By Night In Tampa

"Is it true that there was something, something in the ocean water brought to shore by the hurricane?"
"Those reports have not been confirmed."
"And the lights in the sky?"
"There is a coordinated effort being undertaken by the relevant agencies--the FAA, the Air Force, NASA, the OFCM--to understand what those lights, the lights that some have reported seeing over the Forum, whether those lights were, strictly speaking, real and whether they had any relationship to the... incident."
"What about the video?"
"We're looking at that now. General, I think you can better explain."
"Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. Since, as we all know, the incident began during the video, we have naturally made it a priority to investigate what connection, if any, the video had with events. Whether the observed anomalies were in any way related to what happened. We've got the very best people working around the clock on this."
"What is it that you're looking for?"
"We have to explore every possibility, including the possibility that there may have been some sort of kill switch or other communication embedded in the video."
"Are you saying that the video caused the incident?"
"I wouldn't say that, no, not based on what we know right now."
"What have you found so far?"
"Our preliminary analysis has found that, in addition to the obvious anomalies, there are certain unaccountable redundancies and seemingly useless surpluses in the data stream. Simply put, there's more information, more code, than there is output, audiovisual signal. We've found subtle fluctuations in both the audio and visual signals, fluctuations so subtle that they would be imperceptible, at least consciously. And these fluctuations appear to be non-random."
"What's the significance of this?"
"We cannot say at this time."
"Where is this analysis being done? Who's doing it?"
"I'm afraid I cannot reveal that information. But top people. Signal engineers, cryptologists, linguists."
"Linguists?"
"Yes. One of the very low-pitched, sub-auditory sound signals exhibits non-random rhythmic patterns and timbral qualities consistent with speech."
"You mean a message?"
"Not necessarily. More like speaking in tongues."
"How soon will we have more results?"
"As I said, our analysts are on it now. But this is delicate work. You can imagine the challenges of trying to study this video when the point is to determine whether watching it causes an overpowering hunger for human flesh."
"Has Representative Paul made any comment?"
"We have been unable to reach him."
"What about reports that the... the reports of... of--"
"--activity--"
"--yes, the reports of activity as far north as Gainsville."
"As far as I know those reports have not been confirmed."
"But, General, the scale of the fires--"
"Task Force authorities are investigating the matter."
"Has there been any news from Mayor Buckhorn?"
"Nothing new, no. Mayor Buckhorn is still monitoring the situation from aboard the Carl Vinson."
"From the Stadium?"
"Look, can we stop it with these kinds of questions about the Stadium. I think everyone here knows what happened at the stadium. In fact, I watched it on the monitors with you. As I have said, if anyone is still alive at the Stadium, you will be the first to know. Otherwise, let's please move on."
"What is the long-term strategy?"
"Well, we're only 36 hours out. Until we make some progress in determining how these... these bodies work, both physically and collectively... the nature of Post-Necrotic Metabolic Persistence Syndrome... For now, we can only hope that the Wall will continue to hold."
"What about Team Six?"
The General looked to the President. His jaw tightened. Something seemed to well up in his eyes. Not tears. Lava.
"We have lost contact."

We Are All Austrians Now

"The storm caused by our god, sex, sends us all to our ruin by the shortest route." - Cardinal Dolan, totally fucking wet

"The other places are like kindergardens compared with this. It smells so incredibly evil! I didn't think such a place existed except in my own imagination. It has a ghastly familiarity like a half-remembered dream. Anything could happen here... any moment..." - Tagg

"When one's married for so long, always walking on four feet and always breathing double breaths and thinking every thought twice through and the time between the main things is packed double full with minor details - then, sometimes, naturally, one yearns like an arrow for one whole space thin as air. And you start up in the night, terrified by your own breathing, which had just been going along as evenly without you. But you don't rise up free - or even really as far as your knees - not once. You strike a match. And there's one of you right there, wrapped in flesh. Only then is it love." - Ann Romney

"Yah! Down, cur! Back in the basement with you!" - Mitt Romney to his sixth son

"Everyone speaks a language he does not understand, but which now and then is understood by others. That is enough to permit one to exist and at least be misunderstood." - Reince Preibus, rejoinder to Chris Wallace

„Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.“ - Matt Rhoades, asked how much Romney paid in taxes between 2000 and 2010

"The main thing is to have the money. I've been rich and I've been rich. Believe me, rich is better." - Mitt Romney

"We shall build a tower that will reach to the stars! Having conceived Babel, yet unable to build it themselves, they had thousands to build it for them. But those who toiled knew nothing of the dreams of those who planned. And the minds that planned the Tower of Babel cared nothing for the workers who built it. The hymns of praise of the few became the curses of the many - BABEL! BABEL! BABEL! - Between the mind that plans and the hands that build there must be a Mediator, and this must be the heart!" - Herman Cain

"What is it you do, then? I'll tell you: You leave out whatever doesn't suit you. Just as you leave things out of your dreams and fantasies. By leaving things out, we bring beauty and excitement into the world. We evidently handle our reality by effecting some sort of compromise with it, an in-between state where the emotions prevent each other from reaching their fullest intensity, graying the colors somewhat. Children who haven't yet reached that point of control are both happier and unhappier than adults who have. And yes, stupid people also leave things out, which is why ignorance is bliss. So I propose, to begin with, that we try to love each other as if we were characters in a novel who have met in the pages of a book. Let's in any case leave off all the fatty tissue that plumps up reality." - Chris Christie gets loose

"...the way you might stick by a tree, which may be rotten, but at least it's a tree..." - Ron Paul's "endorsement"

"One must conform to the baseness of an age or become neurotic." - Marco Rubio whips up the proles

"A number of flawed individuals can often add up to a brilliant social unit." - Rand Paul and the Paulettes

„Vorsorge ist besser als das Nachsehen zu haben.“ - Bobby Jindal

"Women age early, and their mistake is not knowing where to hide all the time that lies behind them so that no one sees it. What are they to do, devour it like the umbilical cords of their children? Hell and damnation!" - Dr. Todd Akin, OB/GYN

"It's as satisfying to me as, uh, coming is, you know? As, ah, having sex with a woman and coming. And so can you believe how much I am in heaven? I am like, uh, getting the feeling of coming in a gym, I'm getting the feeling of coming at home, I'm getting the feeling of coming backstage when I pump up, when I pose in front of 5,000 people, I get the same feeling, so I am coming day and night. I mean, it's terrific. Right? So you know, I am in heaven." - Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Scores, Tampa

“Manipulation is constant in the media. Even the images of 'reality' on television are manipulated. The difference in this convention is that the manipulation is there to make you aware that you are being manipulated, that you can be manipulated.” - RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer

„Es gibt immer einen Punkt dabei, wo man nicht mehr weiß, ob man lügt oder ob das, was man erfunden hat, wahrer ist als man selber.“
"What's that, sir?"
"I said get the hell out!"
- Paul Ryan muttering to himself before the Big Speech

"What do you know about it? Who are you anyway? Who are you? Criminals? Are you proud of yourselves? Proud of breaking safes or cheating at cards? Things you could just as well keep your fingers off. You wouldn't need to do all that if you'd learn a proper trade, or if you'd work. If you weren't a bunch of lazy bastards. But I… I can't help myself! I have no control over this, this evil thing inside of me, the fire, the voices, the torment!" - the Big Speech

In Remembrance of the Race

"One way or another, everyone's life is ruined. The question is how." - Wade Michael Page

"I don't know if you noticed, Wolf, but the President is black." - Mitt 'Hit Reset' Romney

"White America is what lies between a Little League baseball diamond and a Texas prison cell." - Werner Herzong, addressing the RNC

"Each ethnic group is a distinct Rita Hayworth." - the Council on Foreign Relations

"What more wretched a place would a white man submit himself to on a daily basis than the New York City subway system?"
"The conjugal bed."
- Michael Bloomberg, Christine Quinn

"I urge us all to come together and leave chemical weapons in the hands of white people where they belong." - Dick Lugar in Moscow

"Philip, I just had a dream that the Jamaicans were all blonde!" - Her Majesty, awaking in the night

"The Scum Bag Spectrum: Tom Sizemore... Ray Liotta... Michael Madsen..." - Zhang Yesui,  Understanding White American Masculinity

"This reminds me of that scene in Hannibal where Hannibal feeds that guy his own brains." - Roger Cohen, watching the Olympics while grinding Tylenol into his whiskey

"Let's put it this way: No Chinese politician needs suspenders to keep his pants up." - Hu Jintao

"It's said that we don't speak language, language speaks us. Why isn't it the same for everything? It's not that I hate America. America hates itself through me." - George Zimmerman

The Blog Sells Out

"I choose alienation." - the American people

"Consistency is dishonest." - Nietzsche, corporate seminar

"What's the only thing worse than a family? A commune."
- August Strindberg rudely telling jokes no one wants to hear at the party

"Unless you hear from me, assume I'm working. And understand that by 'working,' I mean engaging in the literary dilettantism and the most basic self-maintenance activities expected of an adult person, which are for me a struggle." -  the Editors synergizing via text message

"A Marxist who doesn't understand finance is like a jihadi who doesn't know how to operate explosives." - Lloyd Blankfein

"Twittering this blog would be like bowling as hard as you can, blindfolded." - Sean Parker 

"Your fans in Asia only read the sex and death posts." - our McKinsey & Company consultant

"It's a fucking joke?!" - Stoyan, a disillusioned 14 year-old Belarussian

"I don't get the joke."
"It isn't finished yet."
- the Editors standing over the rubble of New York

"If your enemy is cynical, then you have to overidentify with their official line so hard that you leave them no choice but to be sincere, to deal with you in a manner that shows them for what they really are." - the Editors conducting leadership training, Moscow

"Everyone thinks I'm so smart, but I'm telling you, I'm not smart, I'm just a hater, and because I hate everything that people like, they think I see things that they don't, but I don't, I don't see things that they don't, I only see one thing that they don't: I see that life is bad." - an Editor to Mr. Pringle

"Put Zack's share of the blog in a special account. Name me as the trustee, and tell the rest of the Editors to meet at Blanca's for a 12:30 lunch, Tuesday." - Eduardo Saverin after the hostile takeover

"Where are those goddam quotes?!"
"I'm thinking."
"Thinking will get you nowhere! Quotes don't come from thinking, they come from the effervescent bubbling up of brain fever, the lightning strike of divine revelation, the flickering red lightbulb in the head! They strike a man down mid-stride like a deer on I-95! They are what happens when Proust dips his madeleine into a vat of Hate!"
- the Editors berating a summer intern

"People say we laugh after something dangerous or traumatic has happened in order to relieve tension. They say this as though laughter is first and foremost a response to things that are 'funny,' and is only secondarily, as though by some physiological glitch, a coping mechanism for dealing with things that are not 'funny.' This isn't true. Stress, trauma, death, and the delight we take in avoiding them, enduring them, or inflicting them on others: these things are the very essence of comedy. In every laugh there is a brush with death." - the Editors, TED Talk/public caning, Lee Kuan Yew Stadium, Singapore

Love of the Goddess

"And I gave her space to repent her fornication; and she repented not." - St. John the Revelator gets dumped

"...the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear's and its mouth was like a lion's mouth." - St. John gets his first kiss at the Helos Roller Derby, 127 A.D.

"Let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person." - an early church father is given a fake number after meeting a Priestess of Ra at a retreat, women are henceforth denied the priesthood

"The female uterus is a zone of pure negative energy." - Todd Akin

"I don't consider myself religious, but rather spiritual." - Michael Houellebecq

"There were so many times I could have had true love, a relationship that really worked, a simple life of simple pleasures. But I had to spend it all high on Power and God." - Jopseph Ratzinger at confession

"If only I could trade the American nuns for their weight in marble, then I could truly build my Church." - Timothy Dolan

A Night That Will Last Forever

"I'd rather live in the presence of truth than work in the production of lies." - Mike Huckabee on why he left politics for FOX News

"I prefer rosé. Does that make me a faggot?" - Willard Romney to Paul Ryan

"We're cows that herd themselves." - Paul Ryan, quietly to himself, surveying the WI State Fair

"Every good Texas doctor knows a cow's uterus is full of gold." - Ron Paul narration in RNC tribute video, Dr. Paul and the Republic of Self

"Everything is disposable." - Tim Pawlenty to Bruno Mars

Joe Biden Challenges Paul Ryan to Train Race Across Asian Steppes

"Governor, things obviously aren't going well, what can you do to turn it around?"
"Well, David, I could rely on my faith, but clearly I don't want to discuss that."
"So what is there?"
"I have five strapping sons and a magical, dancing horse that cures MS."
- David Gregory and Mitt Romney

"Just get in the sauna with me, I'll prove it all." - Todd Akin

"Where are we?!" - Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush trapped in Limbo after flying a Cesna into the eye of Hurricane Isaac

"Not the onions!" - John Boehner chained to Eric Cantor's basement floor

"Bitch, bitch, bitch. I'm sorry I'm not more complex. I'm sorry I'm not you. I'm just doing what I do, and if you don't like it, then try to stop me." - Barack Obama 

"What I'm looking for is a night that will last forever. An impenetrable darkness you can wrap around you like a shawl. Something mysterious, yet familiar. Something, maybe someone, to keep the skin warm while the whole world turns to ice." - Joe Biden, composing a letter to Brenda Jackson by candle light, Rehoboth Beach, DE

Vindication

"Quittin' aint' admittin'."

"I'm so goddam disappointed. Soon they'll tell us all the blond women at Fox News have penises." - a distraught Kelsey Grammer

U.S. Doping Agency Announces Lance Armstrong to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

"And our friendship? Was that chemically enhanced too?!" - Vince Vaughn, throwing his DVD of Dodgeball into the fireplace

"My sincerest congratulations to Mr. Armstrong." - Anders Breivik

Twenty Million Americans Convert to Islam in Wake of Armstrong Doping Scandal

"I never cheated at my sport." - Tom Brady, at his deluxe personal gym

"Another stain on my photographic legacy." - George W. Bush, shooting prairie dogs

"Whatever. Fuck your whole country." - François Hollande becoming interesting for one terrifying second

"For over a decade, I lived like a god. I was the strongest human being on the planet, I defeated every opponent I ever faced. I fucked what I wanted, when I wanted. I became world famous and I became incredibly, incredibly rich. I'm the greatest fucking villain that ever lived, and I don't regret a second of it." - Lance

Tony Scott, The Other Scott

"I'm living proof that ADHD doesn't have to be a disability." - Tony Scott

"We never got to make the Nat Turner gladiator picture." - a wistful Denzel Washington

"At last... I can finally... rest..." - Christopher Walken, first nap in twelve years

"Cancel the high-speed rail, there's no fucking point now." - Barack Obama

"I just imagined all those planes up there were dolphins doing it, Jimminy!" - Reagan after watching Top Gun

"Hey, spaz, put the fucking flight suit on." - Toy Scott to a young Tom Cruise

"What's goddam Haley Joel Osment doing on my set?"
- Tony Scott to Keira Knightly on the first day of Domino

"I want your character to open the door to the closet, but the difficulty will be fitting all ten thousand cameras in the room to cover every possible angle." - Tony Scott, to John Travolta in Disco Mystic: The Kanye West Story

"I'm a real American!" - Michael Mann rejecting Tony Scott's script for Boer War 

"You'll never mean half to me what Denzel meant to Tony." - Ridley Scott lashing out at Russell Crowe

"Scott's visual style is so staggering that it can hardly be imitated, much less parodied, still less adequately conveyed through the written word, and least of all mocked in some adolescent blog post."
- Manhola Dargis

"Perhaps one day this century will be known as Tony Scottian."
- Michael Bay

"Here, I'll go first."
"The hell you will!"
- Tony Scott, Sam Fuller, Sidney Lumet, and James Brown fighting over the pistol while playing doubles Russian roulette in Hell

The Dark Cream Cheese Rises

Batman and Rafalca win the class war.

Batman: Universal Orientalism

"Christopher Nolan proved accents don't matter." - Dick Cheney

Batman: This Time Closed Captioning Won't Save You

"You wanna get nuts? Let's get nuts!" - Joseph Gordon-Levitt putting on the US Women's Gymnastics Uniform

"Fuck. Me." - Tom Hardy, shitting uncontrollably and inaudibly from muscle supplements

Batman: Cops vs. Bolsheviks in the Battle for the Google Orb

"I love this whole Spider-Iron Man thing." - Marion Cotillard

Batman: Escape from Raceistan

"I wish someone would extraordinarily render my ass out of this theater." - Roger Ebert

Batman: Escape from AZ State Prison

"You'll believe an SUV can fly!" - Gene Shalit

Wen Jiabao Calls Lack of Chinese Villains in New Batman Film 'Unacceptable'

"Even I'm embarrassed." - Ray Kelly

"Rafalca and I loved it!" - Willard Romney

"I don't sound like that at all." - Vladimir Putin

Christopher Nolan Testifies Against Pussy Riot

"Italian birds and doshy wines! Gits gits gits!" - Michael Caine, on location

"My ass wants at least five points for the sequel." - Anne Hathaway

"Mate, I'm the Olivier of indigestion." - Christian Bale

"Fascism begins with compulsory enjoyment. Tell some one under the age of 40 that you don't like Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, and see how angry they get. The Dark Knight Rises isn't about what's happening on the screen, it's about what's not happening on the screen. The same police force depicted in the film as the victims of a communistic occupation, forced to fight barefisted against an armed and numerically superior paramilitary force (and how they do! charging into the fray like Mau Mau's, impervious to the very weapons we are supposed to pity them for not having!)--this same police force is working the security detail for the film shoot and cracking the heads in Zuccotti Park, grinding History to a halt. Instead of facing reality, we chose to stage for ourselves a fantasy of its opposite. I don't see anything to like in that. To me, it's just ugly." - George W. Bush, black, moonlit waves lapping at his feet, Kennebunkport

What Is Your Solution to Poverty?

"War." - FDR

"Gardening." - Michelle Obama

"Higher incarceration rates." - Mayor Ray Kelly

"The same as my solution to AIDS." - Joseph Ratzinger

"The Great Wyrm." - Nancy Reagan

"Soylent Green." - Paul Ryan

"Whatever is most patronizing." - Elizabeth Warren

"Me." - Bono

"Haw haw haw! Jay, get this asshole out of here." - Barack Obama

"Well, I guess we should redistribute the wealth, starting with the land, rebuild the country from the ground up. I don't know. 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.'" - George W. Bush, ruefully surveying Prairie Chapel Ranch at night

"What exactly is the problem?" - David Cameron

How Do You Like Your Kool-Aid?

"Marketed as fruit juice." - New York Times

"On a silver platter." - Wall Street Journal

"Cut with champagne." - Financial Times

"Cut with insulin." - FOX News

"Mixed with methanol, ethylene glycol, diesel, naphthalene, xylene, hydrogen chloride, toluene, ethylbenzene, diethanolamine, formaldehyde, sulfuric acid, thiourea, benzyl chloride, cumene, nitrolotracetic acid, dimethyl formamide, phenol, benzene, di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, acrylamide, hydrogen fluouride, phthalic anhydride, acetaldehyde, acetophenone, copper, ethylene oxide, lead, prpylene oxide, and p-xylene." - T. Boone Pickens

"Brought to me by VISA." - an Olympics fan

"Via intravenous drip." - CNN

"Blue." - Huffington Post

"Red." - Revolutionary Communist Party USA

"Green." - California

"Sour." - Democracy Now!

"Black." - the Editors

Sex Creature From the Skies!

"We are the Batman and Robin of the ancien regime! To patriarchy and the Tsar!" - Paul Ryan at the Romney/Ryan Rally for Reactionary Retrenchment, Roanoke

"Paul Ryan is in the race, now things can get real Fuck!" - Wolf Blitzer

"I just keep giving up more for less and less."
"Yeah, now you now how people who have payroll taxes feel."
- Mitt and Eric Ferhrstrom

"Sevens or snake-eyes damned if I can tell!" - Barack Obama leaping upon the craps table and punching Jay Carney in the face

"Human beings are hardly even people." - Paul Ryan condemning the poor to Eternal Night

"Dance with me and live forever." - Rafalca

"Medicare Is For Pussies!" - Romney/Ryan 2666

"What if we don't even fucking matter anymore?" - Tagg to his brothers

"The boy reminds me of myself before I inhaled the gold dust in Denali." - Ron Paul on Paul Ryan

"I'm harder than Chinese algebra." - David Koch, on the Pick

"... a kind of... supersensual abstraction... a pure electricity of the thighs... an infinite sexual delight..." - John Boehner to Mitt Romney at Paul Ryan's coming of age/circumcision ceremony

"An evil daemon crosses the sky! Do you not see it?!" - Barack Obama to Jim Messina, taking mescaline under the burning desert sun

"Late summer despair... a dark wood at the edge of town... the murmur of a thousand distant voices... every one of them, screaming..." - Ann Romney receiving transmission from the planet Equus

Let's All Kill Each Other

"How wonderful it would be to forget all this." - Barack Obama

"Ecstasy is the experience of waste." - Jared Loughner

“For its basic maintenance, our society requires a quantity of people of certain intelligence that does not occur naturally and cannot be sustainably produced. We’re fucked.” - James Eagan Holmes

“There is no such thing as right or wrong, only what we have the strength to resist.” - Anders Breivik

"There is no light at the end of the tunnel, only an ever more rich and complex misery." - Seung-Hui Cho

"Guns aren't the problem. America is the problem." - Rush Limbaugh

"I don't think anything can explain it." - George Zimmerman

"What's with your women's teeth? And everything smells like cunt." - Mitt Romney addressing Parliament

"They're all a bunch of damn dykes!" - Prince Philip, scandalized by female athletes

"Watersports." - Harry Wales

"Olympic worms, they swim through my cerebellum, dream to die, Billy!" - Brian Williams thrashing around in the Thames

"It's called Slumdog Industrial Millionaire and the Ecstasy of Victoria. Not even the Nazis could top this shit." - Danny Boyle on the Opening Ceremony

"I just want to be paid." - Michael Phelps diving into the Avocado Pool

"One of us, one of us!" - the US Women's Gymnastic Team flipping down the street after a Cockney dosser

"I've got Olympic fever, but I can't get through the checkpoints to the hospital!" - Boris Johnson, deformed by gout

"I'd have preferred fucking." - HM on Olympic cheerleaders

"You dare serve me mashed peas?" - Matt Lauer before savagely striking a bar maid, Sussex

"Why did I say it, Mr. Leader? Commanding the Olympics taught me I could do anything, lead anyone—or overcome them by force of arms. Before Mitt puts his hands upon it, there were no Olympic Lanes and the athletes drove to games like mere mortals. They know they're not. They are something greater, the Thunder Chattel. So when I watch some limey like Cameron condescend to me about 'his games' and 'his people,' well, it just reminds me where I should be: in control. This pageant of capital only dances when there's a Leader humming its melody, whip in hand." - Mitt Romney to a captive Ed Miliband, floor of Wembley Stadium

The Working Man

"Governor, how do you balance your love of Springsteen with your hatred of the working man?"
"Fiber."
- Katie Couric, Chris Christie

"The first great discovery a man makes is that ours is a class society. The second is that nothing can change this." - Mitt Romney

"Welcome to the White Boy Café, where the only thing on the menu is pain." - R. W. Fassbinder

"The most important thing is that we distance ourselves from this as much as possible." - NCAA President Mark Emmert on Penn State

"Do you know what's the worst part of being a failure at the age of twenty-three?"
"No, what is it?"
"The rest of your life."
- Jamie Waylett, E! News interview

"The sword forgives even as it cuts." - Lloyd Blankfein carving a swath through the poor

Commies are red
Coppers are blue
Vengeance is sweet
One divides into two
- Kris Kristofferson, Shake Hands with the Wall

"It's still going to be banal, but at least it will have a dick in it." - Michael Fassbender on anything he does

"Jesus, Henry, what the hell do I do?"
"Remember, Mr. President, they are miniature psychopaths. Like the Communist, the only thing they understand is force."
- Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger babysitting

"I've run up against a very basic problem: I don't believe the work we do here matters. I have not the slightest spontaneous inclination to do my work well, or even to do it at all, because I literally see no difference between 'good' work and 'bad' work, or, for that matter, between 'good' and 'bad.'" - Richard Clarke, declassified memo

"I had a great time meeting the Dalai Lama. He told me about the Four Noble Truths: Life is suffering, Suffering is caused by desire, Suffering can be stopped, Suffering can be stopped by allowing the job creators to satisfy their desires." - Mitt Romney, world leader

"You'll never fucking retire." - Michael Bloomberg to an outdated fax machine

"It's a trap!"

- Supreme Commander of the Rebel Alliance Fleet Admiral Ackbar on work, love, sex, marriage, family, fame, success, wealth, poverty, hope, despair, religion, education, nationalism, life in the theater, the entertainment industry, the private sector, the public sector, resignation, resistance, two-party political systems, one-party political systems, parliamentary democracy, managed democracy, capitalism, populism, liberalism, socialism, communism, utopianism, pragmatism, refusing to give beggars money because you work hard for yours and anyways they don't look so bad off, that's a nice shirt they're wearing, and is that really her baby?; on losing your virginity; on the woman you love taking you by the hand and whispering in your ear that she loves you, too; on buying that car; on buying that house; on taking out those student loans; on taking that corporate gig to pay them off; on master's degrees; on PhD's; on MFA's, MBA's, MD's and JD's; on for-profit colleges; on not-for-profit colleges; on giving up on your dreams; on following them; on Citizens United; on a house divided; on Objectivism, Scientology, libertarianism, and Landmark; on mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps, publicly financed bailouts, and the return to normalcy; on New York City; on Silicon Valley; on Dubai, Tokyo, São Paolo, Mexico City, Caracas, and every major city in India and China; on Russia, Poland, and the Balkans; on Southeast Asia; on all of Africa; on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, the two-state solution, and the coming insurrection; on Fortress London and the Hunger Olympiad; on public housing, shanty towns, gated communities, and communes; on schools, prisons, factories, mines, and offices; on nursing homes, call centers, butcher shops, and glue factories; on standing still; on running away; on not doing anything about it and whatever the opposite of that is; on the light at the end of the tunnel; on life under the gathering clouds.