So, I have been noticing a mainstream theme of clowning on the corporate world. I see paintings about it, hear songs raging about the infamous “sellout” artists, but this video Ms. Nickels shared with me is the best of both worlds. I am all about the mom and pop shops, the underdog, the artist making music to spread their word, not their pocket book. Aesop Rock latest video, “Pigs”

is the anti corporate anthem, featuring Jeremy Fish, painting random shit in the background. The art complements the lyrical content of the song quite nicely if I do say so myself. Check out Aesop Rock on his space http://www.myspace.com/aesoprockwins and support the anti establishment by joining the rest of us in the anti anti establishment?

House Staffers and Political Pigs are getting all upset because Legistorm.com is posting already public information about their finances. Staffers who make more than $110,000 a year are required by law to make their information public. The web site, which has been in existence since 2006, recently started publishing information on use of public monies and personal finances. Some legislators are worried about identity theft. I’m more worried that my representatives, or the bulk of them, are milking the system and selling their constituencies down the river.

From their web site:

The information is provided in a strictly factual, non-partisan fashion. We have no political affiliations and no political purpose except to make the workings of Congress as transparent as possible. We expect this resource to be useful to journalists, researchers, lobbyists and current and would-be staffers - as well as regular citizens who simply want to know how their representatives spend public money.

The Number One Terrible Thing about American politics is the monetization of it. The adage “Money is the root of all evil” is especially true when it comes to politics. I say good for Legistorm. Maybe, JUST MAYBE, if we know where and how our representatives are spending their money we can get some damned accountability. It’s better than driving a stake through their black and callous, self-serving hearts. (Hey, I know my stance is slanted against political figures. At least I don’t’ advocate voting with a bullet, alright?)

Take Part Blog’s suggestion that Legistorm may have been created by The Wire character Lester Freamon is pretty on point. Any Public Figure who is speaking out against Legistorm MOST LIKELY has something terrible they’re trying to hide. Fuck ‘em. Let em writhe.

In the midst of what is quickly becoming Puppygate 2008, it is interesting (to me at least) to note that, many of the same internet-dwellers that believe 9/11 was an engineered event meant to shift the will of the general population in favor of a certain socio-political viewpoint, are so quick to vouch for the authenticity of a grainy, unsourced YouTube clip. I’m not saying its NOT real, however, I’m definitely not gonna say it is. As the above video points out, remember not so long ago the whole “bird shitting in the reporters mouth” clip that was a supposed outtake of real news footage? Well it turned out to be fake, after of course, getting a few million views on YouTube and getting linked by Huffington Post along with every other blog, most of whom are probably posting this puppy video as we speak. Like I said, maybe this video is real. Maybe I’m totally off base. But I’d rather be the guy who was wrong about it being some engineered viral meme, than the guy that’s wrong but can’t go back and unpost a United State’s Marine’s mother’s home address, or worse yet, threats of physical violence.

And even if it is real, Who are we to decry the senseless death of one animal, when everyday in every single city in our entire country, who legions of animals are routinely slaughtered, for food, because they’re “pests”, or because they happen to walk onto our roads? Or how about the 3-4 million dogs and cats euthanized each year at United States animal shelters. Where’s the outcry over that? How many hundreds of thousands of puppies do you think that includes? Why is no one storming the gates of these humane societies and demanding justice?

If we want to punish someone for purposely mistreating animals why don’t we start with the people we can at least prove are doing it? Such as the factory farms that produce the majority of America’s meat? Pigs, which are known to be as intelligent, if not more so than dogs are just one of the animals that suffer unimaginable deaths every single day on their way to our sandwiches, tacos, etc:

Pigs are very clean animals who take to the mud primarily to cool off and evade flies. They are just as friendly and gregarious as dogs, and according to Professor Donald Broom at the Cambridge University Veterinary School, “They have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly three-year-olds.” Mother pigs in factory farms in the U.S. live most of their lives in individual crates that are 7 feet long and 2 feet wide. They display signs of extreme boredom and stress, such as biting the bars of their cages and gnashing their teeth. Their piglets are taken away three weeks after birth and packed into pens until they are singled out to be raised for breeding or for meat. Like chickens and turkeys, pigs are genetically manipulated and pumped full of drugs, and many become crippled under their own weight. Although pigs are naturally affable and social animals, the confinement of these crowded pens causes neurotic behaviors such as cannibalism and tail-biting, so farmers use pliers to break off the ends of piglets’ teeth and cut off their tails without any painkillers.

Makes being thrown off a cliff sound pretty humane.