Daily Occupy Boston Critique: Still No Clear Mission Statement?

In attempting to have a real discussion with a couple of friends via e-mail chain yesterday I mined this little gold nugget regarding Occupy Boston.  Some background, we were discussing the idea of the protestors finding an empty hall or office space to set up shop and start running this thing like a real movement that can be taken seriously, instead of a shanty town which allows the media and bystanders to give credence to the stereotype of hippies or malcontents just looking for handouts...

but then no one will see them ... honestly at this point the only effect they have is that people see them ... they have no clear mission statement, no organization, no leadership ... probably because they're nothing but a bunch of hippies...
 
no joke - i saw one guy sitting in one of those fold out lounge chairs we use for tailgating .... he had another facing him that his feet were up on and he was just lounging doing nothing ... what cause is that helping ..
 
I saw signs saying get rid of corporations ... signs about not being able to get jobs (might be tougher without corporations) ... signs about bringing home the troops ... signs about getting rid of the Fed .... I even saw signs about stopping standardized testing!! hahaha  - it's basically just a bunch of hippies screaming about any left wing issue and they call it occupy wall st.
 
get one common goal and get organized or its no different than any other hippie protests

Amen...couldn't have said it much better...And don't come back with that crap about not wanting to be pigeon holed into a few specific demands for change that might not encompass everything...you guys have been staging sleep overs in a public park for 3 weeks, you supposedly hold productive general assembly meetings daily, you should have come up with some clear goals and mission statements by now.  Not blanket quotes like "Equality" or that random one I read yesterday where an occupier went off on a riff about whether or not the interviewer ever dreamed of being a skate boarder as a kid...Are you guys kidding me? That's why you're not being taken seriously...there's way too many fringe ideas and opinions being voiced and its taking away from any central wide encompassing message that the masses could actually get behind.

And I don't want to seem like I'm against the democratic process or a grassroots movement, I'm just against dumb movements that have shown no ability to put together a clear cause. I'm rooting for you, believe it or not...some of you, anyway. The clear headed ones with good ideas, but you need to organize and find a way to filter out some of these ridiculous complaints and protests that have no business being a part of this "discussion" that you want to have. My advice, start with the fed, and then the politicians that empower these high ranking execs you seem to loathe so much. 

Jennifer Aniston is Bringing It! Just Oozing Cache.

Goddamnit! Would someone please marry this woman? I mean it's beyond me at this point how she has remained single this long...look at her, she's 42! Still killing it, looks better than just about every 20 something out there. Looks like a well tuned ferrari, just revving engines for show. I'm legitimately staying up nights, losing sleep over the fact that Jennifer hasn't found someone to settle down with yet. This isn't the kind of thing I should be preoccupied with but sadly it is, so I'm begging someone, anyone, take a legit run at Jen...If you're a up and coming actor how do you not go for this? Smoking hot wife who can help bring you cache and move your career along? You think they just sell cache? No, you marry into cache, and from where I'm standing, Jen's got cache in spades. Oozing cache.

My Alarm Clock is Legimately the Only Difference Between Me and Homeless Person

Look, I'm on record as personally hating my alarm clock, like I have a legit vendetta against it...it's been swiped to the floor in hopes of breaking it more than once, it gives me crazy anxiety, and there are just nights I want to tie a cinder block to it and sink it in the Mystic River. But every morning, once I'm up and got some extra strength coffee running through me, I realize I need that alarm clock much more than it needs me.

I'm talking life or death need. I was standing around ironing this morning, thinking about how great it must've been back in the old days (I'm talking medieval ages, pre alarms, bells and whistles), to just wake up naturally and start your day when you're ready to rise, and it dawned on me. There is no way I'd have been anything other than homeless back then. Who would fucking hire me? Without that alarm blaring in my ear every 10 minutes there is just no way in hell I'm getting my ass up to start my day. None.

I think under natural circumstances I'd probably roll out of bed around 11 or so, basically sleeping until my back was too sore from sleeping. I'd saunter upstairs, grab a bagel, and hit the couch. From there I'd go one of two ways, TV on, tablet fired up for some light browsing, or TV on and a quick 20 minute nap to help me wake up.  After about a half hour or so I'd probably be awake enough to shower put a pot of coffee on, and start my day...so we're talking I'm not leaving my house until noon at the earliest.

So now you're probably thinking, so what? Get a job on second shift.  No, doesn't work like that. I'm still going to require work be done by 6:30, 7 PM at the latest. The longer you push it, the later I'm going to sleep the next morning...its not like I'm going to work second shift, get home at midnight and just zonk out until 11 the next morning, no, no, no. I'm still going to need to catch up with my dvr and watch a minimum of 1 hour of re-runs of either The Office or Seinfeld before I can get to sleep.

So see, I need that alarm clock, it's the only thing that keeps me a remotely hire-able employee. It's honestly more valuable to my lifestyle than my college diploma. I'm dead serious. I'd find a job without that diploma, I'd be mouth breathing in my parents basement without that alarm clock, probably buying and selling baseball cards on e-bay or whatever it is basement dwellers do these days.

This all makes me wonder if they people down at the Occupy movements ever owned an alarm clock. Maybe that's their problem? Just can't seem to wake up in time to be productive? Just a thought.

Ohio Farm Has Security Breach, Lions and Tigers And Bears On the Loose, OH MY!

Wandering the streets of Cleveland near you!

ZANESVILLE, Ohio (WTVN) -- A number of exotic animals, including lions, bears and cheetahs, were running loose in Muskingum County after someone opened their cages. The owner of the wild animal preserve on Kopchak Rd, which runs along I-70, was found dead. During a press conference Tuesday night, Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz urged residents to stay indoors and recommended that some area schools cancel classes on Wednesday. Zanesville City Schools, West Muskingum Local Schools and Maysville Local Schools had cancelled classes. There were reportedly upwards of 50 animals at the farm. "Right now, we're shooting to kill," Lutz said. "This is a bad situation. It's been a situation for a long time. We want people to take every precaution." The farm's owner, Terry Thompson, was found dead after deputies received several reports of wild animals near his home around 5:30 p.m. Deputies armed with assault rifles went to the area and found a number of animals outside their cages. Others had gotten past the property's surrounding fence.

Not to my fellow Bostonians, this is when you panic. When Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh MY! Are just stampeding around some local hill-billy's farm, thats the time to gather the children and go on lockdown.  Not when we're talking about a baby and momma Zebra out for a leisurely stroll around a controlled zoo like we had this past weekend...I mean are wild Zebra's even dangerous? Aren't they basically mulatto horses? Would everyone freak out if a horse was just wandering around aimlessly? Didn't think so.

By the way, as a law enforcement officer, this is easily the high point of your career...I'm not saying the idea of the animals being slaughtered is a particularly nice one, but as a cop, the day you get to take out the assault rifles and go big game hunting with orders of shoot to kill, is the day you'll remember the rest of your career.

New Zealand Ship Spilling More Oil At Sea...Did the Front Fall Off?

My Fox Boston - AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- A stranded cargo vessel off the east coast of New Zealand's North Island has spilled more oil into the ocean, as efforts to pump the remaining oil off the ship are hampered by bad weather, Maritime New Zealand said Tuesday. "A small amount of oil was released from the bow of Rena this morning," it said in a statement. "A light sheen of oil has been observed moving out to sea with the prevailing wind."

What better time to break out my favorite internet video of all time. I'm not even kidding, the counter on youtube is at 1.8 million, I'm easily that .8 portion of the viewers. 

So you can imagine that when I saw this actual story this morning, I spit out my coffee, and I actually was drinking coffee...right out, all over the screen. Life imitating art at its best.

"Well some of them are built as so the front won't fall off at all."