My uncle was a small-herd fairy farmer my entire life. Never had more than a couple dozen cows at a time, always knew all of them by name. He kept on getting squeezed out by larger and larger operations. He eventually went grass-fed organic to try and stay competitive. Then he told me that the large operations have organic mini-farms that they operate. The cows there are kept organic… but only so long as they remain in perfect health. The instant one gets sick, she gets moved over to the bigger factory operation and is pumped full of all the antibiotics that all the rest are kept on.

So, while my uncle is keeping a small herd and who has both financial and moral reasons for wanting to maintain his cows that way, a large factory farm can maintain a nominal organic operation, undercutting small fries like my uncle, but actually only keeping their cows organic for exactly as long as it’s convenient, and not a moment longer.

My uncle is retired now, but it hurt me to hear him tell that story. We ought to care about small family farms, but we keep letting capitalist “efficiency” turn every aspect of life on Earth into a market-optimized hellscape.

donakd gt fkd

"The number is 40 percent within weeks. Do not contradict the president.”

These ghouls can’t be trusted with reality.

James 5:1-6, NRSV

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure during the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.

How long have you been working here? Okay. You like working here? Okay.

I fucking loved him as Mr. Hand. When he gets the John Murdoch memory upload he starts doing Rufus Sewell’s mannerisms and it’s honestly a little uncanny. Great performance.

No one who speaks German could be an evil man!

What is Blue Flannel McWidestance holding? A hammer? Pry bar? Cattle prod? What the fuck?

This, Legend, and Labyrinth were a huge part of my childhood, and yet I turned out straight-ish. More or less. I mean, there’s always Gene Kelly. And Toshiro Mifune. And Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. A man’s got to know the limits of his heterosexuality.

Oh, also, about The Last Unicorn…

Some of the animators from TLU would eventually go on to found Studio Ghibli, and that makes sense.

Also, if you get a chance listen to the Peter David commentary on the movie. He’s grumpy and cantankerous throughout, but was apparently very happy about the movie. At one point he says “When I heard they were going to have America do the music, all I knew was ‘A Horse with No Name’ and I thought it would be terrible, but then I heard what they came up with and it was perfect.” It’s a great commentary, well worth the listen.

Knairobi

How many college educations could have been fully funded for $3 billion? How many elementary schools built? How many other worthwhile problems could have been solved, rather than building a bunch of worthless crumbling garbage out in the desert?

Honestly, given the available evidence, this is just as likely an outcome as any other.

I’m pretty sure they just had us brute-force memorize all of the single digit additions and multiplications in grade school. Seemed to work out okay for me.

Oglaf, Dimorphism

Not exactly. Except for numbers 4 and 9, they’re all dead.