More snakes alive

As we enter the season of Advent, let me just say this: nothing says “holiday spirit” like letting loose a few score poisonous snakes in a tax office to protest officials demanding bribes, as reported in the Telegraph.

The story itself is weird enough; what makes it really striking (so to speak) is the video. I’m not quite understanding why there are still people in the office—I would certainly have beat feet at the first sign of a snake head. And I’m also unclear about the tactics of flapping cloths at the snakes.

I have to say that I see a lot of what we in the software business call “applications” for cobras: IRS offices; the DMV; shopping at Walmart (if you’ve run out of pepper spray). Don’t like the review your boss gave you? Drop a few snakes in her cube. Unhappy with the tip a diner left? Add a little “something” to his credit card receipt.

Why—Congress alone would be worth an entire colony of cobras.

Truly, the world would work a lot better if people packed poisonous reptiles.

And, as long as I’m on a slither, so to speak, the Telegraph has further video of a family jaunt that suddenly included a water moccasin popping out of the windscreen wiper vent.

What I don’t get is that they continue driving for so long after the snake appeared.

Spray art

Another Internet meme hit the global browsers when a University of California, Davis, campus cop was caught on video pepper-spraying Occupy protester, who were seated and not engaging in behavior any more threatening than planting butts on sidewalks.

Barely had the uploads made it to YouTube than Lt. John Pike started popping up in more images than Princess Beatrice’s Royal Wedding hat. Keep clicking through the pages of the Tumblr site to see Pike appear in Picasso’s Guernica, at various iterations of the Last Supper and Hopper’s Diner.

I find this absolutely fascinating—the instant commentary on art, society, protest, police overreaction; in fact, pretty much everything you got going.

A few weeks ago, when the Libyans were closing in on Gaddafi, I scoured the Web, sure I’d find the Colonel popping up in the White House Situation Room, the Republican debates, even the Royal Wedding. It seemed to me that Where’s Muammar? was a natural for this sort of visual witticism.

But evidently I was wrong.

I’m going to have to do this myself—Photoshop? Illustrator? It just looks like too much fun, and you don’t have to worry about coming up with le mot juste.

Flying to hell

I drove into work yesterday morning hearing the news that American Airlines parent company AMR has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It seems that their senior management took longer than anyone has expected to run the business into the ground, although their brand-new CEO blames labor costs, fuel prices and everything in the universe except their own boneheadedness.

What this does is allow them to stiff their vendors, screw their employees and cock a snook at their customers, while continuing to pay themselves handsomely. Legally.

I used to prefer American to other carriers, but I wouldn’t like to think about what the flying experience is going to be with them for the next year or so. The reporter this morning did say they’ll keep their frequent flier program going, but I rather suspect that your miles aren’t going to do much to ameliorate overbooked flights, cumulative fees for every aspect of travel or the risk of an antiquated fleet that’s serviced in Mexico.

(The only good thing I can think of is that at least it isn't United Airlines.)

It’s a strange economy we live in where corporations (which have been declared “persons” by our Supreme Court) can engage in anti-social that in actual persons would result in criminal prosecution.

Some of us are definitely more equal than others in this Animal Farm.

Shedding light

I know times are tough, and businesses are trying to cut costs wherever they can. A my current place of employment has certainly had its problems recently, resulting in not only laying off more than 10,000 employees but also (even worse) senior management embarking on “transformation initiatives” to try to save the corporate bacon.

(You’ll recall that this is the company that needed five layers of management approval to authorize spending $17 on a mouse for me.)

But I do think they’ve hit the bottom: cubes here have a personal light embedded in the cabinet over each desk, which is kind of necessary because the company seems to have rigged the overheads so our floor resembles nothing so much as a mushroom ranch. I don’t use mine a whole lot, but occasionally I need to see something besides my clapped-out laptop.

So imagine my surprise when I went to switch it on yesterday morning and found that someone had removed the light bulb. The one in the lamp over the other desk in my cube was also missing. As were the bulbs in several unoccupied cubes.

Seriously? Are they collecting these things to sell on eBay? Does the CEO need an extra Aubusson rug for his house in Santa Cruz?

(And yes—I did find an empty cube that still had a bulb and I nicked it. Sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.)

Bulken Balkans

So I’ve been watching this Military Channel series on people who collaborated with the Nazis. It’s called, amazingly enough, “Nazi Collaborators”. And it is actually imparting some interesting information.

There have been episodes about Pierre Laval (France), Chaim Rumkowski (the Łódź ghetto) and the Arajs Kommando (Latvia; their expert was a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina). The latest one I watched was about the Croatian Ustasha officer Dinko Šakić, subtitled “Beast of the Balkans”. 

(And here one would have to specify which Beast of the Balkans, because there are so many from that region who've spent lifetimes earning that epithet. Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić are only two of the most recent.)

As you know, TV networks these days muck up the video with a permanent logo at one corner of the screen (in case you’ve forgotten what channel you’re watching), and often pop up little notices about future shows, because I guess they’re worried that the one you’re viewing isn’t interesting enough to hold your attention.

The Military Channel does all these things, plus splashing a banner reminding you what program you’re watching.

But as I idly noted that, here’s what really caught my eye:

Fine—whatever. Then:

Uh—seriously? All the people processing this stuff & you didn’t catch that?

I checked at the screen they broadcast after every commercial (all nine of them),and they did indeed know what geographical region Šakić was the beast of:

I don’t know what to say. Except that…Well, no—I just don’t know what to say.

Black day in the stores

Black Friday has descended upon us, as it does every year on this day.

As you may know, Black Friday traditionally marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. It’s the day after Thanksgiving Thursday and is also the turning point for American retailers—the day that they move from the red to the black in their account ledgers.

(First of all, I don’t get that—how is it possible that businesses can run in the red for almost 11 months year after year, and still stay in, you know, business? Without being airlines, I mean?)

That “official start” part of it has been blurring for years—you see Christmas (or “Holiday”, if you prefer; but—let’s face it—all that red, green, gold and silver stuff really doesn’t connote any other celebration I can think of) displays in shops cropping up at the end of September. And this year I noticed my first Christmas-themed TV commercial on the afternoon of Halloween.

But I’ve observed a couple of things about Black Friday this time around.

The Friday thing is really morphing into Thursday—you know, Thanksgiving.

For some time retailers have announced the holiday shopping season with early store openings and “doorbuster” sales—prices for leader items that are insanely low but only last for the first two hours a store is open on the Friday. (They’re designed to bring in shopping swarms whipped to a spending frenzy resembling the ardor of sports fans. And they work, producing mobs with the sensibilities of an English football mob.) Those “early” openings have crept back around the clock: 6 a.m.; 5 a.m.; 3 a.m. But until last year no one had the chutzpah to violate the Truly American Holiday.

That’s when Toys R Us broke the sacrosanct barrier and opened at 2200 on Thanksgiving.

This year TRU opened at 2100 on Thursday, beating out Walmart by an hour. Kohl’s, Best Buy and Macy’s opened at midnight. Sears appears to be the Poky Little Puppy, holding out until 0400 today.

(I see that Kmart were open from 0600 to 2100 yesterday. But they've been doing that for some time. Not that it appears to have helped their bottom line.)

And, of course, those who couldn’t wait until even Thursday evening have been finding “specials” online from these and other retailers. Amazon has got into the act big time this year.

Moreover, while the retail trade referred to it as Black Friday, the day’s offerings used to be universally advertised as “after-Thanksgiving” sales. This year they’re calling a spade a, well—you know. In both print and broadcast, businesses are touting Black Friday sales. I give you Walmart, Kohl’s, Best Buy & Macy’s by way of example.

I suppose those who favor transparency in business may view this as a positive step—no attempt at playing this as anything but what it is, retailers’ desperate campaign to push merchandise to make up for months of misreading both the economy and consumers’ minds. Not even “holiday” or “post-Thanksgiving”; just “show us the money”. “And do it now.”

I am curious about how Americans feel about spending out this year, given the global economy and the fact that our elected officials on their best day are useless (as opposed to pernicious, which is what they are most of the time). Unless you’re a corporate executive or hedge fund manager, you’re either unemployed or worried that your job could be cut at any moment. How good do the deals have to be to get you to bail out the big box stores the way we did the banks and auto companies?

No matter what you call the day or when it starts?

Turkey du jour

Ah, Thanksgiving. & in addition to the inevitable “worst day in the year to travel” stories, the media are churning out “tips for a safe holiday” pieces like this.

Ref: the turkey hazards, a few things come to mind.

For the longest time I really, really hated the traditional Thanksgiving meal because the turkeys of my childhood were always overcooked. (Plus, I never liked gravy, cooked stuffing makes me gag & my mother’s idea of yams was opening a can. The only thing not revolting about the whole affair was the mashed potatoes—& the lack of green bean casserole—until Mom discovered instant potato flakes.) It didn’t occur to me that there was a way to roast poultry without turning it into a tasteless cardboard-like food substance. Which you had to eat for days.

Evidently this is not a widespread problem. Maybe the undercooking comes from not thoroughly thawing a frozen turkey before tossing it in the oven? They always tell you to thaw it in the refrigerator for at least a couple of days, but I suppose people forget & try to make up for it by wishing it into room temperature.

(Hmm—well, blow me: the USDA officially says it’s okay to cook a bird from the frozen state. Only it takes 50% longer than the recommended times if you do that. I’m betting that’s another instruction that’s hard for people with restless relatives milling about the house to carry out.)

You get all these warnings about the whole raw poultry process—wash your hands after touching it; disinfect any surfaces it’s been on; cook it to 165°. & I wonder how it is that my sibs & I survived to maturity because we did none of that because we knew none of that. (But we do now, because of course now we know.)

But here’s my helpful tip for countering any dodgy parts of Thanksgiving dinner:

An Irish colleague of mine while I worked in Britain told me one day that her mother had always advised her that if you eat anything you think might be unsalubrious, down a shot of whisky as soon as you’re able. It’s a kind of preemptive strike & will disinfect your personal plumbing.

Shortly after we had that conversation I went to Köln for the Christkindlmarkt & my first meal, on the way from hotel to market, was chicken, which I realized after several bites was distinctly undercooked. But Christmas markets have stalls selling Glühwein, & you have the option of getting it “mit schnapps”—cognac or rum. So I ordered myself a comforting mug of hot mulled wine with rum & I was perfectly fine.

(I also realized that the bratwurst you get at any Christkindlmarkt are yummy, so no need to worry about finding food on your way to or from.)

Naturally, I am not a physician, nor do I play one on television, your mileage may vary & no deposit/no return. But it couldn’t hurt.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Not Maru, Part 2

Not sure why but everything seems to be turning up cats these days. Here’s the latest: a hair-dressing kitten.

Personally, while I give the guy props for holding it together for the camera, I suspect he smeared tuna on his head.

Super-duper

I know you’re expecting me to express my disgust at the shocking, utterly shocking, failure of the soi-disant Congressional “super-committee” to come up with any kind of plan to deal with the federal deficit. But you can get that from anyone.

Here’s something to rival the super-flop: a soi-disant “doctor” with issues of his/her own in Florida has been arrested for (and I swear I am not making this up) injecting cement, super glue and tire sealant into the buttocks of a 30-year-old woman. The “patient”, who developed MRSA, paid Oneal Ron Morris $700 for the procedure.

Personally, I think it says something that a lot of women pay a lot of money to have fat sucked out of their butts, while others will pay, well, $700 to have their butts enlarged.

I just don’t know what it says.

Feline furnishings

Following on the feline theme of last Friday, it has come to my attention that there’s at least one company that sells kitty-related furniture.

I understand the cat shelves and kitty condos (AKA towers). But this one, the “Kitt-In Box” just doesn’t work for me.

Anyone who’s ever been remotely associated with a cat knows that it’s going to park itself where it wants to park itself. Regardless of whatever care or expense you’ve gone to to guide it to an area that’s convenient for you, it’s just going to do whatever it wants to.

Get over it.