Occupy Wall Street

My compatriots over at RoundTree7 have initiated a "drum roll" in support and solidarity with Occupy Wall Street (occupywallst.org). Gwendolyn Holden Barry expanded the regular show she does with Jack Jodell - Here Be Monsters - so that they're broadcasting everyday during the occupation of Wall Street and the occupation of Freedom Plaza next week in Washington DC.   It's a call-in format so no matter where you are - whether you're at work in Oklahoma or Tennessee, in bed with the flu or another more serious condition keeps you homebound in Florida, Texas, Connecticut, Iowa, Nebraska or Timbukfuckingtu - you can have a virtual sit-in in solidarity with the demonstrators.

Here Be Monsters on Blogtalk Radio

I'm heading to Zuccotti Park(remained Liberty Park in honor of the Occupation) later today with my dear friend and former boss. She's the one I was with that day at IKEA when I spontaneously turned into a shoplifter as a result of an overwhelming overload of institutionalized stupidity. This shoplifting phase nearly got out of hand at the grocery store when I realized that corporations made a business decision to replace humans at the registers with Self-Checkers. Absorbing increased shoplifting is still cheaper than paying salary and benefits to a human.

My mother always told me that shoplifting was wrong because stores charged more for their merchandise to cover the cost of the shoplifting so if you steal from a store, all your neighbors pay for your bad behavior. She didn't know what to say when I told her that the grocery stores were already charging you, say, 20% extra for your purchases to cover shoplifting whether people shoplifted or not. So it was actually incumbent upon us all to use the self-checkers - which have eliminated jobs - to swipe 20% of the items in our carts.

It's really easy to put a $15.00 pot roast on top of a 12 pack of toilet paper. Slide the toilet paper across the scanner, and plop the pot roast straight into your bag. Take three boxes of pasta and stack them neatly, scan one.  Presto! It's practically your moral responsibility to stick it to The Man.

I stopped shoplifting because I had gotten so ballsy that it was only a matter of time before I was apprehended, and that would have been embarrassing not only to my buddy Nicole, but it also would have been problematic given that I was in the middle of the romance with that preacher from the mountains.  You don't get busted for shoplifting when you're dating a preacher.  You'll never hear the end of it.

Anyway, Nicole is helping me tote some supplies down to the food committee.   I'm not sure, but we may wind up in the middle of the march to One Police Plaza.   By now everyone should be aware that a few cops have been unnecessarily rough. Lee Camp explains:



Whatever happens, I'll be writing it up for Roundtree7.  I still love Joe over at Worldwide Hippies, but now that I'm working full time and in the writing workshop (and hopefully dating a strikingly handsome, if somewhat narcissistic yoga master with an outstanding retreat near Ithaca), I can't commit to a deadline anymore.  Ergo: I'm no longer part of that team.  Hopefully that situation will work itself out somehow since WWH brings a lot to the party.  Meanwhile, Roundtree7 has graciously included me in their collective.  I like being part of a group working toward a common goal - and right now, that goal is to keep sharing the news from the occupation since Corporate Media has a blackout on the information unless they are denigrating the efforts.  That's what happens when you've come to depend on golden showers from Goldman Sacks