The Great American Mistake

Coca-Cola is America. Or so they are always telling us.

Can anybody really argue? It was invented in America, patented in America, peddled in America, and mutated into a thriving international megacorporation by generations of enterprising American businessmen over the last 125 years (happy anniversary, btw).

Coca-Cola is a potent symbol of American ingenuity, a shining emblem of American capitalism, and the perfect example of everything that is wrong about where we have come as a nation.

Fact: The syrup used by Coca-Cola bottlers (who are largely independently-owned and operated, although Coca-Cola, Inc. is a minority owner in most of them) is manufactured in the United States, the process involves spent coca leaves imported from South America, and the story is fascinating.

Fact: Foreign bottlers have the option of sweetening their country's Coca-Cola to local taste--the syrup is just the patented secret flavor and contains no sweeteners.

Fact: I buy my Coca-Cola from Mexico because they use real sugar instead of corn syrup.

Fact: Any American who tastes Mexican Coca-Cola will never go back to American Coca-Cola.

Fact: This should be phenomenally embarrassing for Coca-Cola, Inc. and yet they don't seem to care at all or have any plans to revert to using real sugar. Why would they? They are making a shit-ton of money ["Shit-ton" = 1 with 100 million zeroes after it. -Ed.] and sugar costs $0.02 more per shit-ton than corn syrup, so it makes NO sense from a corporate-bottom-line standpoint to make their beverage taste the way it used to and always should.

Fact: This is proof that American businessmen have their heads so far up their asses they only think in the short-term and don't care what customers want, only what they are willing to consume because they don't think they have a better option.

Cocaine is Good for What Ails You

  

Since everybody is always asking me about the history of Coca-Cola, here you go--courtesy of the fine folks at wikipedia:

Fascinating History In-Brief

"The prototype Coca-Cola recipe was formulated at the Eagle Drug and Chemical Company, a drugstore in Columbus, Georgis by John Pemberton, originally as a coca wine called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. He may have been inspired by the formidable success of Vin Mariani, a European coca wine.

"In 1886, when Atlanta and Fulton County passed prohibition legislation, Pemberton responded by developing Coca-Cola, essentially a non-alcoholic version of French Wine Coca. The first sales were at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. It was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass at soda fountains, which were popular in the United States at the time due to the belief that carbonated water was good for the health.

"Pemberton claimed Coca-Cola cured many diseases, including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence. Pemberton ran the first advertisement for the beverage on May 29 of the same year in the Atlanta Journal.

"By 1888, three versions of Coca-Cola — sold by three separate businesses — were on the market. Asa Griggs Candler acquired a stake in Pemberton's company in 1887 and incorporated it as the Coca Cola Company in 1888. The same year, while suffering from an ongoing addiction to morphine, Pemberton sold the rights a second time to four more businessmen: J.C. Mayfield, A.O. Murphey, C.O. Mullahy and E.H. Bloodworth. Meanwhile, Pemberton's alcoholic son Charley Pemberton began selling his own version of the product.

"John Pemberton declared that the name "Coca-Cola" belonged to Charley, but the other two manufacturers could continue to use the formula. So, in the summer of 1888, Candler sold his beverage under the names Yum Yum and Koke. After both failed to catch on, Candler set out to establish a legal claim to Coca-Cola in late 1888, in order to force his two competitors out of the business. Candler purchased exclusive rights to the formula from John Pemberton, Margaret Dozier and Woolfolk Walker. However, in 1914, Dozier came forward to claim her signature on the bill of sale had been forged, and subsequent analysis has indicated John Pemberton's signature was most likely a forgery as well.

Return to Serfdom

How do you know your job sucks? When they attach semi-permanent suicide nets to your employee housing:

Foxconn Technology Group — the Taiwanese company that manufactures hardware for Apple, Dell, HP, Nokia and Sony and has been hit by a dozen suicides at its plants this year — is holding rallies at all of its factories to raise morale. The theme? “Treasure Your Life, Love Your Family, Care for Each Other to Build a Wonderful Future.” The impact so far? Check out the picture above.

In case the rallies, slogans and pay increases don’t raise morale enough to stem the tide of suicides, Foxconn left suicide nets in place at its facilities that are designed to catch workers before they hit the ground, although it removed them from one facility.
"No matter how hard we try, such things will continue to happen,” is how Louis Woo, assistant to the founder of Foxconn’s parent company Hon Hai Precision Industry explained the situation at its factories, in a statement.

After the rallies, Foxconn left them up at all of its factories except for its Taiyuan Campus location, said Woo in his phone statement, because more employees there have the support of their friends and family. The nets remain in place at the other facilities.

(courtesy Wired)

Strange that an employee workforce of 470,000 people [Literally! -Ed.] living in dormitories on the same campus would not make some friends to build support networks.

Or maybe when they try the prison guards dump barrels of hot oil on them and stretch them on one of the racks in the mess hall?

If there was ever a more direct modern parallel to medieval serfdom, I don't know I don't what that would be...

Long live King Woo, Lord of Foxconn Castle, loyal subject of King American Corporations!

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Why Do All These Damn Coal Miners Keep Getting Themselves in So Much Trouble?

Remember back in April when all those miners blew themselves to bits in West Virginia, in a misguided attempt to get the CEO of Massey Energy in trouble with some of his elected employees?

Remember more recently when those 33 Chilean coal miners made their tunnel collapse and played hooky from work by hiding underground for 69 frustrating days?

Well, now it seems some Chinese attention-seekers have thrown their hat into the ring:

 Associated Press -- BEIJING -- An explosion in a Chinese coal mine killed 20 and trapped more than 30 workers underground Saturday in the country's central region, state media reported.
A man answering phones at the mine said he had not heard anything an accident.
China's mining industry is the most dangerous in the world, and more than 2,600 people died in mining accidents last year.

(courtesy HuffPo)

What exactly is it that all these miners are after, aside from time off work, peace and quiet, total darkness, homosexual tension, and the satisfaction of temporarily crippling their bosses' golden goose?

Abilify Your Life Today

Abilify is a drug made by Bristol-Myers Squibb that is used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

But, let's face it, that's a limited market (read: limited profits), so the greedy assholes over at BMS decided to widen the pool a bit by shifting gears and pushing it as an add-on drug to treat depression.

Because, naturally, if everybody wasn't already depressed (they are), they would be so depressed by this depressing news that Abilify's potential consumer pool will eventually reach 100% of the global population. Regardless of whether the drug works (it doesn't), this represents a near-perfect blow in the struggle between pharmaceutical companies and the forces of good.

Are you depressed about the side affects of your antidepressant--and even more depressed that it isn't effectively combating your depression? Is it getting in the way of you smiling while giving foot massages to your wife on an isolated dock at your lake house?

Well, then force your doctor to prescribe Abilify to, you know, make you more able to face the day, silly!

These happy customers could be you! 

[If you were actors not taking Abilify -BMS Legal]

Sorry to have to spoil all the fun times here, freedom-lovers, but that communist towelhead Obama (who can't even prove that he was born!) makes us have to say shit like this:

Side effects of Abilify include, but are not limited to...

Nausea, vomiting, constipation, headache, dizziness, an inner sense of restlessness or need to move, anxiety, insomnia, restlessness, an increased risk of death or stroke, very high fever, rigid muscles, shaking, confusion, sweating, increased heart rate and blood pressure, abnormal or uncontrollable movements of the face, tongue, or other parts of the body.

Also, be careful when you stand up, as you might faint from lightheadedness caused by a sudden change in blood pressure. And don't get sick, because your white blood cell count will plummet when on Abilify. Don't ever drive or make a decision either, because Abilify adversely affects your judgment, thinking, and motor skills. It will also "impact your body's ability to reduce body temperature."

Don't drink alcohol or breast-feed, and be aware you may experience suicidal thoughts and/or fall into a coma unexpectedly.

And don't forget, these side effects are in addition to any you are already experiencing from your regular, inneffective antidepressant medication (which we want you to keep taking, since we make money off that, too).

And let's also not forget that antidepressant meds are Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors, which means they are attempting to treat an emotional problem as a biochemical problem, despite the fact that the link between depression and a biochemical imbalance has never been proven.

Anyway, whatever--enjoy your easy solution, lazy Americans!

And do be careful behind the wheel of your 5mpg XL-SUV--I'd hate for you to scratch the bumper as you plow through a class field trip because your medication made you think they were ducks and you were playing a video game in your dreams where you hunted animals from your Escalade.

_

Hungary: The Louisiana of Europe

Imagine living in a village in Hungary, sitting in the town pub eating some hearty goulash, and drinking some fine draft ale after a hard day's work in the mines, when a river of toxic sludge suddenly floods your town and burns you alive before dumping into the Danube River and spreading across Europe.

Sound like a nightmare? Well, it is and it isn't:

KOLONTAR, Hungary — The wall of a reservoir filled with caustic red sludge will inevitably collapse and unleash a new deluge of red sludge that could flow about a half-mile (1 kilometer) to the north, a Hungarian official said Sunday.

On Monday, the sludge flooded three villages in less than an hour, burning people and animals. At least seven people were killed and at least 120 were injured. Several of those who were hospitalized were in serious condition. Around 184 million gallons (700,000 cubic meters) of the caustic red sludge was released.

The red sludge devastated creeks and rivers near the spill site and entered the Danube River on Thursday, moving downstream toward Croatia, Serbia and Romania. But the volume of water in the Danube appeared to be blunting the sludge's immediate impact.

(courtesy HuffPo)

Not only has it already happened, but it will happen again when the crack in the North Wall eventually collapses.

Yikes.

Well, what do you expect would happen when the government allows a 24-acre reservoir of toxic sludge to be created and maintained by a corporation who doesn't give two shits about anything other than selfish greed?

This is what I would expect:

(courtesy Reuters)

Oh, but don't worry about the long-lasting effects of this toxic spill on the life inside and around Europe's second-longest river--a river so beautiful they compose waltzes in its honor--because the offending aluminum company has been dumping other chemicals into the river that will supposedly reduce the effect of the toxic sludge they put in it.

Great. More chemicals.

And by the way, let's just ignore the fact that the local groundwater will be fucked for eternity and everyone who lives nearby will never be able to sell their houses and may start growing superfluous eyeballs.

This sounds so much like the BP oil spill, but maybe even worse. When will people in charge realize they cannot trust corporations to be responsible? When our rivers and oceans are boiling, poisonous stews that eat through everything except specially-crafted mega yachts?

Jobs created to clean-up toxic disasters are not the kind of jobs we need in this world, especially considering the cost of cancer treatments for all the workers will far exceed whatever meager wages they earned cleaning up an irreparable mess that should never have happened in the first place.

Just look at that stinking, steaming, caustic tidal wave at the starting gate...

Anyway, the clock is ticking on this beast, so keep your ears pricked and re-think that summer cruise on the Danube.

_

Pinocchio P.R.

Transocean spokesman Lou Colasuonno at today's press conference in Monaco

"As part of Transocean's unwavering commitment to safety and rigorous maintenance discipline on all our rigs, we proactively commissioned the safety survey and the rig assessment review," Transocean spokesman Lou Colasuonno said in an e-mail early Thursday. "A fair reading of those detailed third-party reviews indicates clearly that while certain areas could be enhanced, overall rig maintenance met or exceeded regulatory and industry standards and the Deepwater Horizon's safety management was strong and a culture of safety was robust on board the rig."

(courtesy HuffPo)

Wow, sounds like this guy totally went to P.R.M.B.A. school. He should be so proud of his well-crafted bullshit--look at all those three-dollar buzz words and phrases!

"unwavering"
"rigorous"
"discipline"
 "proactively"
"a fair reading"
"culture of safety"
"robust"

Hahahahahahahahaha...yeah right, asshole--tell it to the judge.

_

The Bible: The First Corporation?

Much like the corporation is a faceless legal entity that conveniently takes all the blame for the actions of the greedy, shady humans that run it, the Bible readily absorbs blame whenever anyone wants to be an asshole.

Los Angeles: Home of the Vaunted Broom Bear

That is some serious equipment there. The engineering involved in that thing is sick--aside from all the spinning brushes, the water system, and enormous engine, the middle segment jacks up and dumps the mess somewhere (the nearest Pacific tributary is popular, as it the most cost-effective solution). When we colonize the moon, this is probably what the astromen will clean it with once a week.

More importantly, this bear is evidence.  As a society, we have progressed from not giving a shit, to having actual humans clean our streets with brooms, to a citywide fleet of $127,000+ monster trucks [And that's used! -Ed.] that is valued more for its ability to generate bottomless profits from parking tickets than it is for leaving a trail of cleanliness.

Well done, world.

_

The World's Most Uncomfortable Green Room?

Pedophilia has been in the news a lot these days, thanks to those pervy Catholics, and I feel it is my duty to take this opportunity to warn you all that pedophilia does not always happen behind closed doors or confessional curtains--sometimes it goes on right in front of your eyes, on national television.



Just Like Mom was the longest-running game show in Canadian history, even though it was only on the air for six seasons (How quaint!-Ed.).

The last five seasons were hosted by famed Toronto Blue Jays announcer Fergie Olver, who was the husband (now divorced) of the show's creator, Catherine Swing--which is an unfortunate name, considering what follows (Zing! -Ed.).

Now, I am the first to admit that I don't know much about Mr. Olver--including whether or not he is still alive--but that is only because his wikipedia profile has been deleted and scouring the internet has mysteriously (?) turned up no leads.

Most likely that is a result of his camp's reaction to the following video, which no doubt has made life extraordinarily difficult for Mr. Olver, if he is still alive:



Keep in mind that this is what happened when he knew the cameras were on.

What happened backstage after the show? What happened during casting sessions? What happened when he took the winning kids to Walt Disney World?

If anything more sinister ever happened besides these televised kisses, I hope he died a painful death, bled dry as a result of repeated slashes of his penis with a dull, rusted knife wielded by a vengeful victim.


Can you believe the good people of Canada let this go on for so long? Did they think it was cute that it seems all Fergie was after was a kiss on the lips from little girls?

I mean, I know it was 'a different era' and this is a heavily-edited video, but still--if an unwanted kiss happened even once it would be worth mentioning, and that is clearly not the case.

Hmmmm...methinks once again, as with 'the Catholic situation,' the rise of the military-industrial complex, the lip-service of modern-day politicians, real-estate speculation, the health-care situation, Social-Security raiding, and the current omnipotence of guilt-free corporations, previous generations were asleep at the wheel and future generations must pay the price.

So sad...

(Thanks to Videogum, btw, for introducing me to this ass-clown!)

_

Trojan Horse Capitalism

Sit down here on my knee, little boy, and let me tell you a story. Don't worry, I'm not a priest--you have nothing to fear.

That's a good boy...now where was I...oh, yeah:


Once upon a time, there was a successful family company that got a bit too big for its britches, was bursting at the seams, shall we say, and one of the owner's sons, the greedy one, decided this company had a great opportunity to balloon into a massive money machine. After much in-fighting, and maybe even the death of the old man, the greedy son got his way and sought the advice of a greedy banker, who was more experienced in this sort of thing.

In exchange for a large sum of money, the banker advised the company to seek outside capital in order to expand at an unreasonable rate, undercut competition, corner the market, and raise prices. Once the company went public, there was no turning back and everything went according to plan. The stock became increasingly valuable, the family grew wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, the wolfiest wolves in the wolf business acquired as much stock as they could get their hands on, and they quickly began hounding the executives for increasingly outlandish profits to satisfy their bottomless appetites.

Manufacturing was streamlined, raw materials were either bargained down to extortionate deals or vertically integrated right into the monster, labor unions were fought tooth and nail, pennies were pinched, and still it was not enough.

Over time, the family and its loyalists were either phased out, neutered, or converted. Hired guns were brought in, unsympathetic to the needs of other humans, and the successful business was rewired from the ground up.


Manufacturing was outsourced to China, customer service inquiries were fed to call centers in India, benefits were reduced for every employee not in the executive ranks, millions of dollars were spent in order to avoid responsibility for environmental damage, taxes were dodged, and lawyers and lobbyists were hired by the dozen to insulate the new company from all responsibility, to protect it from all restrictions.

Millions more were funneled to media conglomerates through Madison Avenue, in order to make this cold behemoth appear friendly. A revisionist vintage logo was drawn up, folksy commercials were produced, corporate practices were greenwashed, the truth was buried, and what had once been a profitable family company with visible virtues and flaws, with a sense of community, a (relative) sense of decency, is now little more than a cuddly, helpful, responsible wooden horse with a perverted profit monster inside, lying in wait for the best opportunity to murder the entire world in their sleep, as soon as there is a buck in it.

Now, who wants a fucking Twinkie?


_

All You Need to Know About Detroit

Detroit: Choose your plot--$1 each, no more than 14/person, please.

As promised:

Besides the tax incentives, Michigan has several traits that make it attractive to the film industry. Unlike Louisiana or New Mexico, which are also film hot spots, Michigan has four marked seasons. It has more than 3,000 miles of coastline along the Great Lakes, bodies of water so big their horizons are as empty as an ocean's. There are lots of charming old towns with charming old buildings, several universities and plenty of out-of-work autoworkers itching to do something with their hands, such as build sets, operate lighting systems or learn makeup artistry.

Even Michigan's economic malaise has an upside for Hollywood: Those empty, abandoned streets in Detroit are perfect for moviemakers, who can close off entire blocks for weeks without worrying about disrupting the city's flow. The Irishman, a movie due next year starring Val Kilmer and Christopher Walken, was shot in several neighborhoods of Detroit and barely interrupted city life, even when explosives were set off.

"Detroit is a fantastic resource," says Larry August, director and managing partner of Avalon Films, which has done mostly auto commercials in the past. "You have a city that was built for 1.8 million or 2 million people, and it has a lot fewer people than that (912,000 now, the Census Bureau estimates). That's the definition of a back lot. It's gritty, it's urban, and it's a very film-friendly city."

There's even a barely used high school west of Detroit in Howell, Mich., which has stood empty since 2003 because the town can't afford to operate two high schools. It's been the backdrop for at least one movie and is the location now for a pilot being shot for a sitcom for tweens.

(courtesy USA Today)

You had me at "tweens."

You also had me at "Val Kilmer" and "definition of a back-lot."

Whoo! HAGS! lol...

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U.S. Government Boldly Decides to Tax Jobs White People Don't Do Anymore

This just in:

In the scramble to find something, anything, to generate more revenue, states are considering new taxes on virtually everything: garbage pickup, dating services, bowling night, haircuts, even clowns.

“It’s hard enough doing what we do,” grumbled John Luke, a plumber in the Philadelphia suburbs. His services would, for the first time, come with an added tax if the governor has his way.

“Look, I’m not a crazy tax guy,” Mr. Rendell said, reflecting on recent trims to the budget. “I know what we’ve cut the last two years, and I know how deep and painful the cuts have been. So I know that in the future there’s going to have to be a revenue increase, and this is the best of the alternatives, obviously none of which we’re happy about.”

Michigan’s revenues, adjusted for inflation, have sunk to a level last seen in the 1960s. And that may be exactly what at long last pushes through wide acceptance for taxes on more services, according to supporters of the idea, who say it makes sense in an economy that has long been service-based. In the past, such taxes have never quite been able to survive the political tussle.

(courtesy NYTimes.com)

To what is the world coming?

Of course politicians would rather tax the working stiffs than the corporate stiffs. I didn't hear any suggestion that Michigan should repeal the excessively generous entertainment-industry tax credit, for example, because it creates jobs! But they will tax the people who take those jobs, as well as the barbers and line cooks that service those workers.

Ah, trickle right down my ass, I say.

Working stiffs may seem to have strength in numbers, but too many of us would switch allegiance for a few shekels--hence the imbalanced power of the uber-rich.


We all know The Rich are little more than the pride-and-joy descendants of Roman Senator types--rich enough to have private armies, smart enough to cloak them in corporate legitimacy, inbred enough to be ugly.

They are constantly pacing their sun-drenched downtown offices, plotting the future, playing puppeteer in Warshington, London, Tokyo, Beijing--when they aren't snorting coke off the ass of a $5000/hr call girl in a suite they keep at the St. Regis to help alleviate such cravings.

But what are we doing about it?

We are presenting the rump and pretending we're okay with it.

Are we?

_

How Do You Know When Things Are Better?

When corporations spend millions of dollars to tell you they are.

Who cares that you're 45 years old, living in the basement of your demented parents' foreclosed home in an abandoned subdivision threatened by a hurricane? Who cares that you eat oatmeal and stale crackers three times a day? Everybody still employed by GE had a smile on their face in that commercial where they told you everything is better now!!!! Lighten up!!!!! Get out there and buy something fun--like medicine for your bronchitis--with that unemployment check that never came! LOL!!!

Wipe that bloody drool off your chin, shattered human! Bank of America paid a lot of money to BBDO and the television networks so that they could tell you everything is okay. Who cares that they don't loan out money anymore, continue to speculate against you on the stock market, and now buy and sell securitized life insurance policies, gambling against their golf buddies in the health care industry.

Wait, what was that? Say that part again?

Wall Street investment banks are planning to buy and securitize life insurance policies of older Americans. A $1 million policy might be sold for $400,000, then bundled with other policies and sold to investors, the New York Times reports.

Duke law professor James Cox calls the development “bittersweet.”

“The sweet part is there are investors interested in exotic products created by underwriters who make large fees and rating agencies who then get paid to confer ratings," he told the Times. "The bitter part is it’s a return to the good old days."

The story says the plan could be good for Wall Street but bad for insurers, which set rates based on the assumption that policyholders will let their life insurance lapse before they die. If the policies are bought and securitized, insurers may lose money and pass on the loss in the form of increased premiums.

(courtesy ABA Journal)

Wait--what does that mean, exactly?

Well, [Wall Street's] new plan is to buy life insurance plans from elderly and sick people for cash. The example that the New York Times gives is someone selling a million dollar policy for a $400,000 payout, but the payout amount would all depend on the seller's life expectancy. These "life settlements" would then be bundled together to form bonds that can be sold to investors. The investors would start paying for the person's policy from then on. When the person dies, the investors collect on the policy.

Apparently, the faster the person dies, the more money the investors make. However, regardless of whether you die sooner or later, Wall Street firms will profit off of fees collected from creating the bonds and facilitating transactions. You could say that Wall Street is planning to "securitize" people's lives (or deaths, as it may be) into a kind of CDO (Collateralized Debt Obligation). And we all know how great that whole CDO adventure played out for Wall Street, right? What could be dangerous about creating a similar class of financial products with sick people's life expectancy as the focus?

(courtesy CBFE Economics)

Wow--things really are better! Now Wall Street is betting everything on the health care industry stealing so much of your parents' money that they have to sell their life insurance benefits right before they die.

It's like these guys are just begging to be called out on this, daring somebody to say something, to do something--like a serial killer leaving clues at the scene of the crime.


But the funniest part of all this hubbub (aside from all the other hilarious stuff I've thus far mentioned) is that these companies didn't think they could rely on you knowing that things are better because your life was actually better. I mean, are they going to start hanging out around my dinner table so I know when my food tastes good?

Just try to wipe this fucking beatific smile off my face, reality! I'm a paid actor in a television commercial and I am damn good at my job!

"CUT!"

And now, back to frowning reality...

_

The Unspoken Evil In the Housing Market, Country

(photo courtesy Sally Ryan/New York Times)

The New York Times printed an article today about the house next door to that of the Obamas (pictured above) being put on the market recently. It was an interesting article for many reasons, but hidden amidst the facts and figures is a phenomenon that is sadly not getting enough attention:

Very few people I know--college educated, with jobs--can afford to buy a house, regardless of record-low mortgage rates and falling home prices. Some of them have settled for overpriced condos, some have moved into farm country and face ridiculous commutes, most are prepared to stay in rental apartments far longer than previous generations ever did.

This is not healthy for our country, as we are now firmly on the path to becoming a two-class nation--working-poor renters and fabulously-wealthy landlords, the modern-day equivalent of ever-toiling serfs and their wealthy land-owning lords.


For Your Consideration:

The year is 1973. The house next to the Obamas, a beautiful 17-room mansion on the south side of Chicago, sells to a young couple for $35,000. The median household income for that year was $12,051; assuming they were average, the house cost 3 times their annual salary.

The year is now 2009. In 36 years, their house is now worth in the neighborhood of $1-3 million--an increase of between 28 and 85 times the original purchase price and a fabulously lucrative investment. In 2006 (the last year figures are available), the median household income was $58,407; the same house would now cost the new owner 17-51 times their annual salary.

[Also, keep in mind that the inflated 2006 figure reflects double-breadwinning households, which was not common in 1974, so the difference is even greater than it appears.]

And you wonder why so many people took out bad loans? They felt they deserved to live in a house, as hard-working, gainfully-employed couples--and they were right--but the market was such that there was actually no way they could afford to pay for one. Between greedy real estate developers, corrupt politicians, predatory bankers, insatiable real estate trusts, real estate speculation, and bidding wars, prices became artificially, unsustainably high. Wannabe homeowners forced their hand and they lost. Big time.

The Man: 9,941,994, Men: 0.


Meanwhile, the bleeding doesn't stop there, of course.

Real wages (adjusted for inflation) have remained stagnant since 1974, despite enormous increases in productivity and work hours. In other words, while costs have risen dramatically, you are making the same amount--or, in most cases, less--than your father did in 1974, when gas was $0.55 a gallon and a beer at a ballpark cost ten cents. A beer at a recent LA Dodger game set me back $12, or 1/12 of my daily take-home pay.

In the last 36 years, health care costs have skyrocketed, retirement benefits have dwindled or disappeared, and the cost of a private university education has gone from $10,000 a year to $32,000 a year (for public universities, costs have increased 37% in the last 10 years alone).


How are we supposed to live like this? How are intelligent people who have a soul--and, therefore, did not become shady bankers, selfish corporate executives, or lawyers--supposed to afford to buy a house somewhere that could be classified as 'non-bumblefuck?'

Homeowners’ equity fell to 41.4 percent of the total value of household real estate at the end of the first quarter of 2009. This percentage has decreased sharply since the end of 2005. It first fell below 50 in the fourth quarter of 2007 – marking the first time that homeowners’ mortgage debts exceeded their equity in their homes since 1945, when the Fed’s data begins.

(source: American Institute for Economic Research)

There you have it, folks--sixty-four years of 'progress' has resulted in a net-loss of equity. Thank you, corporate America, for shipping all the wealth not in your own pockets overseas.

Are we reaching a point where intelligent, rational people are going to start moving off the grid in droves and repopulate depressed rural areas in their quest for an affordable house? Will we all have to live in factories abandoned by 'patriotic' corporations who moved all their non-executive jobs to China? Where will all these newly-rural people work? How far will they have to drive to shop somewhere that isn't evil-incarnate WalMart? How are they supposed to afford to send their children to school?

Or, since everyone has a college degree these days (thanks, University of Phoenix!) and a diploma doesn't even guarantee a job at Starbucks, will people eventually stop sending their children to college?

I know that sounds crazy, or at least illogical, but if we look at the matter honestly, and perform a simple cost/benefit analysis, at some point the costs will outweigh the benefits. Who wants to graduate college $100,000 in debt, with an ever-dwindling prospect of gainful employment and the looming fear that they will need to locate another $750,000 just to buy a house in the city they grew up in?


It wasn't even 100 years ago that most intelligent, productive people got their education in the real world, unable to afford a college education. They got menial or entry-level jobs and worked their way up from there.

However, what with unemployed PhDs fighting each other over janitorial jobs these days, another, more exotic option is becoming increasingly enticing, and probably as useful:

Formerly an option only for wealthy members of the aristocracy, these days a high-school graduate could choose--instead of going to college--to live, frugally, in a string of major European cities over a four year period, immersing him/herself in language, culture, and the arts. This would not only provide a well-rounded liberal arts education and--shockingly, but truthfully--be cheaper than attending a 4-year American college, but it also comes with free, top-o-the-line health care! Invent a time machine and sign me up!

Time to dust off your Grand Tour brochures, travel agents!
(If the Internet didn't kill you all slowly...)


You may think this is all a joke. You may think these ideas are radical, ridiculous, and ill-informed. You may be right, you may be wrong, but the way I see it, this is the very real, human side of the matter, one that is rarely discussed in the media, or over the dinner table.

The exorbitant cost of a comfortable, quality life in the United States these days--now more unattainable than ever--is the dubious result of three main factors:

1. Decades of unnecessary, harmful real estate speculation by wealthy American freelance speculators, deep-pocketed real estate trusts, investment organizations, and corporations.
2. The insatiable hunger for profit that defines the modern corporation.
3. The fact that our government has failed to act on behalf of its less-moneyed-yet-vastly-more-numerous constituents, failed to step in with laws/oversight/restrictions, and is therefore complicit in allowing the situation to spiral out of control.

For all their blustery talk about America being the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, the rich and greedy oligopoly has created a country its own hard-working citizens can barely afford to live in.

What, may I ask, is the benefit of that, aside from the pieces of silver lining their pockets?

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Reader Poll: Should the $100 million man get his due?

As many of you already are aware, Andrew J. Hall is set to receive a $100 million bonus from a unit of Citigroup--a company which would have gone bankrupt had they not been bailed out by the taxpayers to the tune of $45 billion.

To make matters worse, his impressively profitable performance derives from speculation in energy markets, which is a practice on which the government is considering placing heavy restrictions.

Andrew Hall is one of those guys who manipulates the price of crude oil/gasoline, irrespective of the effect his efforts may have on millions of consumers with far less money than he, purely in the name of profit.

But then again, Mr. Hall has a contract--and this is America. He made Citigroup billions of dollars and we want them to make money so they can pay us back, right?

Or do we ever really expect to be paid back? I certainly won't hold my breath, or even stand on one leg.

Technically speaking, Mr. Hall did nothing wrong--he performed his job within legal boundaries (one would assume, although you never know when oil is involved) and it's the system that's broken.

But how do you fix a system if you keep giving people financial incentives to be selfish pricks? Maybe denying him his exhorbitant bonus would be a good first step in "putting things right that once went wrong."

And so it is that, not for the first time, I wish we would have simply let all the selfish, stupid, speculative financial firms in trouble just go bankrupt, allowing the healthiest ones to feast on their remains and grow stronger--things might have been a lot hairier, maybe, but such is the cutthroat nature of capitalism and, in the end, decisions like these would have been so much easier:

"Sorry, Mr. Hall, I know you made us billions of dollars in profit from all those stupid commoners who have to buy gas from the oligopoly to get to their $6/hr jobs cleaning the shrimp you eat out of the mouths of blue-blood virgin debutantes every Friday afternoon at the closing bell, but we have no money to pay you! We fucked up! Now, do me a favor and go fuck off back to your German castle and jerk off on your Schnabels!"

Man, life would be so much easier...

Or would it? What do you think, world?

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Armchair Expose: The Advertising Industry

I have worked in the advertising industry--on the production end--for about nine years now, off and on, in Chicago and Los Angeles. Oh, what mine eyes have seen...

Most people have no idea what goes into the making of a commercial, so I shall forthwith explain, to the best of my knowledge:

A client--let's say Kraft Foods--has an advertising agency under contract for a set time period, say two years. When Kraft wants to unveil a new cheese-flavored product, they tell the agency to draw up a campaign for them.


Months of work go into the nitty gritty of the new campaign.

The Creatives (as they are known) at the agency toss around ideas and ultimately devise a universal phrase, tagline, or theme that will be used for the print campaign, television commercials, product packaging, etc (ie, "Come see the softer side of Sears!").

Then ideas for the content of the commercial campaign are tossed around. They will usually shoot between 2 and 12 commercials in one stretch, all somehow unified by the theme. After months of planning, the best ideas are scripted out, drawn up (literally--as detailed storyboards), and presented to the client in a series of meetings.

The client either approves the ideas or, more likely, tells them to make small changes based on whether or not their legal department will let them get away with certain things, or whether or not they think the idea will alienate any of their customer base or conflict with their brand image--or sometimes just because they want to exert a little power, show who's boss, etc.

At this point, the advertising agency puts it out there that they will accept bids from production companies for the opportunity to make said commercials. The competition is limited but fierce.

The production companies who decide to make a play for the job choose a director from their stable whom they feel is a good match for the campaign, based on his or her strengths, reputation, and previous work.

The director then submits an almost-always-laughably-written treatment of how he would direct the commercial, what little bits of sexiness, humor, or camera moves/editing techniques he might inject into the already-written commercial.


It always amazes me that one of the creatives from the agency doesn't just direct it, since that's all they want to do anyway (most of them ultimately become directors and exploit hteir industry connections to get jobs, knowing talent is irrelevant; the ones who don't become directors usually split off and form their own lucrative boutique agencies, emphasizing their 'edginess,' 'hipness,' etc). The campaign is already drawn up; the commecial is already written; the storyboards are already drawn; why suddenly bring in another cook?

As a result of this, the production company/director search is fairly irrelevant--the advertising agency is really just looking for the company that will submit the lowest bid BUT also give them a director they can brag about to their client (and friends back home).

Examples:

"He's David Duchovny's brother...and he did that campaign for __X__ that was so edgy--it's exactly the feel we're looking for..."

"I'm in LA, on set. Yeah, shooting a commercial for the new Volkswagen campaign. Roman Coppola is directing--yeah, his son. It's pretty awesome..."

"Rocky Morton will direct--he's one of the biggest directors in the business, wins all kind of awards, a total pro...it'll be great." (No mention that he also directed superturd Super Mario Bros)

As a result of the competition for the lowest bid with an accomplished or recognizably-named director, budgets have gotten smaller and smaller--in all the wrong places--and preparation time has become shockingly minuscule.

Example:
I recently worked on a series of two commercials for a major fast-food chain that was awarded to the company only six days before the two days of shooting were to commence--not much time for casting, location scouting, crew assembling, set-building, wardrobe shopping/fitting, etc.

Considering how long the campaign/commercial has been in development at the agency by the time shooting begins, it is amazing what stupid bullshit will still happen on set.

Example:
I worked on a Volkswagen commercial years ago, in Chicago, in the summertime, for their "4-motion" cars--a kind of proprietary part-time four-wheel drive system intended for their all-season customers.

The concept for the commercial was that a shitty old car made by somebody else (in this case a rented brown Ford Taurus from the '90s) would be spinning out of control down a snowy/icy road and a guy sitting in a nearby VW 4-motion vehicle would watch and say "glad I have my VW with 4-motion" and drive away safe and sound.

As a result, $20,000 was spent to build a remote controlled, driveable, spinning turntable that could hold the weight of the Ford Taurus and drive it safely down the street, spinning in place.

We paid the guy who did the snow in Fargo to drive down from Minnesota with his five-person crew to snow-up an entire office park we rented out. Gigantic blocks of ice were fed from a freezer truck into another truck--a modified 5-ton giant snow-cone machine--and sprayed everywhere for hours and hours, overnight and in the morning. When I showed up at 5am, my coworkers and I had to help the art department rake around ice chips to make the scene look a bit more realistic. Everything was set, the camera was ready to roll, the heavyweights had arrived from their 5-star hotel, and then...nothing happened.

I went over to video village, where gophers like myself set-up director's chairs for the client and agency representatives to sit and watch everything unfold and make comments like "hmmmm...I like it...but can we try him in a blue shirt instead, even though I said he needed to be wearing a red shirt?"

In this instance, on the VW commercial, the discussion was about the snow: "I'm worried that people who live in areas where it doesn't snow are not going to want to buy our car..."

I was blown away. What?!

As a result of this brief discussion, the entire 90-person crew had to stand around waiting for the snow to melt. Tens of thousands of dollars an hour to wait for snow to melt. Easily $10-20,000 to make the snow in the first place. A million-dollar-budget commercial, directed by the guy who made American Movie (and then parlayed that cult hit into a lucrative career directing commercials for VW, Nokia, et al).

The final result? A commercial where a brown Ford Taurus spins down the road for no reason and a guy in a VW car is glad he is in a brand-new, spit-polished VW, for some reason (it's newer?). There is no snow or ice around. It might as well be summer in Hawaii.

Huh? How long was this idea in discussion at the advertising agency? How many meetings did they have? How many snow and ice-coated pictures did they draw while mapping out the commercial? How many representatives of the client and agency approved the concept at multiple stages of the game? And nobody brought this up until the snow was already paid for and covering every square inch of an entire office park in Hinsdale, Illinois?

You can see why products cost so much these days...

At the end of each day of shooting, the exposed film (yes, they still shoot on film) is driven to the lab by one of the gophers. This is one of the most blatantly nonsensical customs in the industry. The film is loaded and unloaded by the least-experienced and lowest-paid member of the camera crew and then driven to the lab by the least-experienced and lowest-paid person on the entire crew. If either of these people mess-up, hundreds of thousands of dollars were completely wasted and the entire commercial needs to be reshot.

The gophers--known as PAs, for Production Assistants--make $200/day whether the day is two hours or 28-hours long. Yes--I know many people who have worked up to 28 hours straight. My own personal best is three 20-hour days in a row, when the agency wisely realized they needed to rewrite the entire 3-commercial Bud Light campaign because it wasn't funny (usually they just shoot and air them anyway).

PAs have been paid $200/day for the last 15 years. It is one of the only non-union positions on the crew. A bit of perspective: high-school-drop-out Blutos carrying around lights and extension cords make $500/day and have houses in Malibu and jet skis and jacked-up pick-up trucks and motorcycles and flatscreen TVs in their shitters, etc. Teamster dudes who do nothing more than drive around a van make $500/day. Wardrobe stylists and Production Designers make $1200/day. Directors of Photography make $8000 for a 10-hour day.
Directors make $15-20,000 a day. Yes--a nine-day shoot, plus two days of prep, would net a director $220,000 for 11 days of work. Wow. You are correct to be outraged.

And yet, it gets worse.

Example:

Years ago, I worked on an Herbal Essence shampoo commercial in Chicago, directed by legendary music-video director Hype Williams (who long-ago sold out) and starring Ashanti as 'the girl who has hair to wash.'

At one point, I was sent from downtown Chicago to suburban Skokie--in rush-hour traffic, easily a 2 hour round-trip--to purchase the last remaining brand-new (at the time) photo/video-capable iPod in the metropolitan area.

The producer, who was flown in from Phoenix, almost never worked and wanted to give it to Hype as a present, because he saw somebody else's on set and mentioned that he wanted one. Nevermind that Hype was being paid $20,000/day and that the commercial was already tens of thousands of dollars overbudget and still going strong...

Earlier that day, I had to drive to the South Side to pick up a special lunch for Hype and Ashanti and their respective posses, from a famous soul-food joint, despite the fact we had already paid $15/head for them to have a gourmet catered lunch. When somebody from one of their posses ate Ashanti's mom's lunch, I had to go back for more. These two trips easily ate up several hours of my work day. For no reason.

The next day, I had to pick up Hype at his hotel--The Peninsula, the most expensive hotel in Chicago--and drive him to the airport. [How much money do they spend on this guy and they can't get him a car service?] His luggage barely fit in my Jeep Cherokee because he not only had his overstuffed suitcases, but also an entire top-of-the-line desktop Mac--complete with oversized, widescreen monitor. He told the producer he wanted to do a little rough 'editing' in his hotel room while shooting, so rather than renting one, the production company bought him the whole set-up. It was never opened.

The only plus side to all this excess was that after Hype stopped off to make a few purchases "at that cashmere joint on Michigan Avenue" and wolfed down some Garret's popcorn literally like a wolf might, I got to hear the less-interesting--but still fascinating--end of a phone call wherein Snoop Dog gave Hype some much-needed relationship advice.

But has anything ever gone wrong with PAs handling the film, you ask?

Answer: Yes.

Example:
In Chicago, years ago, it was a cold-ass winter day. The PA driving the camera truck home--loaded with over $1 million worth of equipment and all the exposed film from the job--stopped off at a 7-11 for a pack of smokes. He wanted to leave the heater on while he popped inside, so he left the truck running. Before he got back to it, somebody else had already driven it away.

The next day, the producer and production manager took thousands of dollars of petty cash and went around to every pawn shop in the city to look for camera parts, lenses, accessories, etc. Believe it or not, they were able to find everything and knew it was theirs, since they had all the serial numbers listed on the rental order.

Later on, the truck was found down by the river, right next to Chris Farley's van. All the exposed film was sitting safe and sound in the onboard darkroom.

For every 999 times the film and equipment is delivered safely, something like this happens. So why risk it? (Another, more common, example is leaving the film on top of the car and driving away. Ooops!)

Okay, so let's say nothing went wrong and the film was safely delivered to the lab. What happens next?

Well, the film is processed at a set time, along with film from random other jobs in town (the 6pm bath, the 10pm bath), and a pre-arranged messenger arrives to pick up the processed film.

The messenger takes the film from Burbank to Santa Monica (a 22-mile drive), to a post-production house, where the film is transferred to digital video by a colorist who bills $450/hour (although he probably only gets $200 of it, dividing the rest between the facility and his one or two assistants) and uses a millon-dollar magical computer to tweak the colors and lighting of the raw footage.
Once appropriately touched-up, where shit can be turned into gold at the push of a button, the DVDs of the day's footage, known as dailies, are messengered over to the production company or to set, so the director can look at it and admire his handiwork.

Once the shoot is completed--all the film exposed, processed, colored, dailied, etc--everything is shipped to an editor by a company called BellAir.

BellAir is like FedEx for the über-rich. They offer a service known as counter-to-counter, which means that one of their delivery dudes picks up your package, takes it to the airport, and personally loads it into the cargo-hold of a plane. Once the plane lands in New York (not always, but usually--it depends where the agency is based), another BellAir delivery dude picks it up at the airport and hand-delivers it to the editing facility. It is only one step short of paying someone to actually hold the film and fly to New York--which also happens on occasion.

At this point, the editor creates a rough cut of the spot(s) based on the storyboards, scripts, and conversations he has had with the director. The next day, the advertising agency producer and a client representative and a few other people come into the editing room, watch the cut, and tell the editor how he should have trimmed down the several hours of footage to a 30-second commercial.

The editor also continues to receive very different (usually covert) instructions from the director of the commercial. The agency cut, as it is known, is always the one that airs, while the director's cut is for his own personal use and is usually never seen again, although it may appear on his sample reel.

Once edited, all the film is then re-colored, tweaked, retransferred, and ready to go. It is shipped out to the networks for broadcast during whatever time slots the advertising agency has purchased for their client.

A commercial, or 'spot,' in the parlance of the industry, can be a regional spot, a national spot, a foreign spot, a global spot, a Super Bowl spot, etc. Maybe they will only broadcast it during Mad Men, maybe only during sporting events, maybe only once--during the Super Bowl. I worked on a Britney Spears Pepsi commercial years ago which was only aired in Japan during the World Cup--I never got to see it.


Actors who appear in commercials--who are chosen after a rigorous casting process (that has more to do with their 'look' than their acting ability, since they are usually onscreen in 2-second clips) where the agency folks and director might see 500 people for 10 roles--are compensated based on where the commercial plays (nationals are the most lucrative) and and how many times it plays.

An actor in a McDonald's commercial who says "Try our new choco-mocha shakes!!" might make $40,000 if it stays in rotation for a bit. Guys like Subway's Jared and Verizon's 'dude with glasses' who are spokesmen get paid based on an annual contract, as are lesser people like "the woman in the Lincoln commecials." They get a ton of money up front (example: Lincoln woman who says "check out these new sexy Lincolns" and does a little car-show-girl arm wave got $300,000 for a one-year contract for 4 spots), are required to be avaliable whenever, for a set number of commercial shoots, and are not allowed to appear in a commercial for another company.


So when all is said and done, a $500,000 commercial shoot that resulted in two 30-second commercials (and a couple trimmed down 15-second versions) actually costs quite a bit more, when you add up the fees paid to the actors and the airtime purchased. The total cost is easily in the millions of dollars. All to say something as unneccessary as: "Drink Coke, cuz we bought up all but two of our competitors and we've arranged to be the exclusive carbonated beverage sold in 60% of all stores and restaurants! And we're totally cool, too!"

The biggest mystery for me, still, is that I have probably worked on 200 commercials in my day and seen, at best, five of them. Where do they go? I don't watch much TV, which explains it away a little bit, but still--wtf? I'm sure some of them never make it to air, some of them are maybe only played in Europe, Asia, during Oprah, game shows, soaps, whatever.

It's not like it matters--of all the spots I've worked on, I probably only wanted to see a handful. Most are cringingly unfunny or just plain stupid. I still want to see that Britney one, though--especially because they only were able to get off about 4 of the intended 14 shots (or something paltry like that) before her mom forced her to leave because a private plane was waiting on the runway, at a cost of thousands of dollars an hour, to take them to a family funeral. (Britney was a sweetheart by the way; we kicked a soccer ball around together for a bit, I briefly fell deeper into lust, etc.)

Well, that's about all I have to say about it right now. Hope that was informative and maybe even enjoyable.

Thoughts?

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No Shit

Industry Ignored Scientists

How else do you rack up over $95 billion in profit in 2007-8?

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Salmonella is So Hot Right Now!

The spicy new Spring 2009 look, as seen on the runway in Milan

What is the deal with corporate food processing plants?

Peanut butter, pistachios, and just about everything else...do I need to convert my entire clandestine growlab to foodstuffs or what?

Will the FDA actually be able to enact change, or will they just ask the CDC to start collecting tainted vomit, diarrhea, and corpses in dry-docked oil tankers until they figure out their next move?

Sigh...

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The Trouble With Baby Boomers

Jeffrey Skilling, age 1

'Baby Boomers'

Such a cute moniker. It makes them seem cuddly, permanently wrapped in soft blue and pink blankets, shaking their rattle, full of innocence and limitless potential.

The truth of the matter is much bleaker, however.

Baby boomers in the media, at work, around the family dinner table, like to chide the members of younger generations for their cynicism, sarcasm, apathy, and selfishness.

Well, is this not a product of the sociopolitical climate they have presided over for far too long?

Flagrantly corrupt, immoral, and hypocritical politicians. A government ruled by special interests. An environment ravaged by their greedy corporations and their greedy disposable lifestyles, their mentality that the world will always be one of plenty, that resources and landfills are not finite. A military/industrial complex that is rapidly leading to a guerrilla World War III. An illogical, strict intolerance for gays, abortion, immigrants, and alternative energy. A refusal to solve health crises, because (as Chris Rock once said) the money is in the treatment, not the cure. Pure, unadulterated greed. A dearth of heroes, a plethora of villains.

It must have been nice to grow up in a world where people would have jobs after college. Where somebody with a history degree might end up becoming a CEO, an advertising executive or a college professor. Where you didn't have to acquire an MBA to answer phones, a master's degree to teach kindergarten. Where you worked only 40 hours a week and had full health and pension benefits. Where only one parent had to work and you could afford a house and a car and food on the table. I suppose it makes sense--such luxury must have spoiled you rotten.

Baby boomers, do you not see how drastically that world has crumbled on your watch? There are no jobs. College tuition has tripled, quadrupled. Housing costs have skyrocketed. Wages have failed to keep pace even with mere inflation, much less the artificial rise in costs of products due to the corporatization of every major industry, every type of retailer, big or small. A cup of coffee costs $3. Minimum wage is $6.55/hr. Health benefits have disappeared. Asking for a pension would be laughable. Doctors and hospitals are in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry. The same diseases linger. Art has become a commodity, ruled by fearful bean counters. Confidence in government, medical professionals, financial managers, and just about everybody else is at an all-time low.

And it is not at an all-time low because we are being cynical and enjoy hatching conspiracy theories just to fuck with you, to rebel. It is at an all-time low because even if we only look at the people who have been CAUGHT for the evil deeds they have done, our cynicism and 'crazy' theories and critical thinking have turned out to hold much more water than your idea of blind trust in professionals and leaders. Your idea of 'put your nose to the grindstone and never look up, people are inherently good and will take care of you, have a little faith' suddenly holds no water.

How many of you trusted Bernie Madoff? How many of you trusted your financial managers who told you the market will only go up? How many of you trusted your doctor when he put you on bum, possibly even unneccessary, medication that made things worse or killed you? How many of you voted for Ronald Reagan/George Bush/George Bush? How many of you now blame Obama and 'crazy young daredevil traders' for the problems their policies and cronies caused?

I do not mean to imply that all Baby Boomers are necessarily complicit in our societal downfall--but the fact of the matter is the multitude of innocents among them have done little or nothing to stop things. Protest? They make fun of protests! That was something hippies did! That is something crazy youngsters on drugs do! [Nevermind that they would have just been tear-gassed and wrongfully imprisoned by the man if they had protested, if there hadn't been enough of them to overrun the Bastille and start beheading people]

99% of Baby Boomers fall into one of two categories: the perpetrators and the gullible lambs led to slaughter. They did not question authority; they had faith in the integrity of their leaders; they trusted blindly. And look where it got us.

Yet they chide us kids for our fact-based, knee-jerk, implicit mistrust in those in power.

They are at retirement age. Most of them are still working, holding on to jobs that should be ours, would have been ours, if they had acted like their parents and actually retired at 55. Many are well into their 60s and going strong. Why are they still working? Because they are greedy, they have gotten used to having a ton of money coming in, used to being able to buy a vacation house, another car, a boat, going on lots of vacations, piling up more and more savings for retirement, playing the game.

Another, more disturbing reason, is that they have been a generation so used to working hard--because, I commend them, most came from very humble beginnings, and have earned what they received by working loyally and diligently--that most of them wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they retired. The men cringe at the idea of sitting around the house with their old wives all day, with nothing to occupy their time, because they rarely acquired any hobbies or interests beyond sitting at the office or in front of a TV screen; the women cringe even more at the thought of having to deal with their husband being around the house all day, when they have grown accustomed to their peace and quiet. And so the men continue to work and the women let them.

It is too bad that they don't realize we are a generation that works even harder, even longer--for much less. And that sad reality only makes us want to work less, only fuels our cynicism, only further chips away at our faith in humanity, at our hope for the future.

I want every Baby Boomer reading this (are there any?) to look at themself in the mirror and think about what kind of world--moral, intellectual, physical--he or she has left us.

What reasons do we have not to be cynical and apathetic?

Hey, Broseph--pass the bong and let's disappear into a fantasy world once again...it's so much better than reality. You get that job at Starbucks yet? Oh, you just finished your stint at Coffee University and are waiting for an offer? Shit. I should do that--I'd love to make $10 an hour...


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Bonus thought for the day:

As Lord Acton once said: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

I think it is interesting that most people repeat this quote as "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." It leaves out one of the most important aspects of his insightful observation. Power corrupts, sure--but, more importantly, more simply, power attracts the wrong kind of people. And so we are smart to be wary of them, to keep watch over them, to be fearful of ulterior motives. To not do so would be ignorant and emboldening to them. As they have proven time and time again...

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