by Lee Camp
Copyright ©2012 by Lee Camp. All rights reserved.
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The MOMENT OF CLARITY e-book was produced by Fearless Books in association with Moment Of Clarity Books (publisher of the print version) and author Lee Camp.
Cover art: Jami Sherman Triplett
Photography:
CS Muncy
www.CSMuncyPhotography.com
Contents
A Moment Of Clarity Brought To You By LeeCamp.net
Let’s Teach Children Real American History
We Need A Secondhand Military Draft
The Endangered Species No One Is Talking About
Overprotection Of The Cheesecake Brains
Ignore The Wisconsin Protests And Instead LOOK OVER THERE!
War Criminals Sell A Shit-Ton Of Books
What Do Glenn Beck And Hugh Hefner Have In Common?
The Answer To Police Brutality?
We Can’t Control The Monsters We Create
Has The Internet Made Us All Douchebags?
Corporations Pay Less In Taxes Than You
Is Our Culture Just A Big Pile Of [feces]?
Does Our Society Only Value Manipulation?
Is Wall Street Set Up To Reward Evil?
Hedge Funds Make More In An Hour Than You’ll Make In A Half Century
Ugly People Earn 12% Less In The Workplace
Is A Two-Party System Really Democracy?
What We Should Really Ask Ourselves About The Death of Osama Bin Laden
Will Computers Take Over The Earth?
We Have More People In Jail Than Any Other Country
How Much Privacy Should We Give Away In The Name Of Security?
Is A Human Life Worth Nine Million Dollars?
The Worst People In The Whole World
The U.S. Government Is Giving Guns To Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Cartel
Are College Students Now Only Taught To Fuck The Little Guy?
Hey Millennial Generation, Get Out Of The Basement!
Let’s Take Apathy Out To The Shed And Beat It With A Shovel
Top Ten Ways To Punch Corporations In The Balls
No One Is On The Edge Of Glory
Executing An Innocent Man And Other Summertime Games
Anthony Weiner Should Have Resigned Only If His Knob Killed Innocent Civilians
Now We Have To Wage War Against GROLAR BEARS??
The Gretest Challenje Faceng The Unitid Stayts
Without Unions America Would Red, White, And Blow!
You Can’t Spell CORRUPT Without C-O-U-R-T
Is Our Wildlife On Antidepressants?
Advertisements Are Straight-Up Assholes
Stealing Water From Children And Other Good Business Practices
Racism Doesn’t Work Very Well Anymore
Getting Pissed On By The Power Elite
Are Our Schools Crushing Creativity?
It’s Time For Subliminal Truth
Television Will Be The End Of Us
YOU TOO Can Get In On For-Profit Tragedy!
What If We Thought About Thinking?
Are Light Bulbs REALLY The Most Pressing Issue In The Country?
A New and Exciting Reason You Shouldn’t Be Racist
Health Insurance Companies Using Psychological Trickery — What Are The Odds?!
The Truth About The Riots In London And Chile
In A Blind World, The One-Eyed Man Is King
What Do Peanuts Have To Do With Terrorism?
Four Degrees Removed From Reality
How To Decrease Corporate Power Once And For All
My Calm And Collected Assessment Of The GOP Field
The Police Are On The Wrong Side Of Occupy Wall Street
The TRUTH About Occupy Wall Street
Wall Street Is Dirtier Than Occupy Wall Street
The Numbers Behind Occupy Wall Street
It’s Time To Pull America Out Of The Stone Age
Why Don’t The Occupy Protestors Stop Whining And Just Work Hard?
Occupy Wall Street Has Proven We Don’t Have Free Speech
CEOs And Pedophiles/Corporate Greed And Touching Children
How To Rig An Election In Just A Few Easy Steps
Afraid To Stand Up Against Your Corporate Oppressors? Try Some Occupy!
Kim Kardashian, Occupy Wall Street, And Credit Default Swaps
You Can’t Pepper Spray A Mental Awakening!
Occupy Wall Street Is A Thought Revolution
Introduction
When I started writing humor at age 13, I couldn’t have known I would become a stand-up comedian. When I started doing stand-up at age 18, I couldn’t have known I would ultimately make my comedy about world issues and cultural commentary. And when I started “Moment Of Clarity” on February 1st, 2011 — a short bi-weekly rant which often revolved around the corporate pillaging of our nation and the world and the collapse of a meaningful life — I couldn’t have known that the Occupy movement would explode into our nation’s zeitgeist on September 17th of that year. The same anger and frustration that fuels Occupy fueled many M.O.C. episodes even before Occupy began. The first M.O.C. to attract the attention of tens of thousands of people was “You Are Not Alone” in which I say,
…You are not alone. There are millions of us who can’t see a future in the way things are going, who regardless of political affiliation are — first and foremost — anti-corporate ownership of our society, and who are willing to stand up to let it be known.
In May David Degraw, of AmpedStatus.com, asked me to participate in the first attempt at Occupy. I agreed and created a video promoting the June 14th “Move Your Money” action. The action called for people to withdraw their money from the big banks that continue to screw regular Americans out of every dime and dream we have. It was to be done in coordination with an occupation near the NY Stock Exchange. I made a video entitled “Top Ten Ways To Punch Big Banks In The Nads” (I always use the most sophisticated language), and I moved my money out of the big bank I had lazily continued to use for 10 years. Unfortunately the occupation did not take — but like a rash, we would flare up another day.
On September 17th we tried again, and a few hundred protesters gave birth to Occupy Wall Street. The energy down there that first night was amazing. Those of us who had been screaming about this stuff for months and years finally watched as America woke up. Besides just being a participant in Occupy Wall Street I got the opportunity to perform stand-up comedy at Zuccotti Park as well. To watch my live performance, go here:
Although screaming from a wall on a drizzly night with no microphone to 1,500 people is not the ideal scenario for a comedy gig, that performance was like nothing I had ever experienced. It truly felt like we were sitting on the crest of a wave that is a consciousness revolution. I went on to perform and/or protest at Occupy DC, Occupy Chicago, Occupy Asheville, NC, Occupy Milwaukee, Occupy Toronto, Occupy Ohio University, Occupy Madison, WI, and Occupy Montreal. Each one was different and alive in its own way. But they were all the same in their mission — bring this world back to the people over the corporations and the wealthiest 1%.
In the following pages, you’ll read the transcripts of roughly 90 Moments Of Clarity. Some have important messages, and some are more hilarity than revolution, some more desperation than evolution. Some are meant to create debate, and some are meant to end it. I’ve kept the transcripts here nearly identical to the words first spoken in the videos on my website (LeeCamp.net). Occasionally I changed some wording — usually just to make it easier to understand or grammatically correct. However, you will quickly notice that these “rants” were never meant to be written down. They’re written the way I would speak them. There are many sentence fragments and run-on sentences. I didn’t change most of those for this book because I want them to read in your head as I said them in the videos. Comedy is very much in the timing — so I hope you have your game face on. You’re about to become a comedian.
This book is dedicated to the millions around the world who have stood up in the past year. Some have died, some have been pepper sprayed, some have been arrested, some have been detained indefinitely like Private Bradley Manning. I’ve had friends arrested for chanting, dancing, tweeting, and sitting. And others have been beaten in the head with police batons. But in the end, the unimaginatively wealthy who defend the ravaging of this world will have their money, but as the band The Darlings say “we’ll have a soul.”
The Mayans said the world ends in 2012. That’s because another world is possible.
Keep fighting.
Lee Camp
PS:
At the beginning of each chapter of this book, you will see a URL
just underneath the title. That’s where you can find the video
version of each chapter. If you get a chance, subscribe to the Moment
Of Clarity videos at
Moment Of Clarity is also a twice-a-week free podcast available at http://www.LeeCamp.net, on iTunes, at Stitcher.com, or as an Android app. Guests on the podcast have included Janeane Garofalo, Greg Palast, Chris Hedges, John Oliver from “the Daily Show,” comedian Stewart Lee, The Yes Men, and the creator of the Zeitgeist Movement, Peter Joseph.
Jami Sherman Triplett drew the wonderful cover to this book. And the best photographer in the world, CS Muncy, took all the photos. You can find all his work at
A Moment Of Clarity Brought To You By LeeCamp.net
Everything in our lives is owned or materialized or commoditized. Your clothes are brought to you by Levis, life-sustaining water provided to you by Poland Springs, human interaction brought to you by Facebook or Skype, love brought to you by e-Harmony, good times brought to you by Heineken, bad times brought to you by too much Heineken, hardcore sex brought to you by Trojan’s New Icy Fire Crotch Cream!, answers to all your problems brought to you by Oprah, laughter brought to you by Tyler Perry’s Medea Goes To Fuck A Fiddle! (or whatever the hell it’s called), security and/or death provided by Smith & Wesson, mindless entertainment brought to you by the National Football League, panic and fear brought to you by Fox News, war brought to you by Lockheed Martin, Shell, Boeing and Blackwater, the ability to take your 9 to 5 job and turn it into 24-hour slave labor brought to you by Blackberry or iPhone, and finally deep depression brought to you by the sudden realization that nothing in our lives is REAL.
But don’t worry. There are pills that can fix that Moment Of Clarity — they’re brought to you by Prozac.
And this book is brought to you by http://www.LeeCamp.net.
Let’s Teach Children Real American History
I have an idea to help with education in this country. It’s a crazy idea, so please buckle some kind of seatbelt. Here it is: What if we taught children American history that actually HAPPENED? Enough of this “Well, the white man met the natives, and they shared squash. And it was DELICIOUS!” When kids get lied to, they grow up to be first-rate douchetards. It’s a proven fact. So let’s tell them the fucking truth for a change. The settlers slaughtered the natives because the settlers had guns and Satan on their side while the natives only had DREAMCATCHERS! It’s not easy to win a war when you’re trying to stab someone with a peace pipe! And let’s tell the kids that the founding fathers had slaves and Columbus didn’t discover jack shit, and Texas was stolen, and mommy didn’t really move to Canada for a job, she’s in Cleveland fucking the guy who used to mow our lawn. You know, THE TRUTH!
Bullshit does not make for a good foundation on which to build your reality. Have you ever stood on a pile of shit? It’s VERY slippery. Not a good foundation for a worldview.
Plus, that dysfunctional, messy history of America—at least it’s interesting. How about that for a good reason? For the first time ever, history class would fascinate the fuck outta those kids! They’d be sitting there with eyes the size of dinner plates, going, “Whoa, whoa, whoa — Jefferson was diddling who? Woodrow Wilson was a white supremacist? Lincoln was manic-depressive? Jefferson was nailin’ WHO?” That’s an exciting history class! Kids would be hiding under the bleachers after school reading the steamy details of Ben Franklin bangin’ a whole slew of French inventor groupies who would wait in his stage coach for him after the Renaissance Man Show at the Coliseum.
And kids would walk away with the lesson that the nation was built not by unknowable super heroes but by real men and women — people who were fucked in the head like all of us and lived in fucked-up situations. Then the kids would realize, “Hey, I’m fucked in the head too! Maybe I can do something impressive. Maybe I can land somewhere with 20 million inhabitants and claim I discovered it! I’m gonna make something of myself.” It would be motivational.
Wikileaks For President
The moment Wikileaks started I knew it was the most wonderful invention since Oprah created a sexual preference that’s neither gay nor straight. All I needed to know about Wikileaks to know I loved it was that it was making rich, powerful assholes SHIT THEMSELVES. My new favorite sport was watching them squirm and bitch and whine and shake and piss themselves and then shit themselves and then wash those trousers, rinse and repeat! It’s better than any other sport. Seriously, if you had a choice between watching a tennis match or watching the U.S. Department of Defense go, “We didn’t want people to know about that!”, which would you choose?
Yet our media acted like the entire story was about the allegations of rape against Julian Assange. Sure, if there’s actual evidence, then he should be put on trial. BUT in terms of Wikileaks and the hard cold truth it’s putting out there, Assange’s rapey vibe doesn’t fucking matter. He’s just a figurehead. That’s like saying the guy who stood in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square didn’t matter at all because he once went down on a panda bear. He gave the world an iconic and courageous image of a brutal regime using force to crush the dreams and freedoms of their people… besides, maybe the panda liked it. You don’t know. Pandas don’t get much action. There’s only three left.
Just Don’t Touch My Junk!
We are a beaten down people. We’ve been knocked down and kicked and humiliated. We’re a shadow of our former selves. We used to be about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! Live free or die! Give me liberty or give me death! How did we go from that all the way down to, “When I’m at the airport, just please don’t touch my junk!”
You can take away freedom of press, freedom of speech, and spy on my emails — just please don’t grab my junk! You can go to war for no reason, take away freedom of religion, and destroy our public schools — but please don’t fondle my little dude. You can discriminate against my friends and family, send my uncle to Guantanamo and my cousin to the front lines — BUT for the love of God, don’t take a hold of my sack! You can charge me $30 for a fucking carry-on, $20 for a movie, and $5 for a can of soda, BUT I draw the line at inspecting my wiener for radioactive residue.
You can check my credit history to see if I’m worthy of a job at McDonald’s, you can give me an STD test before approving me for the loan I need in order to purchase a frappuccino — BUT please don’t grab my shaft like a putting wedge when I’m boarding an airplane at 8 a.m. to see my mother! We’ll stand for a hell of a lot, but an involuntary handjob before noon IS SIMPLY OVER THE LINE!
Losing A Game Of Solitaire
So a couple years ago it came out that the United States, in all our wisdom, is funding both sides of the war in Afghanistan. BOTH sides. We are paying hundreds of millions to the Taliban so that they will let our trucks through to supply our troops! WHICH MEANS we are paying the Taliban MILLIONS so that we can fight THE TALIBAN. That’s right, we are losing a game of SOLITAIRE!
Here’s how to explain this more clearly. Do you remember when your crazy uncle, who looked a little like Terry Bradshaw in tight pants, would drink too much at the Christmas party, and then he would get tired of grabbing your 13-year-old sister’s ass, so he’d come up to you when you were eight, grab your wrist, and start using your own hand to smack you in the face while continually saying, “Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself?” Do you remember that? Yeah? Well, that’s what we’re doing in Afghanistan EXCEPT there’s no uncle! It’s just us punching ourselves repeatedly in the face and occasionally the balls. AND we’re paying billions for the privilege to do it. We are playing a game of tic-tac-toe ALONE.
No wonder some scrappy insurgents wearing only rags and sandals are able to compete with the most powerful military in the world — THEY HAVE US ON THEIR SIDE! It’s like we’re beating ourselves on the ass with a paddle and then suing ourselves for child abuse! We’re eating our own legs off and then wondering why no matter how much we eat, we never seem to gain weight.
I think the only answer is to dump more money into it. Just pallets of cash raining down on them. At some point the Taliban will be like, “Please no more money! Just leave! Our kids are choking on dollar bills, our goats are buried alive. No more money!”
And one last thing: I’m starting a campaign to move Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 to the nonfiction section of your local library.
An Ode To All The Homophobes
There’s still a lot people out there who are against gay marriage, violently against it. They run around trying to give gay people self-help books on how to tone down the gay, or cover up the gay, or channel the gay into athletics or community service. And I’m sure that all works like a charm. “Yeah, he used to be gay but now he’s a hell of a softball player! Instead of all the gay sex, he’s become a world-class Jenga competitor.”
A lot of anti-gay feelings out there. So I’ll make you a deal. Everyone who wants to be anti-gay and lesbian, you go ahead and do that, BUT we’re taking away EVERYTHING from your life that is gay or gay-friendly or gay-like or gay-inspired or bisexual. You’re not allowed near it. So that means no more Ellen DeGeneres Show or Oprah or Elton John, Michael Jackson music, Lady Gaga or Madonna. No more Rosie O’Donnell anything or Professional Wrestling!
No more musicals or dancing with the stars, no more guys night out, college fraternities. No more lifting weights at the gym with the other boys spotting you while you’re sweating in a low-cut spandex shirt, no more movies starring Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, The Rock, or that werewolf from the Twilight Movies. And no more adults watching Twilight movies.
No more Serena Williams, WNBA, or parades of any of kind. No more watching college girls make out with each other or dance together or jump up and down in wet tee-shirt contests together. Obviously no more gay weddings but also no more straight weddings. Nothing’s gayer than a straight wedding! Come on, you’ve got men crying and singing “YMCA.”
No more field hockey for women or yoga for men. No more celebrating Halloween or getting haircuts. No more slow motion during football games. And no more shaving your balls — I don’t care if you have a forest down there and it itches like bestiality with a porcupine. Too bad, you shoulda thought of that when you were hating gays. And finally — no more higher education. Plato came up with that and he was gay.
So there ya go. Don’t go near any of that stuff. And if you do, we will not only force you to support gay marriage, we’ll force you into a gay marriage. Deal?
We Need A Secondhand Military Draft
I’m not the first to mention this, but it’s a serious problem that we don’t have a draft in this country. Our ridiculous wars are fought by the poor and the bored. Occasionally there’s someone fighting purely and 100% because they feel a “call of service,” a duty to their country, but that’s becoming increasingly rare. I mean, it’s getting harder and harder to convince someone of their obligation to fight for the land of Willow fucking Smith and the best-selling book Stuff on My Cat.
So, many are fighting out of a need for college tuition, and when you’re willing to kill and be killed for college money, it doesn’t mean the war is noble. It means college is too fucking expensive. But the end result is that our wars are fought by the poor so the rich and powerful don’t have to send their little asshole golden boys off to battle. If Jenna Bush, or Malia Obama, or T-Bone Cameron, or Sammy Two-Toes Biden could be drafted, it would be a different world. We would be a lot slower to go to war. But the draft, at least in the US, is never going to happen. The rich won’t allow it.
I think the answer is a different kind of draft. Each American citizen gets the privilege, the god-given right to send one OTHER person off to war. Anyone they want. It would be a second-hand draft. You can pick anyone you want under 60 and over 5, as long as they aren’t gay. Because Lord only knows what would happen if we had gay people in the military — all hell would break out. They’d be too busy making catty comments about each other’s hair to bomb anybody. All it takes is one poorly-timed remark about Jennifer Anniston’s cellulite problem and an entire platoon is wiped out!
So yeah, second-hand draft and whoever you pick is not allowed to draft you back. This would solve multiple problems — we’d have enough men and women in the military, it wouldn’t only be rich or poor people, black or white people, AND all of our society’s assholes would be sent to battle. I mean, you would only get one for the entire war, so you’d have to choose wisely. But still, someone flicks you off in traffic? Off to the front lines. Someone sneezes on you in the subway? Off to Afghanistan. Someone refuses to go on a date with you? Send ‘em to Iraq. Ugly people making out on the bus? Pakistan. Douchebag police officer? Front lines. Someone gives you crabs? Guantanamo.
Most importantly, here at home, everyone would be so fucking friendly to each other to avoid the draft. We would all be SO NICE for once! People would give strangers handjobs on the street just to show how neighborly they are. Everyone would do favors all the time:
“Sure, I’ll help you move apartments, buddy! What are friends for?! What’s your name again?”
“Sure, ma’am, I will definitely look after your pit bull with a thyroid problem and a colostomy bag for the summer. I’ve got nothing but time!”
It’s a brilliant system, if I may say so myself. And Sammy Two-Toes Biden has had it too easy for too long!
American-Made Tear Gas
Apparently a lot of the military weaponry being used in the peaceful, sunshiny country of Egypt right now is made with American tax dollars. Good to see my dollars are going to something like concussion grenades instead of gay shit like pallets of food or pussy bottles of water for the thirsty. Fuck the thirsty. I mean, don’t fuck the thirsty. That would be rude. But FUCK the thirsty!
And apparently the tear gas canisters being fired at the Egyptian people even say “Made in the USA” on them. And you know why that pisses me off? Because NOTHING is made in the USA anymore! Nothing. You can’t find a fucking toothpick that was made in America. American flags are made in Guam. Your “America is #1” t-shirt was made in Indonesia. Your apple pie was made in Canada. Heidi Montag in a red, white, and blue bikini might have been photographed in California but those tits were made in India. Fellas, even your daughter was made in Cancun while you were in Pittsburgh. Sorry to break it to you this way.
How dare the Egyptians get the American shit! I want some American shit because we’re number one! If there are Made-in-the-USA tear gas canisters out there, I think we should use them on our own people first. Then, if we have some left over, we can ship them overseas. But let’s take care of our own, goddamn it! It just makes sense.
The Endangered Species No One Is Talking About
I think we’re worrying about the wrong endangered species. There are endangered species all around us, and we don’t try to save them, we don’t try to rescue them, we don’t put them in a tiny four-foot cages to keep them safe from the slightly lighter misery of being extinct.
Think of all the species that are nearly extinct: like middle-class sweater-dog or the calm, rational right-wing American. There are only, like, 12 of those left. We’re almost out of circus-enslaved elephants, and the even-tempered political pundit. The last one of those was spotted two years ago on the Staten Island ferry. Not to mention the intelligent, not-a-failed actress meteorologist, which can be spotted by its lack of amazing tits pressed up against a hot northern front. And although I don’t miss them, the red-faced climate-change deniers are almost done with. The last one was seen a week ago on the Glenn Beck Show and was immediately tranquilized and taken to a serene park where it can live out its days among the gargantuanly idiotic and the diehard creationists. Singer-songwriters are hardly hanging in there. One of the final remaining wild ones was seen six months ago on the Santa Monica pier with three nickels and a quarter in his guitar case. The saddest part was that he was playing “Sweet Caroline” because that’s what people wanna hear.
The proud intellectual is nearly extinct and even closer to eradication is the non-intellectual who respects intellectuals. Also, worldly Americans under the age of 35 are barely hanging in there. If you find one of those, first of all, make a wish because it’s like finding a four-leaf clover. Secondly, you have to make sure they’re of the true worldly species and not the “I spent a semester in France when I was 18 only speaking to other American college students and unfortunately I don’t remember it very well because I was coked out of my mind the whole time” species.
I’m just saying, a lot of things are endangered. The World Wildlife Fund needs to get their ass in gear.
Overprotection Of The Cheesecake Brains
There’s no more LIFE left in life. Every child is covered in helmets and padding and goggles and vaccines and a sign that says “No peanuts.” Every day they stumble off to pre-school looking like they’re off to fight the Mongol horde. I’m working on inventing a helmet for toddlers that just releases a steady ooze of Purell hand sanitizer and sunblock, thereby continually dowsing their entire feeble bodies. Kind of a protection goo they would be covered in, you know, a safety jizz. We’d have infomercials running 24/7: “The world is a scary fucking place, between peanut allergies and surprise asteroid storms, trans-fat French fries, and Republicans. You never know what could happen to your little precious shit head. So make sure you cover him or her in Safety Jizz!”
And the helmet would also be like one of those beer helmets — it would have two large canisters of health food shakes made of blended vegetables and NutriGrain bars and ostrich jerky — or whatever healthy people eat — all blended together. And there would be straws coming down from the helmet. But because eating and drinking are fucking dangerous — you might choke, you might drown, you might burp — those straws wouldn’t go into the child’s mouth. They would be suppository straws, giving junior all the nutrients he needs right up the ol’ back door. Much safer that way, and it gives him a little pick-me-up in the morning.
And walking is dangerous too. Seventy billion people die each year while walking is a statistic I either read or made up. So we can’t have our little treasures with their soft cheesecake brains just walking straight to their deaths. I would say we put them on permanent Segways, but recently the CEO of Segway drove it off a cliff and died. So instead of walking, the toddlers would be passed around from adult to adult on cafeteria trays. They would just lie there, rolling in their safety jizz and nutrient enemas. And when they want to have fun, we would just stick their heads into giant 3D machines where they could be shown in a lifelike fashion what fun looked like back in the 1900’s when people used to have fun. Basically the whole thing would be like “The Matrix” but without bad acting.
The Wonders Of Lab-Grown Meat
Apparently scientists are already capable of growing organs in the lab, which means we’re only a few years from being able to have all our meat needs filled by lab-grown beef, pork, and chicken. It would be just like regular meat but without the annoying guilt-inducing face or cuddliness. Kind of like what Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas is as compared to Alicia Keys — you get the lab-grown meat without the confusion of a brain or personality.
Anyway, whenever I talk to people about this they go, “Ugh! I would never eat that shit! That’s not natural!” Really? You find lab-grown meat more disgusting that taking a bolt gun to a cow’s head, scooping away its intestines and carving up its still warm carcass to be mixed with a million lab-grown chemicals to create your happy meal? You think lab meat is more revolting than slitting Porky Pig’s throat, and letting him bleed out, so that we can throw some bacon on the breakfast plate? …Full disclosure: I have once wanted to brutally drain the life from Porky Pig, but it was because I was on a seven-hour flight and the three year-old next to me was watching the same eight-minute cartoon on repeat for the entire trip. Turns out three year-olds DO fit in the overhead carry-on bins. You just gotta fold ‘em properly.
And it’s not like you’re only getting the good parts in most of your burgers. If you’re lucky, if you’re lucky, everything in your Hamburger Helper once belonged to a cow or at least something that passed itself off as a cow — like a wildebeest or a giant sloth or a hippo with a hat on.
I mean, you think lab grown meat is more repulsive than whatever industrial byproducts were forced together in some unholy alliance to give birth to cheese doodles?? Or the action figurine leftover chemical paste that was used to create the nougat in your Mars Bar? Not natural? Where exactly does nougat grow? I’d like to go nougat picking sometime on a brisk fall afternoon with friends and family. Just fill my basket with some farm-fresh nougat while the kiddies ride on the tractor. Not natural? What’s natural nowadays? Anything?! Water? Look at the label on your bottle of Dasani purified water — it has sodium, magnesium sulfate, and potassium chloride in it. I think I also tasted a hint of nougat.
So the only reason you can say you prefer cow meat over lab-grown meat is if you insist you prefer your beef taco has the slight taste of memories.
Outsourcing Nuclear Meltdowns
I read in New Scientist Magazine that several US companies are outsourcing field tests of new nuclear reactors to countries with lower safety standards. That’s just a win-win situation right there. Poor countries get a little cash, and we get to freely goof around with some of the most dangerous creations mankind has to offer without worrying that we’re going to blast the fanny packs right off a white Minnesotan family with two kids and a dog. I mean, this is a great deal. Worst case scenario — we incinerate a couple of million Nepalese mountain dwellers. Big deal. How much goat cheese or cashmere do we really need?? Okay, I suppose WORST case scenario — our international nuclear reactor employees create a black hole that sucks a billion people into some parallel universe where dinosaurs still wander and the Republicans make sense and David Hasselhoff is Grand Earth King. But what are the odds of that? Five percent, tops? Worth it!
But really, this idea of outsourcing pollution and risk is pretty fucking crazy. Basically we’re taking countries that are poor — often due to our own foreign policies — and saying to them, “Here’s $1 million. We’ll start shipping our cancer into your backyard next week. Here’s some military weaponry; now where would you like us to put the chance of nuclear fallout that you so kindly agreed to house? Near the orphanage? Good call. KIDS! They don’t know what the fuck’s going on! They’re not gonna write any letters. Pleasure doin’ business with ya. Just don’t turn on that thing until we get outta the probable blast radius, then you can go to town. By the way, if you accidentally reduce your continent to a glowing charcoal briquette, we’re taking our money back.”
Obieber Care
Sadly enough, today’s Moment Of Clarity is about Justin Bieber. You know him, he’s the 12- or 14-year-old laboratory-tested Canadian kid with the first fully-realized CGI head who makes 20-year-old straight men question their sexuality and 35-year-old gay women question their haircut. I didn’t want it to be this way. I didn’t want to talk about Justin Bieber. Please know that. I didn’t want to ever mention Justin Bieber in a sentence unless I had somehow become a rapper and needed a rhyme for the sentence “That girl has a crusty beaver.”
But Justin Bieber apparently said that he doesn’t want to become a US citizen because our healthcare system is evil. He said his bodyguard (that’s right, he needs a bodyguard) had a premature baby, and the guy had to pay for thousands out of his own pocket. However, in Canada they care about a human being and wouldn’t send a new father on his way because he’s $12.48 short of the 90 grand he owes. “Sorry, sir, we need to ask you to leave. Don’t worry, we packed your preemie baby up in some bubble wrap for the trip home.”
This shows just how mangled and diseased our system is. I agree more with Justin Bieber than your average American politician on this issue. Even a tweenager whose educational focus has been hip-wiggling and memorizing Usher songs knows that charging poor people out the nose as their baby clings to life is morally disgusting. How fucking pathetic is it that I listen to John Boehner or some douche-head state representative in a three-corner Paul Revere hat, and I’m screaming at my TV screen, “What the FUCK’s the matter with you?! Jesus Christ! You might wanna plug your soul back in because it seems to have shut down due to lack of use!” But on the other hand I see a pre-pubescent pop sensation talking about health care, and I think, “He’s making some good points. What’s he running for? Senator?”
Ain’t THAT a kick to the fife and drums.
Ignore The Wisconsin Protests And Instead LOOK OVER THERE!
So I went onto Facebook yesterday, and I was posting a note saying we need to show solidarity with the protesters in Wisconsin. The governor is destroying unions with one flick of his pen and lest we forget, unions brought us tiny forgettable things like the weekend, the 9-to-5 workday, retirement with dignity, health care, an end to child labor, and 24-hour strip clubs that serve breakfast… I think I made up that last one. That was either unions or Larry Flint. Either way, they brought us everything else, and just getting children out of the work place alone was huge!! Because children are annoying and shitty workers! They don’t know how to operate a pneumatic press brake! Just making mistakes constantly, lopping off dudes’ arms. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘WHOOPSY’?! You’ve worked here three YEARS! Since you were five! You should have this shit DOWN by now!”
Point being, unions are a crucial part of our society with a noble, brave history. Go read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and tell me otherwise. So I was posting about this on Facebook and the Lord-our-Facebook, correctly judging my emotional tone, recommended in the sidebar that I “like” the fanpage for “Angry Birds,” the iPad/iPhone video game in which you slingshot woeful, highly confused woodland creatures into piles of lumber and bricks, thereby making them go from baffled birds to angry, or at least frustrated, birds.
And I feel like this is representative of the mindscape of our country and possibly all countries with access to the Internet and/or “Angry Birds.” Right when we get involved with saying something that matters, something that could truly make a difference if enough people joined together, we’re told to veer over here or look over there, stop thinking about the wrongs being perpetrated around the world and instead think about Guitar Hero or Jersey Shore.