Blue Boxing 2009

Since we seem to have survived the Christmas Season, we’re now on the downside of 2009 and it is time to put that first decade of the New Millennium in the Blue Box for recycling.  Like most, we’re not entirely sure what should go into the blue box, the black box or the composter, except that we know we want this stuff kicked to the curb asap:

Blue Box:  Any celebrity who has been photographed without underwear, by cellphone camera, paparazzi, or civilian on the street, while getting into a vehicle, out of a vehicle, or bending over to pet a small animal.  If your sole talent is being photographed because you’re famous, then you get to climb into the blue box.  And buy some underwear.

Black Box:  Financial folks who accepted TARP bailout money to pad their nests and then miraculously managed to pay back all that taxpayer funded cash. They showed that their “emergency” was nothing more than a cash grab from a departing president who wanted to give his buddies one last payday.  Unfortunately, the new guy put some hooks into TARP that limited executive compensation, which meant that they could only buy one Gulfstream, instead of four.  The rest of the financial crisis was made up by PR fartcatchers and we swallowed it.

Green Box:  The various media outlets for bringing us the Balloon Boy, Michael Jackson’s death, imaginary pundits, so-called experts and the daily parade of the lame, the halt and the scarily insane who now pass for news.  Included are the online media who bleat hourly about LiLo’s handbag or Paris’ douchebag as if it was the sole piece of important news on the entire planet that day.

Blue Box:  Any expert who beeps and moos about ‘social media’.  Twitter is for the under-medicated with ADHD who obsessively over-share but are functionally illiterate.  Linkdin was developed for failed real estate agents to reassure themselves they exist.  Facebook makes it easy to stalk your old high school crushes, or to circumvent restraining orders.  The rest, including blogging and this blog, is proof that a million monkeys with a million typewriters cannot reproduce the works of Shakespeare.

Black Box:  The RCMP for Tasering Robert Dziekanski to death and tap dancing so furiously around the facts that had we had the foresight to wire them into the electrical grid, we could have powered Vancouver Airport for a year.  Included in that Black Box is the management of eHealth Ontario who spent untold millions of tax dollars not coming up with a way to computerize health records, but somehow managing to expense nannies, green fees, rent, booze and gifts to their buddies. 

Green Box:  Bought and Paid For Politicians.  They know who they are and so do we.  If they take money from, or run their own PAC then suddenly have opinions about numerous issues, they’re on a financial intravenous from lobbyists.  There should be term limits on everything from dog catcher to Prime Minister.  You get eight years, then get the hell out and get a real job. 

Blue Box:  Granite countertops.  Enough already.  The granite countertop will be the Dusty Rose of the 10’s.  Even the homeless living in a packing crate have granite countertops, at exorbitant prices per square foot, especially for the really ugly granite that matches nothing in the known universe, except more granite from the same slab.  The same holds true for ‘staging your home’.  If I want to stage my home, I’ll get it a gig as understudy for West Side Story.  It could do a creditable job as Maria in the Saturday matinee performances.

Black Box:  Nut-Egg-Latex-free zones.  Some days the evil Dave wants to get out the catapult to toss a couple of hundredweight of peanuts, almonds, scrambled eggs, chocolate, shrimp, lobster and rubber gloves over the fence of the school, just to see which kid starts to twitch and throb.  Being allergic to bee stings or cobra venom, I understand, but what’s next?  Allergic to long division and basic grammar?  Quick, let’s ban denominators and gerunds as my precious little sprog will suffer self-esteem issues and never recover to live a helpless life encased in plastic in the seniors home, where I can watch over them until I die.  In some countries E.Coli is considered a condiment.

Green Box:  Sportsmanlike conduct.  There is no such thing anymore, so let’s just give up the pretence and get on with it.  We want blood-spattered gladiators crowing victorious over the vanquished foe at the Grade 4 Public School Badminton Tournament.  As for the Olympics, well, I’m all for nude luge as that takes real demonstrable courage, but I’d like to see a biathlon where the course is fenced in, stocked with undernourished wolves and the targets can shoot back.  The Gold Medal goes to the competitor who gets out alive.

Blue Box:  Reality programming.  Why haven’t the media monkeys come up with a 20 hour series on getting the leaves raked or coin collecting; “Competitors, this special super-immunity challenge sees you piling live Soviet-era land mines in a basket on a running cement mixer.  The winner gets this 1974 mint-condition quarter and immunity from being voted off the barge.”  Cut to dramatic shot of Julie the hairdresser from Minnetonka mopping her brow with a Dr. Pepper, the Official Softdrink of Coin Collector Death Barge.

If you have nominations for the Blue Box 2009, pass them along.