Intravenous Caffeine

Totally Unfair and Completely Unbalanced

Abercrombie and Fitch–doing their bit for sex education

Mr. DImme sees the new Abercrombie Kids padded bikini tops advertised in a store window.

Maybe your older sister still has her Abercrombie Kids thong you can borrow!

They’ve done it again at Abercombie and Fitch–no, I’m not referring to the Asian Joke T-shirts of a couple of years ago, although, considering how much Japan was in the news a few weeks ago, Abercrombie’d probably think they’d be deluged with orders! But perhaps the timing isn”t that good–Japan isn’t in the headlines that much anymore, so things must be hunky-dory over there by now–after all, the excess radiation levels WEREN’T 10,000,000 times normal, only 100,000. Better just hire Gilbert Gottfried on retainer and wait for things to really get bad!

No, what I’m referring to is the new padded bikini top for Abercombie Kids. Padded Bikini Tops for Tweens! Just what we needed. If we were a nation of PERVS! But perhaps I’m being harsh on the pervs–pedophiles like children WITHOUT boobies–this kind of thing could only help to protect little girls! Consider buying one for your boys too! Maybe big sis still has one of her Abercrombie Kids thongs from a few years ago and we can plan a Brazilian Carnaval party for grade school graduation!

But perhaps I’m being a bit hard on Abercrombie. After all, they might be just responding to the demands of the free market. I don’t have any kids myself, but I see all these articles about how kids are being sexualized by movies, TV, videogames and advertising. After all, if Hannah Montana can pose naked for Annie Liebovitz–coyly covered by a bed sheet–after all, it was OK for a 16 year old to be naked in bed–it must be OK! And boy, won’t these middle-schoolers having oral sex be sexual athletes by the time they’re legal! That can only lead to greater happiness for them as adults–if they get rid of those pesky STDs they picked up in high school!

These articles on sexualization generally deride how kids are being robbed of their childhoods, without taking into consideration that once the plumbing starts working, you have a natural tendency to turn on the faucet. The crime is that so many of these kids are entering into the adult sphere with no knowledge of how the plumbing works. Sex education is still rudimentary in many places and completely taboo in others. Better for them to experiment without knowing what a condom is, or for even being able to get one legally! And forget about getting ill-advised pregnancies taken care of, except in cases of rape, incest, or danger–but only after a three-day cooling off period and getting counseling! After all, knocked up teens are our best way of swelling the economic underclass we need for our post “Great Recession” economy!

So let’s thank Abercrombie for their courage in helping to drive the age of sexual initiation downwards. I know several people who’d love to work in their design department for new products. They can probably get them cheap in an “outside work” program–since they’re all in jail!

ANNOY YOUR FRIENDS! CONFOUND YOUR ENEMIES! PRESS ONE OF THESE BUTTONS--OR ELSE!
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Mixx] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Buzz] [Email]

Too Soon? Not for our nuclear expert, Ann Coulter!

Ann Coulter takes a dip in Japan's latest hot spring, while a Fukushima engineer rails at her from the sidelines.

Dear Ann: Why don't you go over and show us how beneficial a little radiation can be?

Well, the big news about someone finally helping the Libyan rebels after they had been driven back to Benghazi has pushed the Japanese situation off the headlines. While I’m generally not very much in favor of militarily sticking our noses into other countries’ affairs, I’m even more against pussyfooting around when it’s something that we’ve wanted to do for a long time, and (drumroll) WE WERE ACTUALLY ASKED TO DO IT. I mean, instead of being suckered into it by someone who’d tell any lie to get us to attack his country to a bunch of people who’d tell any lie to to convince us we needed to start a war against it. The Libyan rebels were actually in danger of overthrowing Gaddafi a few weeks back, but I suppose, it was better to wait until they’d been hammered to near defeat so there could be a much more protracted and expensive war. Gotta keep those arms factories busy–they’re our only dependable export!

Besides, we couldn’t do anything about Libya while Japan’s travails were at the top of the headlines! We can only keep our collective national attention on ONE thing at a time! Sure enough, now that we’ve started bombing raids in Libya, Japan gets swept off the headlines–last week’s news–it’s been seven days, aren’t they out of the woods YET? Well, the situation has improved–if you can count finding a few thousand bodies and getting 2 out of 6 reactors stable improved–but there are many more bodies to be found, 4 reactors that still are in danger and Japan is in massive need of rebuilding. But don’t worry! We’ve tied up the world supply of potassium iodide so the people of the west coast and their pets won’t get radiation sickness! Never mind the people who live on the same island! Our chihuahuas must not get sick (except maybe from an overdose of potassium iodide).

Americans are known for over-reacting to everything. So it comes as a shock that Ann Coulter would seem to be a voice of reason. But no, when she said, a little bit of radiation was GOOD for you, she wasn’t thinking about the nervous nellies of California, she meant the people of Tokyo! “… the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer,” she wrote in her Human Events column. Well, Ann, if a little bit of radiation is so good for you, why don’t you hop on over to Fukushima and lend a hand? Oh, I forgot, that would be altruistic and Ayn Rand would never have approved. On the other hand, it’d be great publicity for your next book and remember, your place as the reigning bitch queen of the right wing has been usurped by the Alaskan twitterer! So go on over for the photo opportunity–and do us a favor–take a few photos at the gate of the reactor complex. But don’t get in the way–you might keep some of those engineers who are desperately trying to save their country from getting their proper dose of Vitamin Gamma Ray.

In the meantime, everyone, please keep sending in donations for Japanese relief–I listed a few worthy causes in last week’s column and there are many others as well. With a tragedy of these proportions–over 400,000 people are homeless and in need of food, clothing, shelter and medical attention–even a wealthy country like Japan needs help in the short run and if you can even just afford a few bucks, it will help.

ANNOY YOUR FRIENDS! CONFOUND YOUR ENEMIES! PRESS ONE OF THESE BUTTONS--OR ELSE!
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Mixx] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Buzz] [Email]

Kimi de ite, buji de ite (Yoko Kanno) For the people of Japan


Song by Yoko Kanno
Images by Greg Uchrin, Translation by utadafreak22 http://www.jpopasia.com/news/yoko-kannos-message-song-to-japan::5466.html
Please give generously for Japan relief in this time of need
Text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 from your phone
Text MED to 80888 from any mobile phone to give $10.
Text ‘JAPAN’ or ‘QUAKE’ to 80888 to make a $10 donation or visit SalvationArmyUSA.org.
Also Save the Children
Japan-earthquake-tsunami-relief @ Global Giving
Doctors Without Borders
Americares
Shelter Box
Peace Winds
Operation USA
World Vision

A Personal Note

I had just finished watching an online movie late Thursday night/Friday morning when I saw the news about the disaster befalling Japan. Readers will know that I am an anime and J-horror movie fan. The images I saw were worse than any horror movie because they were real. I knew that this was what I would be devoting today’s blog to. But how to do it properly to express the fear, pain, sorrow and yet, hope for recovery that I wished to convey?

It seems that almost every cartoonist has been doing some image based on Hokusai’s famous ukiyo-e “Wave” prints, the Japanese flag, or the Wave AND the Japanese flag. So I wanted to do something different. At the same time, I was trying NOT to react to the idiocy I was seeing like CNN’s Larry David–I mean Larry KUDLOW–opining that we should be grateful that the human toll is worse than the economic toll (which I hope was just a stupid way of saying that it’s amazing that the economic toll isn’t as devastating as the human one), Rush Limbaugh’s asshole opinion that environmentalists would blame it on global warming and cheer that so many car manufacturers were hard hit by the disaster–seriously, that man needs to multiply up his oxycontin consumption so that he’s too opiated to foist his coprophagic bloviating on the world–and idiots on the web cheering that finally Japan was paid back for Pearl Harbor–an event which happened when most of them were probably not even born yet–as if being fought to an unconditional surrender 66 YEARS AGO and suffering the atomic devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention the firebombing of Tokyo, didn’t cause enough civilian deaths to satisfy the bloodthirsty cretins. But I won’t mention my reaction to these.

Then I heard Kanno Yoko’s beautiful song. Kanno Yoko, or as she is more generally known in the west, Yoko Kanno, is a brilliant composer and is known mostly for her work in anime and movies, including Cowboy Bebop, the Ghost in the Shell television series, and a personal favorite, the undeservedly little known live action film, Kamikaze Girls. She wrote Kimi de ite in response to the disaster as a means of providing comfort and hope to her fellow Japanese and published it on YouTube without any accompanying video. I was able to read the touching lyrics on Jpopasia posted by utadafreak22, a young fan. Kanno-sama’s song soothed my own feelings about the aforementioned idiots and expressed everything I myself wanted to say about the sad situation.

I had two options. I could accompany the song with photos of the disaster. I felt that this might be too brutal, and I also thought that other people would take care of this option faster and better than I could. Or I could create a video that matched the tone of this song. That’s what I’ve tried to do here.

Please keep the people of Japan in your hearts and thoughts as this disaster continues to unfold. And please give to one of the above charities, or any of the others which are stepping in to help in this time of need.

Thank you.

ANNOY YOUR FRIENDS! CONFOUND YOUR ENEMIES! PRESS ONE OF THESE BUTTONS--OR ELSE!
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Mixx] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Buzz] [Email]

Scott Walker: Thug

Scott Walker is likened to a thug who blames his victim for making him shoot him.

Wisconsin Governing Style

There’s a joke making the rounds that bears repeating: The Koch brothers, a tea partier and a teacher are sitting at a table with a pile of cookies in the middle. The Koch brothers sweep up all but one and say to the tea partier, “Watch out for that teacher–he wants your cookie!” Michael Moore, our official national agitator, showed up in Wisconsin this weekend and spoke on behalf of the Wisconsin 14. He reminded people that America wasn’t broke, there was plenty of money to go around, the problem is that over half of it is being hoarded by the 400 wealthiest of our society. And the reason that government is in trouble is quite simple–these 400 refuse to acknowledge their own dependence on the society that allowed them to gain what they have and thus feel justified in refusing to carry no load but their own. And these 400, far from being productive members of society, are not only parasites upon it, but because of their vast wealth have not just influence but control over their “host”.

It’s people like the Scott Walkers of the world who see their fortune not in serving society, but servicing the parasite that lives on it, in the hope that they may rise to be part of the next tier, the 40,000 who have the bulk of the remainder of the wealth. Their methodology? We see it in Scott Walker’s actions. Threats, coercion, blanket layoff notices, illegal fines and imprisonment. In short, acting like a thug. We have been slipping slowly and inexorably into thugocracy for the last 30 years, the iron-fisted rule of the minority. And their biggest weapon? Pitting citizen against citizen to fight for the spillage from their tables, the only thing that trickles down. You think our national sport is football? Nuh-uh. It’s bum fights. And we’re the bums.

Be careful of those guys–they want all the cookies.

ANNOY YOUR FRIENDS! CONFOUND YOUR ENEMIES! PRESS ONE OF THESE BUTTONS--OR ELSE!
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Mixx] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Buzz] [Email]

© 2009-2024 Gregory Uchrin, Intravenous Caffeine All Rights Reserved -- Copyright notice by Blog Copyright