<=============================> < > < ANTI-PRESS EZINE #43 > < > <=============================> "We're Positive About The Negative" This E-dition filed 12/17/03. (C) Copyright 2003 Anti-Press ============================================================= * A Special Message To All Americans From A Jolly Ol' Elf * Ho, ho, ho. Santa here. It's been a while since I talked to you through the digital pages of Anti-Press Ezine. There's been a lot on my mind lately, even more so this holiday season. Up here in the North Pole we closely track retail sales for the happiest time of the year. I've got this Associated Press news clipping -- courtesy of Anti-Press -- dealing with an unfortunate incident that (allegedly) happened during a post-Thanksgiving sale in Florida. A woman claims she was hurt when there was a stampede for $29.00 DVD players at a Wal-Mart Supercenter. The siren sounded at 6 AM and the woman, the first one in line, claims she suffered a seizure when everyone surged forward to grab a unit, stomping over her. Paramedics were called and after they arrived, they had to move aside some customers who were unaware of the woman lying on the floor. When the paramedics rolled her over, they found a DVD player under her body. This behavior is shocking. Just rude. Doesn't anyone know how to behave during the holiday shopping season? I mean, why was that woman lying on that $29.00 DVD player? She must've realized after being trampled that she was too hurt to finish her purchase. She should've rolled over and allowed someone else to grab it. The name of the game is profit$. I sit up here in the North Pole -- actually I exist in a higher plane of reality -- and I can see what's going on there in those United States of America. Every patriotic American has to pitch in and help win the war against terror. Remember what your President said after 9/11? He told you to go out and buy a car. Gotta keep that economy going. Consume, consumer, consume! If you don't keep the bubble propped up, then a lot of people are going to suffer, especially rich stockholders. Stockholders work hard for their money; they do more they just sit back and let the dividends roll in. They have to keep harassing CEOs, put the pressure on them, to keep the stocks going up, up up! Those CEOs might not be so focused on what has to be done if it wasn't for the stockholders. The captains of industry gotta downsize, move jobs overseas for cheaper labor. They can't care about any human cogs in their machines. Hey, you should see how I run my own company, Christmas, Inc. No slackers here. If my elves don't toe the line, there's always a quick boot out the door into the cold wastes, hungry polar bears on the prowl.Ê Excuse me. [SNORT] There, a little snow to keep Santa going. I told you I was on a higher plane of reality. Now here was I? Oh yeah, consumption. You gotta keep buying, get those shelves bare at Wal-Mart. Now that woman who says she was trampled at the Florida Wal-Mart -- don't worry, she didn't die, they took her to the hospital with some minor black and blue marks. A spokesperson for Wal-Mart said that she never had heard of such a melee for a sale. (Her pants on fire...) The spokesperson said that a DVD player was being held for the slowpoke shopper. Now there's the spirit of Christmas. Wal-Mart could've sold every one of those $29.00 DVD players but they were kind enough to save one for a shopper who never heard about the quick and the dead on Black Friday. So that woman better get out of the hospital and get down there and pay for that unit. Every sale counts. You know, the news said that about 34 per cent of Americans shop on the day after Thanksgiving. Did you get in a glacial queue of cars going into the mall that day? Did you load up your shopping cart and wait in a lethargic bottleneck at the checkout counter? Remember, the news said that the average American spends about $1,000 for Christmas. So you better be nice, you better watch out and conform, damn it! If you didn't blow your wad on Black Friday, then get out now and spend! Now some of you slackers might be saying, "I don't have any money. They closed down the factory where I worked and sent all the jobs overseas." Well, fugging boo-hoo-hoo. You can raise money. Sell your blood. Hock an extra organ. Become a prostitute, male or female, it doesn't matter. You got kids? You know they won't be happy unless you get them one of the hot toys this year. You didn't get little Suzy a Hokey-Pokey Elmo doll? You cheap bastard! What are you going to say to her on Christmas morning? That's the hottest toy this year and you had to be a tightwad, couldn't sell one of your kidneys on the black market. Suzy will hate you because nothing says "I Love You" like a Hokey-Pokey Elmo. Until next Christmas when the hottest toy might be Ebola Elmo (complete with synthetic blood refill -- only at Wal-Mart!). Well, don't sit there, spend. Remember your goal is to blow at least a thousand bucks. It's your duty as a good American citizen. If you don't, the terrorists will win. I'm making a list but not who's naughty and nice. It's big spenders and penny pinchers, AKA patriots and traitors. Patriots might win a free trip to the North Pole. As for scummy cheap traitors, your enemy combatant ass is going to be dumped off in Camp X-Ray. Ho, ho, ho. Happy Holidays! Don't forget the rea$on for the $ea$on. -------- * Sick Story Causes Childhood Depression * Hans Christian Andersen should be bitch-slapped. He's known for his children's stories like "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "The Ugly Duckling." But one of his fairy tales still haunts many minds even today. Back when you were a tot, all tucked into bed, an adult -- most likely a parent -- would read a bedtime story before you fell asleep. The stories could be silly or funny or heartwarming -- but they were upbeat. Unless it was a translation of the holiday story "The Pine Tree" (AKA "The Fir Tree") by Danish sicko Andersen. The story is told through the POV of an innocent sapling sitting in the forest, waiting to grow up to be a big tree. He notices that other trees are chopped down and taken away. He wonders what happens to them. He finds out from some sparrows that each missing tree is brought inside a warm home where it is decorated with lights and gingerbread men and toys. So the Tree wants something better in his life: he wants to become a Xmas tree. The Air and The Sunlight tell the tree to rejoice with what he has: fresh youth in the open air. But the duplicitous Symbols of Nature don't warn him WHY he should be glad for what he has. Ergo, the Tree doesn't take their word at face value. One day the Tree's wish comes true. He is chopped down and carted off. The Tree shares Xmas Eve with the happiness of a human family. He is so joyful, being decorated presents, a star atop his head. But at one point the kids rush up to the Tree, breaking all its limbs as they plunder the hanging toys. Then the brats dance around with their new toys. An adult offers to tell a story but the children have to choose between two. The kids argue, breaking into opposing sides, each wanting a different tale to be told. The Tree has an existential moment: "There was such a bawling and screaming!--the Pine Tree alone was silent, and he thought to himself, 'Am I not to bawl with the rest?--am I to do nothing whatever?'--for he was one of them, and he had done what he had to do." The Tree overhears the story of "Klumpy-Dumpy" who tumbled downstairs but ended up living happily ever after with a throne and a princess. The unsuspecting tree thinks: "Klumpy-Dumpy fell downstairs, and yet he married the princess! Yes, yes, that's the way of the world!" He believes the story because the man who told it was so nice. (There must be a lot of dumb Trees out there who believed President Shrub and his lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.) The naive Tree thinks that every day he will be splendidly decorated, that the holiday cheer will never end. He looks forward to the next day when the fun will be repeated. But when tomorrow arrives, he's rudely given the boot like an illegal Mexican immigrant rounded up from slaving at Wal-Mart. He's banished to the attic, left all alone. But one day someone finds him and decides to make amends by throwing him in a trash heap outside. Then, in the last despairing scene in the story, the Tree is chopped up into small pieces to be used as firewood to heat a kettle. Consumed by flame, he tearfully recalls his few happy moments of existence. Talk to an adult who was exposed to this child-abusing bedtime story as a tot. Hey, most kids are innocent; they still buy into fantasy, into empathy, into wishes. When an adult reads this twisted tale, the child identifies with the anthropomorphized pine tree. Throughout the story the young tree -- not having the wisdom of adulthood -- wishes for something better. He wants to grow up and be a big tree. Then he wants to be a Xmas tree. The symbolic entities around him are either too ignorant or too self-centered to warn him what will happen. Each step along the way the Tree draws closer to Hellfire, his regret growing until it's too late. The implicit message is don't be hopeful, don't try to be better. In the end a kid feels totally bummed out as if he were selfishly used for a day, then left to rot alone, and finally burned like trash. Was this story supposed to be an impassioned plea from a tree-hugger to save the forests? Or to warn little ones that fairy tales in real life end in despair? More likely Andersen was a fatalist, never seeing any purpose to life. That would explain his nihilistic ending: "The Tree was thinking of summer days in the wood, and of winter nights when the stars shone; it was thinking of Christmas Eve and Klumpy-Dumpy, the only fairy tale it had heard and knew how to tell,--and so the Tree burned out. The boys played about in the court, and the youngest wore the gold star on his breast which the Tree had worn on the happiest evening of his life. Now, that was gone, the Tree was gone, and gone too was the story. All, all was gone, and that's the way with all stories." Hans Christian Andersen died in 1857 -- but the evil of "The Pine Tree" lives on. -------- * How To Sign Your Life Away * "Most members serve one weekend a month and two weeks a year." Yup, sign up for the National Guard. Oops, the International Guard. Funny how they don't stress in their TV and print ads, how joining the Guard might put your ass on the line in a useless war in Iraq or some other foreign land where American troops shouldn't be. The TeeVee recruitment ad looks like a video game. Of course, young people play video games, ergo some promoter thinks, "Hey, let's appeal to the kids with that. They're used to the pseudo-reality of a video game, so we can use that format to sell the pseudo-reality of military service -- I mean, community service." In the TeeVee ad animated Guardsmen fly around in a helicopter and serve their community by putting out a forest fire. Hey, nothing wrong with that. An ice storm hit this region a while back, breaking trees, snapping power and telephone lines, a real mess. The Guard showed up and helped get everything up and running. So there is a need for the Guard. They should serve where they're really needed. But not overseas in a shooting-gallery environment like Iraq. Of course, the TeeVee ad doesn't show Guard members scrambling for cover from enemy fire. The phony reality commercial just wraps up with the animated Guard figure, guys and a girl, morphing from soldiers into college grads. But it's kinda hard to be a college grad when you're dead. ------- * Random Shots * -- Another big snowstorm has hit NENYland with over two feet of white crap and the winter nuts are so happy, especially the skiers and the snowmobilers. Wonder how many will kill themselves this time around. Skiers usually brain themselves against trees but snowmobilers are more inventive when it comes to self-destruction. Like a snowmobiler who raced through the woods and decapitated himself with a barbed wire fence. Or the one who fell through thin ice on a deep lake; his body didn't show up until spring. Then there was the snowmobiler who fell off her sled and then an allegedly drunk friend following behind ran her over with his own machine. And then there's the guy who avoided the thin ice on the lake but instead smashed into an ice shanty, human brains and dead fish all over. It's a winter wonderland out there. -- Downtown has a few holes, i.e. empty storefronts. So how does the mayor want to revitalize center city? He wants to bring in a doughnut shop. Great. As if most people around here aren't fat enough already. The (news)paper ran an article about the plan. The headline read: MAYOR WANTS TO FILL HOLE WITH KRISPY KREME (or something like that.) Good luck filling it, Your Honor. -- So they say American soldiers kill 54 insurgents in Iraq during a recent battle. The trouble is that American troops don't collect the dead and the enemy doesn't take their fallen comrades to the morgue. The ones who can be easily tallied are innocent Iraqis caught in the crossfire; they're the ones that end up slabbed in the morgue. So how can the American military claim that 54 of the enemy have been killed? Looks like they're using accountants from Arthur Andersen. -- Arnold Schwarzenneger better straighten up and act like a gentleman now that's he governor of California. He has to leave behind those wild days of groping women. I hate to see what will happen if he visits the White House and meets the national security advisor. If he doesn't control himself, he'll be on her like white on Rice. -- Final thought: TeeVee comedian / talkshow host Jay Leno gets paid millions for jokes just as funny as the preceding. Ergo, there is no God. ============================================================= NOTICE: Unless indicated otherwise, all articles by Anti-Press. Articles submitted by others do not necessarily express or reflect the opinions or beliefs of Anti-Press. WHERE WE'RE AT: Anti-Press Ezine radiates from our Precision Reality Center. We're presently entrapped in the alleged city of Plattsburgh, northeastern New York State (NENYland), USA. ("Yes, Vagina, there is no Santa Claus.") 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