I have reimagined the character of Captain America. Enjoy.
In the middle of World War 2, Steve Rogers, a young, scrawny, army recruit was ordered to a secret military lab in Montauk, New York where he was reluctantly strapped into a strange, alien looking chair. While immobilized, Rogers was injected with an experimental top secret “super soldier” serum. The serum transformed Rogers’ meek body and endowed him with almost superhuman strength. Unfortunately, A Nazi spy infiltrated the experiment, causing the fiery destruction of the lab. Only Rogers survived.
The newly modified recruit was immediately commissioned and sent into battle, with an indestructable shield, as Captain America! During many morale boosting victories, Captain America blazed through the war… until he sacrificed his life to thwart a Nazi rocket attack… Or did he?
Time passes. New wars replace old wars. Enemies rotate in and out of the American cross-hairs. Society gets better. Things get worse. People change. Human-influenced climate change kicks up the temperature and the arctic circle begins to melt at a steady clip… By the year 2050 people start reporting seeing something roaming the Alaskan wilderness, something human-like but carrying a familiar looking shield.
Rogers was last seen falling into the Atlantic. Could the super-soldier serum in combination with the ocean’s cool temperature render Rogers into a state of suspended animation? Could he slowly have been transforming into something… strange?
Radio Reporter Benjamin Grimmles, host of WFFF’s The Thing with Benjamin Grimmles, is used to telling people his rock hard opinions. What he isn’t used to is waiting for his dopey college friend Reed Pritchard, his wife, and her hotshot brother. So instead of hanging around hoping they show up for a decent night of Chinese, he takes off in his brand new, very pricey, space car. The radio station had just given him a lead: a retired Park Ranger saw an “Abominable Snowman” wandering around the woods by his cabin, an Abominable Snowman with a Captain America shield!
Grimmles’ space car shoots into space as he circumvents the globe towards his next big story. Unfortunately Grimmles’s expensive shortcut lands him right in the middle of a solar flare! He is bombarded with cosmic rays! The space car tumbles to Earth and Grimmles spills his coffee all over his lap. Since starting radio, Grimmles had gone up to around ten cups a day. A real problem… that just landed in his lap!
As Grimmles lies in his wrecked space car, thankful for its Volvo inspired cage-like internal frame, he spews, angry, whispered curses. But then he notices he doesn’t feel any pain from the spilled coffee on his lap. He just fell from space and doesn’t feel any pain at all… For the cosmic rays had made Grimmles some brutish creature with rock-like skin. He is no longer human, he has become… some THING!
Filled with rage over his newfound monstrousity, Grimmles goes on a rampage in Alaska, but is stopped by a mysterious figure baring the Captain America shield. The figure manages to strangely calm Grimmles before his rampage leads to murder but then disappears…
Meanwhile, Grimmles uses the last of his frequent flyer miles to get back to New York and scream at Reed Pritchard. If Reed, his wife, and her hotshot brother had made it on time, he would have spent the night burping up some decent Lo Mein and not have become this… THING!
Grimmles’s new, unstoppable quest for this “Captain America Sasquatch” makes the WFFF station owners skeptical of his integrity. Gradually his broadcast presence is reduced to a sixty second rundown of the headlines. Those poor stone lips can hardly move fast enough to say more than a sentence in a minute. To save his job, he enlists the help of David Bruce Bandato, a nuclear physicist specializing in gamma rays.
Bandato takes Grimmles to the Nevada Desert and drops a gamma ray bomb on the poor sap. The objective of this mad science is to wash out the cosmic radiation and restore Grimmles’ genome. The bomb drops. The gamma rays mutate Grimmles further. His skin is now rocky and GREEN! The poor bastard is twice as hideous. And Bandato? He isn’t going to win any beauty pageants either. He hadn’t shielded himself properly and got hit by the harsh gamma rays. He turns into a large, hulking, green skinned monster. With increased strength and size, Bandato’s genius falls victim to his insecurity about his appearance. Seeing no place for someone of his ugliness on Earth, he leaves for Mars to become a migrant worker. The new Martian infrastructure is a boom economy and employers don’t care what you look like, especially if you can bench a couple tons.
After Grimmles screams at Pritchard some more about that fateful night, he decides to finally file the insurance claim on his space car. The space car insurance company sends an insurance adjuster to Alaska to document the claim. This insurance adjuster is Peter Pacjenko, a starving newspaper photographer trying to earn his rent (in 2050 newspaper journalists are a step below struggling actors). The photographs he captures of the space car’s last registered GPS coordinates show nothing but burn marks from a crash… and/or a take-off!
Grimmles has had it! That car cost more than a few paychecks! He demands to meet the young Pacjenko. He isn’t going to let some wannabe rag-photographer keep him from his hard earned cash. Pacjenko suggests they investigate the story further, he’s curious about these claims of an abominable snowman. “It’s Captain America!” Grimmles’ gravely voice insists.
After seeing the pain in Grimmles’ eyes, locked behind mutant green pebbles, Pacjenko suggests a new health treatment he had photographed for the paper. Apparently people were getting bitten by radioactive spiders and it was curing everything from psoriasis to depression. “I got both of those!” Grimmles squeaks and off they go.
Grimmles drops a wad of cash at a spooky looking lab by Columbia. Then Pacjenko and Grimmles are ushered into a strange sauna type room and told to allow spiders to crawl all over them. “I’ve paid for worse things to be done to me,” Grimmles jokes as the tiny arachnids do their work.
When Grimmles emerges he feels a definite change in mood. He is happy again. But he also mutates further developing the powers of a spider, which can hardly be expressed through his rock hard, green shell.
The young Peter Pacjenko also goes through some mysterious changes, the least of which is a cure to his life long problem with psoriasis. At night the formerly shy Pacjenko jumps around the city, looking for trouble until one night he finds it on Staten Island! He stumbles across a dark figure carrying a shield in a Staten Island park. A dark figure who keeps mumbling about protecting U.S. shores from Nazi subs!
Meanwhile, Pritchard, feeling vaguely responsible for Grimmles medical problems after showing up late for Chinese that fateful night puts Grimmles in contact with “Acupuncturist Supreme,” Stephen Strangelli. Using this ancient medicine, over eight pricey weeks, Grimmles is cured… in a manner of speaking! For Dr. Strangelli has left but one capillary tube in Grimmles that if removed will revert him back to his mutated self!
After hearing about Pacjenko’s encounter on Staten Island, Grimmles vows to go back into radio full force. But unfortunately due to events on Mars, Earth enters into a space recession. WFFF goes out of business and Grimmles files for unemployment with the assistance of Peter Pacjenko who frequents the dole.
Grimmles turns to the cheap life of an avant garde print journalist to document the Captain America sightings. But to make money he pursues the baking business where one night in a cooking class at the Yancey Street Community Center he meets Chef Chuck Xavier who’s discovered a strange, naturally occuring mutant strain of baking yeast at his school for gifted cooks.
One whiff of the mutant yeast sends a tremor of transformation through Grimmles but Dr. Strangelli’s capillary tube remains, fulfilling the ancient promise of acupuncture. Grimmles writes of the strange yeast in the underground paper where he and Pacjenko now pursue their passion.
The article attracts the attention of the U.S. government who in 2050 relies heavily on regulating genetically modified foods to feed the entire population, causing Chef X to take his operation off the grid.
The article also attracts the attention of Doctor Duma, a mysterious man from overseas who claims to be a big fan of Grimmles work. He would like to join Pacjenko and Grimmles on their quest for Captain America. For Duma believes Captain America is the lost key to reconstructing the legendary Montauk Chair, a chair rumored to be the remains of an alien space craft. Duma claims that Rogers was strapped into this chair when he was injected with the Super Soldier Serum.
Grimmles and Pacjenko have little trust of Doctor Duma, but they have even less of a choice, for Duma’s overseas cash is the only thing keeping them afloat in this time of economic collapse.
However Doctor Duma’s cash might soon be gone as the Galactus Corporation orchestrates machinations to purchase all of Earth’s assets as a means of reclaiming unpaid debt to satisfy its enormous hunger for profits. The Galactus Corporation’s VP in Charge of Aquisitions, Norton Radd, the silver tongued surfer, might be having a change of heart. But the Galactus Corporation is fiercely hungry for money.
Will Captain America emerge from Staten Island with the answer? Will Ben Grimmles have to remove the capillary tube that stands between him and his life as a walking nightmare? What is the Montauk Chair?
Let’s say you find a video on YouTube that features a song you’d like to listen to on a CD, in your iPod, etc. Here’s what you do (this works on both Macs and PCs)…
1. Find the web address (URL) of the YouTube video. It’s usually listed right on the YouTube page you’re watching or just grab it from the browser.
2. If you do a web search for a website that can download YouTube videos, you’ll probably find a bunch of sites, such as: http://keepvid.com/
3. Enter the URL of your YouTube video at the above website, per the website”s instructions.
4. Choose to download the video into a non-Flash format, such as a .mpg file.
I got an idea for an as of yet unproduced “Priceless” ad spoof (I know, ten years too late–maybe I can add it to my sketch packet for Shipmates). As I was checking out other “Priceless” ads I realized that one thing that was not priceless was the time I spent looking at these things. Anywho, I thought I’d share a few that gave me a laugh.
For a rundown on the legal battle Ralph had (and won) with Mastercard, check out this link.
This one is a real one, where the ominous narrator for the “Priceless” Campaign is revealed to be: BILLY CRUDDUP!
Taking the time to adjust the exposure on your video camera: Priceless.
Co-opting a popular cartoon character to sell a financial service: Priceless.
I was listening to the late night/early-early morning January 16th/17th Episode of Coast to Coast AM where Ian Punnet interviewed Kurt Haskell. Have you ever heard of Kurt Haskell? As in the Kurt Haskell who was aboard Flight 253 on Christmas 2009 during an attempted terrorist attack? Me neither. And if his story is true, and I don’t see why Mr. Haskell would lie, it’s a shame we haven’t heard more about what Mr. Haskell saw both in Amsterdam and in the U.S.
On December 26th, Mr. Haskell, under the screen name “Pug,” left a comment up on the Michigan news site M.Live.com detailing his experiences as a passenger aboard Flight 253 in which a man U.S. law enforcement have identified as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab tried to light his underwear on fire to ignite a bomb in his pants. I guess the airline food didn’t do the trick (apologies).
Mr. Haskell’s account begins in the Amsterdam airport, where he and his wife (both partners in thier own Michigan lawfirm) were sitting on the floor in front of the check-in counter playing cards. On Mr. Haskell’s Coast to Coast AM interview he told Ian Punnet that it was very quiet. I also noted that in this interview Mr. Haskell mentioned his wife didn’t hear what he later wrote about on Mlive.com (maybe it was because they were playing cards and it had been a long day of travel):
An Indian man in a nicely dressed suit around age 50 approached the check in counter with the terrorist and said “This man needs to get on this flight and he has no passport.” The two of them were an odd pair as the terrorist is a short, black man that looked like he was very poor and looks around age 17(Although I think he is 23 he doesn’t look it). It did not cross my mind that they were terrorists, only that the two looked weird together. The ticket taker said “you can’t board without a passport”. The Indian man then replied, “He is from Sudan, we do this all the time”. I can only take from this to mean that it is difficult to get passports from Sudan and this was some sort of sympathy ploy. The ticket taker then said “You will have to talk to my manager”, and sent the two down a hallway. I never saw the Indian man again as he wasn’t on the flight. It was also weird that the terrorist never said a word in this exchange. Anyway, somehow, the terrorist still made it onto the plane. I am not sure if it was a bribe or just sympathy from the security manager.
If what Mr. Haskell is reporting is true, who was this handler, which some have labeled “The Sharp Dressed Man?” Was he an Al-Qaeda stooge who wanted to make sure Mutallab went through with his suicide mission?
The crackpot in me goes further into Mr. Haskell’s account and notes the silent behavior of Mutalleb. Was he in a trance? Was he hypnotised and the Sharp Dressed Man was needed to guide him onto the plane in his stupor? I only think of this in reaction to the conspiracy theory that some such as Robert Blair Kaiser put forth that Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian (not a Muslim as was widely rumored at the time), was hypnotized (whether by himself or through a handler) to assassinate Robert F. Kennedy.
In the Coast to Coast AM interview, Haskell also mentions that after the attempt to blow up the plane, Mutallab was pulled away from his seat and not fighting back. At the point, Haskell said he couldn’t tell if Mutallab was a terrorist or just some victim of a random fire on the plane, because Mutallab was so submissive to the people pulling him away. Is this description of Mutallab’s demeanor a sign of his being in a trance?
Or maybe Mutallab was just nervous about blowing up a plane full of innocent people. I’m just throwing my crackpot theory out there. Back to Haskell’s account.
On Coast to Coast AM, Haskell described the stressful scene of the fire and emergency landing. He also recounted that law enforcement agents entered the plane when it landed but only seemed concerned about the first class section. Ian Punnet specifically asked Haskell if any law enforcement agents went up and down the aisle, checking passports or anything else that resembled looking for accomplices. Haskell responded that nobody went through the plane checking passports. Punnet then asked Haskell if the passengers were checked against a flight manifest as they departed the plane. Haskell said this didn’t happen. Haskell also noted that folks were allowed to take their carry-on bags, which he suggested was tampering with the crime scene that was the plane.
1 hour after we left the plane, bomb sniffing dogs arrived. Up to this point, all of the passengers on Flight 253 stood in a small area in an evacuated luggage claim area of an airport terminal. During this time period, all of the passengers had their carry on bags with them. When the bomb sniffing dogs arrived, 1 dog found something in a carry on bag of a 30 ish Indian man. This is not the so called “Sharp Dressed” man. I will refer to this man as “The man in orange”. The man in orange, who stood some 20ft away from me the entire time until he was taken away, was immediately taken away to be searched and interrogated in a nearby room. At this time he was not handcuffed. When he emerged from the room, he was then handcuffed and taken away. At this time an FBI agent came up to the rest of the passengers and said the following (approximate quote) “You all are being moved to another area because this area is not safe. I am sure many of you saw what just happened (Referring to the man in orange) and are smart enough to read between the lines and figure it out.”
So, we have this Sharp Dressed Man who Haskell saw accompany a suspected terrorist to a crime scene AND another man who was detained after the bomb sniffing dogs smelled something in his bag. Who were these guys? Other members of Al Qaeda?
According to Customs there was another man besides Mutallab arrested that day, but Ron Smith of U.S. Customs claims this other man was from another plane this second arrest was “for it was a totally different incident.” If this arrest is the same one Haskell witnessed how could the individual have gotten into the secure area where the passengers of Flight 253 were detained?
Mr. Haskell says that others claim to have witnessed what he saw but would rather remain anonymous for the time being. Mr Haskell also claims that when he was questioned by the FBI on Christmas they seemed interested in his account of the “Sharp Dressed Man.” But has the FBI investigated the Sharp Dressed Man?
I can only assume that in a terrorist investigation some details would be left out of the public domain to preserve the effectiveness of the investigation, but if what Mr. Haskell saw is true then it sounds like these two mystery men would be in the public domain, especially the “Man in Orange” who was arrested. If Mr. Haskell is telling a lie–which one could assume from the lack of fellow witnesses coming forward–then why would he do that? It doesn’t seem like he’s making any cash off this story. If you go to his Law Firm’s website there’s no mention of his claims, if this were a giant ad for his business. And it seems like an awful big pain in his rear to keep rehashing this story with all it details intact.
Mr. Haskell conculded his interview on Coast to Coast AM, early Sunday morning, by suggesting the Dutch authorities release the videotape of Mutallab checking in and boarding the plane. Sounds like a good plan to me.
I noticed a lot of folks have been finding my blog looking for tips on improv.
Welcome.
To give you folks more of what you’re looking for, I thought I’d go through my mental files and present to you some exercises from the past. Here’s an improv game that I learned in a class with David Matthew Prior back a few years ago at Michael Howard Studios.
I forget the name, but let’s call this…
Status Therpay Session
How many people? You need at the very least around 6 people to get the most use out of this game. You could probably do even better with 7. A group of nine folks might still work. Beyond that it might spiral into chaos, but give it a try if you want.
What’s the set up? One person is the “Therapist.” This is kind of the boring role in the game so it might be served best by the coach, teacher, or at least someone who’s good at being an interviewer. The rest of the group are members of the family. These members shouldn’t know what family role they are (Mom, Dad, older brother, etc.) yet.
First, everyone besides the interviewer picks a number. If there are five members of the family, then everyone picks a number between 1 and 5. If there are 6 members, a number between 1 and 6. And so on. Everyone keeps this number to themselves and doesn’t share it. Please guys, keep it a secret for now! I beg of you. Then everyone, individually and silently, assigns every member of the group another number (1 through 6 or however many folks are in the group). You can’t give another member of the group the same number, in each member’s mind every number must be used. Don’t share this information! Keep it quiet!
Second, assign roles to everyone in the family. Father, Step-Moter, baby, daughter, older brother, nanny, babysitter from next door, feel free to spice it up a bit if you have a large group. Or if you want to make group the staff of an office and assign everyone job titles, feel free. As long as the group is a group with a traditional hierarchy and established relationships you’ll have fun.
Third, explain the status of everyone’s numbers. 1 is the number of the highest status, 6 (or 8, 9, 10, etc.) is the lowest status. Keeping in mind the number each member assigned themselves and other members of the group, each member must act accordingly. 1 submits to nobody, 2 submits to one but is superior to 3, 3 submits to 2 but is superior to 4, etc. The last number is submissive to everybody. Now, everyone has a status map of the group, but everyone’s status maps are different. Let the fun begin!
Fourth, to get the game going the “therapist” or interviewer asks the characters questions, trying to get the group to interact, and the group must deal with each other as their personal status maps allows. If everyone follows the numbers, it can get pretty interesting because no 2 people in the group will have the same status map, just like a real family!
After the game is over, try to get the class to guess everyone’s number. If everyone’s good at playing status it should be pretty easy.
When I did this game all the different independent relationships and statuses gave the game the look of a rehearsed scene. It gave way to complicated relationships. And it was pretty funny to watch one person who thought of themselves as a 1 dealing someone who had mentally labeled the same person an 8.
I recently had a job interview. I was asked a series questions off of an internet printout. I was told by the interviewers that if they had “decided to pursue my candidacy” I would have been called in by now. What is my loss is now the internet’s gain.
From my failure I have learned how to correctly answer these standard interview questions:
Tell us about yourself.
I’m committed to finding the killer of my child. I have already tracked him through five states and believe him now to be working here. in this poorly ventilated office building. This job will give me an excellent opportunity to sniff him out. By day I will just be at my desk, doing the work, but by night I will use the knowledge that I gleen from this mild mannered position to search the city rooftop by rooftop for justice using a small cadre of gadgets such as a grapple gun. a helicopter that fits into a suitcase, and boots that enable me to creep silently through the alleys. That’s how I would describe myself. An avenger of the night forever keeping his ears to evil’s footfalls. Take this watch, if you are ever in danger whisper “Kimota” into it and I shall appear so long as it is not during my fifteen minute break.
Tell us about your experience with data entry.
The best years of my life.
How would your former boss describe you?
That smelly temp.
Why did you leave your previous position?
I got in too deep.
What is your greatest accomplishment?
Discovering the ancient city of El Dorado, the City of Gold! It was there that I learned data entry.
Giving birth to twins and still keeping my figure.
Are you comfortable making cold calls?
I consider life a giant cold call. But to answer your question, no. That sounds awful.
Why are you interested in this position?
It seems a great entry level position for someone like me who’s always dreamed of becoming an astronaut.
Maybe it’s this plastic furniture or the rude receptionist or maybe the 20 year old carpeting, but most likely it is because I am unemployed.
When are you available to start?
Unfortunately, not anytime soon.
What are your strengths?
Movie trivia, conspiracy factoids, and comic book lore.
What are your weaknesses?
Joan Osburne songs and chocolate. If it’s time to work, keep those things away or I will be lost in paradise.
I work too hard. I hope you have someone with lobster claw meat hooks that can tear me away from the computer because it’s hard to get me to leave, especially when I’m pursuing my passion, data entry.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
After year 3, I will have sewn my oats and gotten all the office affairs out of my system. So by year 5 I will fully be reduced to a stoic, awkward, recluse of a coworker who dutifully does his job but shies away from interaction. At my desk will be a Kermit the Frog dish stocked with peppermints and Libertarian propaganda.
This position requires data entry of dates and times of events. it is very important that the dates and times are accurate. Can you accurately enter dates and times into a computer?
As I was watching the latest installment of This Day in the USA (below), with Davis Fleetwood mixing in history with informative shock and fast talking awe, I heard him mention that when Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, it only applied to Confederate states and not to states within the Union. Davis explains that Lincoln did this to spite the South and appease rich Northern slave owners.
That’s not what I remember from school. What’s the deal? Was Lincoln only freeing certain slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation?
Yup.
Let’s go straight to the source (emphasis added by me):
Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States… in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three… order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free…
Wow. History dazzles me again. The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free all slaves. Not only were slaves in Union states exempt but slaves in certain parts of Confederate States were cool under the Emancipation Proclamation. If I’m reading this right if I owned slaves in West Virginia, I was good to go. I’m assuming this exception is because certain parts of Confederate States weren’t under Confederate control. And if I were a rebel state and didn’t want my slaves to be free I could just rejoin the Union to keep my slaves.
But anywho, the Confederate States weren’t under the control of Lincoln, so no slaves were really set free, except folks who escaped their captivity and made it to a free state (SUCH AS CANADA). So the Emancipation Proclamation was more of a post-it note for progress, a whisper of change… which I can respect, the President of a country that depends on slavery coming out and officially taking a stand could be a big deal. But still, that’s kind of messed up. We’re talking about saying it’s OK to OWN PEOPLE… in a country founded on individual liberty.
“We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.”
Take that spitball of honesty, Abe.
As I’m researching this topic (over the course of thirty minutes on a groggy morning), I’m having trouble finding facts and figures of Slavery in northern states during the Civil War, so if anyone has any info, please leave something in the comments. I’d like to learn more about that.
When did slavery end? With the 13th Ammendment, almost 3 years after the Emancipation Proclamation when it was ratified by the states on December 6, 1865.
From reading around it seems like the Emancipation Proclamation was more a political move to either show the world the U.S.A.’s changing sentiment on OWNING PEOPLE as well as signaling that the emancipation of slaves ONLY IN STATES WE DIDN’T LIKE was a first step in total emancipation (which thankfully it turned out to be).
But maybe I’m being too hard on Lincoln, there was a horrible war going on, the bodies and savagery were piling up, perhaps angering Union States which happily OWNED PEOPLE would make them angry and the war bloodier. Or maybe in order to go from Slavery to Freedom the U.S.A. needed some steps. In my thankfully unshackled, war-free (with the exception of 9/11) life maybe I don’t have the perspective to appreciate the need to compromise for “moral baby steps.” Maybe I can’t grasp how abolition of slavery might have been seen once as impossible and any improvement was miraculous. Frederick Douglass, a fugitive slave turned rockstar statesman, loved the Emancipation Proclamation even though it only started the job. He likened it to a “moral bombshell” that sent the good news to slaves that things were changing. So, who am I, a dude in 2010, to criticize a wartime Fresident over 150 years ago? Does morality trump perspective and circumstance?
Whatever the case, I’m glad the 13th Ammendment came soon after the war and that we legally decided that owning people is wrong. Although, I find it a little disconcerting that the practice of owning people was in place for around 100 years (not counting the colonial phase of our country). It bothers me that slavery was justified, accepted, and procured by folks who treasured democracy, freedom, and in many cases the golden rule. I just wish we were decent enought to make this correction on our own without resorting to legislation much less the bloodiest war in our history. Do we need a kick in the pants or rules to be good people? Can’t we do it on our own? Must we always consider things like economic stability before doing the right thing… GEORGE WASHINGTON, I’M TALKING TO YOU.
Sadly, as I’m finishing this piece I did a cursory search of the internet to find slavery is still alive and well in the world in several gruesome forms. I’ve even heard some, such as Mr. Fleetwood above, compare the use of cheap overseas labor and undocumented workers to filling in the slavery gap, as illustrated in this hilarious, eye-opening Yes Men prank:
