capitalism | Observant Bystander

Archive for the 'capitalism' Category

Things that scare me

It’s a scary world out there, folks, and it’s getting scarier. I’ve been pondering a few recent events that have very scary implications for our Brave New World:

——————————————————-

Waterboarding: While the debate continues to rage about whether or not waterboarding is still being used by the CIA as an interrogation technique – whether it be at an illegal location in an Eastern bloc country, or right here at our own detainee playground in Cuba – it seems to me that the most obvious problem has been ignored: The name of the technique itself. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word ‘waterboarding’ I don’t immediately think “Ewww. THAT sounds scary”. Instead, I think New Extreme Sport!! The name sounds suspiciously similar to Snowboarding, doesn’t it? While I’m sure that our trustworthy government would never intentionallyname a torture technique (so horrible it’s against the Geneva Convention) something that sounds like a fun sport for twentysomething daredevils, I propose they consider changing the name. Maybe to something more descriptive – like Brink of Death Drowning Torture, or The You’ll- Never-Feel-the-Same-Way-About-a-Shower-Ever-Again Interrogation Technique.

—————————————————-

Osama bin Laden: Lately I’ve found the Bearded One’s videos to be more cute than scary – “Americans should all embrace Islam….” (for various reasons, one being, “because there are no taxes in Islam, only alms.” Huzzah!)

What really disturbs me, though, is this: Isn’t it obvious, from these 2004 and 2007 pictures of Mr. Crazy Himself, that a shipment of Just for Men had been hijacked from its regular route to Sun City, Arizona, to a group of caves, somewhere in Afghanistan? And how, pray tell, did this happen?

The US had better get control over this shipping container security problem before we start seeing something like this on our store shelves:

If Just for Men can help this man elude capture for over six years, imagine what it can do for you!

——————————————————————

Political campaigns that never stop: First it started with holidays. Unable to allow its customers one solid week of freedom from thinking about upcoming holidays, stores have set up a continuously rotating set of holiday displays. New Years, Valentines, St Patrick’s, Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, 4th of July, Flag Day, Labor Day, Christmas/Halloween, Christmas/Thanksgiving, and finally, Christmas/Christmas.

Not content being left out of our year-long holiday gorging and spending sprees, the 2008 political campaigning started mere weeks after Bush’s reelection in 2004. The fact that you actually made the mistake of contributing to a political campaign once – ten years ago – will now entitle you to a neverending stream of meddlesome phone calls and mailers, all with their collective hands out crying ‘More, Please’. I predict that we’ll never again know a time when someone’s not campaigning to be our next President. Much like seeing store Christmas displays in August (and there’s really nothing that says Festive! like a fully decorated Christmas tree next to a display of wailing, motion-sensitive goblins) we’ll complain about it, but no one will actually listen.

————————————————

Birth Control for 11-year-olds: I have only one question – what’s scarier? A pregnant eleven year old, or an eleven year old on birth control?

—————————————————
Last but not least – The Hollywood Writer’s Strike: This is perhaps the scariest thing of all. Personally, I don’t care if most of what passes for television writing bites the dust for awhile. However, I’m afraid of what this means for the one and only show I actually care about – Lost. It’s not enough that the loyal viewers of what is perhaps the most interesting and intelligent show on TV today have to endure a 9 month wait for new episodes. No – now that January is finally closing in on us, the fucking writers have to go on strike. I’ve heard that there are eight Lost episodes ready, but where does that leave the story? I’ll tell you where – right in the middle of “gotta know what happens next” How about right in the middle of revealing who or what the Smoke Monster is? Or right in the middle of explaining how and why everyone got off the island and why Jack wants to go back? Or maybe right in the middle of showing us what happened to Evil Ben. Me no likey. No sir. Why can’t they let the Lost writers go back to work?

Anyway, I think the writers are just big babies. They should be glad to be getting paid to write anything, much less asking for internet content royalties. Hey, where’s MY internet content royalties? Huh?

Buncha babies.

Capitalism Rules!

Published October 9, 2007 capitalism , smoking , work 12 Comments

I quit smoking and had about 6 packs of cigarettes left in the carton, so what to do? Nonsmokers would (naively) say “Just throw them away; they’re death sticks and the trashcan is the only place they belong!” Sure, I could do that – but to throw these precious, expensive-as-hell nuggets of nicotine in the trash would have simply broken this dedicated capitalist’s heart. Hey, I paid good money for those cigarettes, and while smoking them would have been like burning my money up, I would never consciously throw money into a trashcan.

That’s just crazy.

So yesterday, I got a little box, filled it up with my six leftover packs, took it out to the warehouse and left it there with a sign that said $2.00 per pack. Our company is chock full of hacking, wheezing smokers like my former self – which is quite the norm for our industry – and since smokes go for well over $3.00 a pack here in Missouri, I figured they’d sell out lickety split. Interestingly, this would not be the case.

Perhaps, suspecting a set-up by management (me), involving hidden cameras or other sophisticated surveillance gizmos, aimed to glean the inner workings of the construction worker’s complex thought and behavior patterns, my little smoke stand was mostly shunned. By the end of the day I’d only sold one pack, a discouraging first day return. You know, it’s not like I was trying to sell Virginia Slims to a bunch of manly men. These were 100% authentic Marlboro Lights. Not Merits or Basics my friends, but Marlboro Lights. The real deal.

I refused to give up, however, and felt confident that we had at least one enterprising employee who would eventually take advantage of this insanely good bargain. I left my $2 in the box, a psychological ploy to entice others to buy, and went home.

This morning dawned cool and crisp. Taking a full breath for the first time in about a year, I hopped out of bed, eager to start my day and confident that today would be the day that Karen’s Schmoke Shoppe would definitely sell out of merchandise. I drove work with the windows up, marveling at how much warmer the car stayed on these cool fall mornings, without the driver’s side window cracked for smoke venting purposes. Downright cozy! I commented to myself. My mind flashed back to last winter when I would don coat, gloves and a blanket just to pop out to the front porch for a fix. Hey, no more of that either! I thought. Shit, does life get any better than this?

Arriving at work, I was met by a glorious sight: A box filled with money! Twelve whole dollars to do with whatever I pleased! Why I could buy…… You know, the more you think about it, the more you realize how little $12 will actually buy these days. Well I’m sure something will occur to me eventually. Like a new lipstick or some other kind of fun object. Which reminds me – $12 will buy 4 Bloody Mary’s at Hooper’s. Can’t beat that kind of pricing! Except drinking reminds me of smoking…. and you know where that leads. Oh well, the important thing is that I was able to recoup some of my financial loss by furthering some other poor soul’s trip down Lung Cancer Lane. How very Zen of me.