.
3. They've got a great angle on the TV.
4. When life gets too stressful, they can go in their hidey hole and no one can make them come out.
5. They sleep ten hours a night.

So, my application is pending.

The downside is, of course, the whole eating crickets thing.

Bigger Better Faster More

Point of clarification: Why does Starbucks charge the same amount to substitute soy milk for cow milk regardless of the drink size? I mean, have you seen the size of the venti cups? And yet I pay the exact same forty cents to de-dairy my little tall cup. Corporate America, why must you punish those of us who consume in moderation?

Don't answer that.

Nails, Meet Chalkboard

The only thing better than an all-day training workshop is an all-day training workshop hosted by someone who likes to use words that aren't. I feel quite comfortable asserting that motivational speakers and their ilk are culpable for some of the most irreverent massacring of the English language since the colonists decided to start calling their knickers underwear. We can thank these would-be wordsmiths for contributions including deliverable as a noun and synergy as, well, a word.

Perhaps you or someone you love is a fan of this sort of guerilla linguistics. If so, I pose a question to you: What in the world is the difference between competence and competency? As near as I can tell they're synonymous, rendering competency unnecessarily redundant, but what the hell do I know? So like any committed researcher, I decided to ask Google.

According to WordNet, competence is defined as "the quality of being adequately or well qualified physically and intellectually." Conversely, competency is defined as, well, "the quality of being adequately or well qualified physically and intellectually."

Huh. Well, whatever - that's not a real dictionary anyway. Surely a more reliable source will clear things right up.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, competence is "the state or quality of being adequately or well qualified; ability." Per Merriam-Webster, it's "the quality or state of being functionally adequate." As for competency? Why, how odd! Each dictionary refers back to its entry for competence.

I guess competence just doesn't sound as... refined? Sophisticated? Word-like? Perhaps I judge too harshly. Maybe if I were getting paid the money that these people make for the swill they shovel, I'd feel compelled to engage in these sorts of parlance parlor tricks too.

Or, you know, not.

I move that people who use "words" like competency spend less time figuring out how to add y onto the ends of perfectly good words and more time figuring out why I have to spend two eight-hour days listening to two hours worth of actual information.

All Things through Google

Every time I doubt it's true, I'm proven wrong again: With enough stubbornness and ingenuity, you really can find anything on the internet.

Anything.

(P.S. Bad CIA! Bad! No junta cookie for you.)

Regarding Scabs

As most of you who read this blog are doubtless aware, the Writers Guild of America is currently on strike due to the unwillingness of the major Hollywood production studios to give the writers a fair contract. While I will most likely be writing more about the various components of the strike in future entries, today's post is devoted to that most repugnant of creatures — the scab.

In order to understand the full wretchedness of the scab, we must begin with the fundament premise that unions raise the standard of living across the board. When a union wins a major victory, it places pressure on employers of non-union workers to increase pay and benefits for their employees as well, lest they leave for union jobs. Do you enjoy your weekends? Your forty-hour work weeks? They are two of an infinite number of protections secured for workers - union or not - by organized labor movements.

Scabs are union-breakers, pure and simple. Their willingness to work more for less damages the ability of all workers (including scabs) to earn a living wage. The greatest irony is that in their shortsighted attempts at personal gain these milquetoasts are working against their own self-interest. Parallel to his namesake, the scab is a transitory, odious thing temporarily covering the bloody corporate underpinnings that cause labor disputes. Like a physical scab, the labor scab will be sloughed off once the body to which it is attached heals.

I could go on, but I'd doubtlessly devolve into sputtering and the excessive use of exclamation points. Instead I'll link a speech written by Jack London in which he analyzes motivational factors inherent in human nature to assert that while scabbing and the smashing in of said scab's head with a tire iron are equally valid animal behaviors, ultimately, the scab deserves it: The Scab.

Regarding the current strike situation, I conclude with the fact that it truly astounds me how people are ready to cast their sympathies alongside the wealthy CEOs who could give a fig's ass about them, proffering the cheap rationale that Hollywood writers are already rich and overpaid (they're not). As if Les Moonves and Nick Counter are just poor working schmucks barely making ends meet!

Complicit in your own oppression much?

Sick, sick, sick.

I'm really glad I don't live in this world:



Except I kind of do:



And yet I really like these shoes:



My head is a broken machine.