No. 15 - Air Apparent

Air is killing us. Not in a toxins-are-eating-your-lungs sort of way, but rather the air itself slowly kills all of us. It steadily wears at our organs, skin and brains like a determined nail file to a stone.

And despite its wickedness, we still associate the air with positive things: the phrase, "a breath of fresh air," Air Supply, the dainty new Macbook Air, the movie "Con Air," featuring Nicolas Cage.

Air is mysterious, and even a bit magical, but this magic can only point to witchcraft, the dark arts, black lights and gloominess. We all know that if you can’t see it, it doesn’t really exist, right?

Air mocks us and takes our money. When we purchase a bag of our favorite chips, the first thing that happens is the air in the bag, which is three-quarters of said bag’s contents, instantly escapes. You’ve essentially paid to set a bunch of air free into the air, the same air that will, in fact, someday kill you. Frito-Lay or suicide machine? You decide.

Some people cut out the middleman and go straight for the air with their wallets firmly in hand. When stepping off an airplane in Las Vegas, one is instantly met with airport oxygen bars, selling the uncut O2 to those addicts fixing to ride the clear dragon.

Air is not a fan of living things. It consumes food, flesh and other organic material with the voracity of a sumo wrestler at a buffet. And then there’s oxygen, air’s hunch-backed accomplice and one of the main components of the air we breathe. And if you think oxygen is your friend, try breathing it in while near an open flame, and at that point, you better say goodbye to your eyebrows and your dignity as well. Oxygen is a destructive element, pulling life from us, and who sustains us with its poisonous feast? Plants, of course, but that's a different listing altogether.

Extending its reach beyond the living, look at what air is capable of doing to metal and other hearty materials in the form of oxidation, rust and general urban decay. Air is a real vindictive bitch, and your number's at the top of her speed dial.

So the next time you get too comfortable and take a deep breath, don't be lulled by the so-called air's ability to keep you alive; there are likely storm clouds waiting in the wings to soak your sorry ass.

No. 120 - Terror From Above

Sure, birds are cute and seemingly harmless, but did you know they're also winged merchants of death?

Don't be fooled by the melodic song of these twitchy little monstrosities. What you're really hearing is a clarion call signaling the end of civilization as we know it.

Is any creature really meant to fly? Probably not. Birds are, at the least, an aberration. How do they stay afloat over the clouds? How can anything poop and fly at the same time?

Can we really trust something that doesn't even have eyelids? We sure wouldn't want to be engaged in a staring contest with them.

We remember our mothers telling us not to touch birds when we were children. "That thing will give you lice," they would tell us. We didn't know whether that was really true, but the lice ended up being transmitted instead in the batting helmets during Little League. Maybe some birds got to those helmets and did God-only-knows what with the bats and balls.

We can handle the lice, or the white droppings on the hoods of our newly waxed IROC-Z Camaros, for that matter. What's truly unforgivable can be summed up in two words: bird flu. Let's set up a bird feeder and invite disease into our homes and our families. Great idea! Why not set up a rat feeder and reintroduce the bubonic plague while we're at it?

Or how about these two words? Airline crashes. That's right, these avaricious aviators have been responsible for many airplane crashes, destroying our plane engines like the little Kamakazi pilots they are, declaring jihad on sensible and efficient travel.

Also, who's looking out for all the helpless worms that get pulled from the comfort of their dirt condos? Where are the animal rights people to avert the senseless slaughter of our slimy, eyeless friends in the ground?

Bottom line: birds are predators. And we must stop them from preying on our fears. There's a reason we compare birds to their dinosaur forebears. Birds are simply circling the sky and waiting for the next earthly disaster. Then they'll laugh at the mayhem from above, cuckling in a pleasantly singsong manner.

No. 581 - Hole Phoo'ds

We can't sit anywhere nowadays and enjoy our genetically modified snack food, laced with all manner of tasty chemicals, without being bombarded by organic food enthusiasts, bringing our preservative-laden party to a screeching halt. They're the worm in our apple and a total buzz-kill to our Twinkie feast.

Maybe they're not aware of how loosely the term "organic" really applies to some of the food that they purchase. Being organically grown is seemingly in the best interest of our foods and our bodies, but is it really worth the extra costs associated with it, which some estimate is up to 50 percent more than standard non-organic fare?

Organic benefits: Ideally, organic crops are grown without synthetic pesticides, artificial fertilizers and bacteria-killing radiation, and animals on organic farms are not injected with growth hormones and they're not contained throughout their entire waking day. Who could argue with this criteria?

Unfortunately, when the Department of Agriculture was charged with defining "organic" and what could be labeled as organic, these distinctions became as clear as a fertilizer smoothie. The government decided to allow genetically engineered organisms, radiation and even organic compost that contains chemicals with municipal sludge and toxic waste.

And the rub? The same rules enable organic food producers to only print the label "organic" on their goods without any other details about how that food is produced. So, yes, yet another notion of goodness subverted by our trusted leaders.

Eating right should be on the top of everyone's list, but what is right may not always agree with what we're told is right. When grown properly, organic food serves innumerable health benefits, but it also takes a larger toll on the planet.

It's estimated that switching to locally sourced food would produce many more local "food miles" due to more frequent delivery of smaller amounts of food. In essence, this could lead to a dramatic increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases. This does not follow the "green" example which so many organic enthusiasts tout.

Additionally, if everyone on this planet ate food that was truly organically grown, the amount of available fertile soil would quickly dwindle. It's an uncomfortable fact that genetic engineering and industrial farming help produce food on the scale that the masses require, all by using much less collective farmland, which is unfortunately offset by growth hormones, pesticides and other chemicals that seep into the earth, leading to fish in nearby streams with ripped biceps.

Beyond the food, the manner in which organic edibles are distributed throughout most of the country serves only those who can afford to pay more to eat better. Lower income consumers have a less diverse array to choose from, to put it mildly, and it usually involves enormous amounts of sodium and high fructose corn syrup, which some studies reveal now can contain high levels of mercury.

We don't know about you, but it makes us hungry for a peanut butter, jelly and mercury sandwich just thinking about it.

Surmounting the annoyance of health food nuts are the co-operatives of which many are a part; instead of shareholders, they consider themselves more on the lines of a semi-corporate crusty hippie drum circle, all part of this mystical overpriced, hypermarketed communal experience.

One of the chief reasons for "going organic" is the concern over carcinogens found in pesticides. Many tests that have been conducted on known pesticides are the result of extremely high doses being given to animals. Leading scientists from a national soil association admit we typically do not consumer anywhere near the level of toxins that are used in a research environment.

But what we need to bear in mind is that even those things we pull from God's green earth contain their own natural pesticides, and their own carcinogens to offer an icing on the cake of pestilent death.

Some of the most ass-kicking of pesticides are creations of nature, and she doesn't seem to be too keen on pests, from what we're told. According to a report in a leading English newspaper, "Everyday foods are full of natural pesticides. That’s hardly a surprise, since we tend to choose as crops things that seem resistant to pests and disease. The world-famous biochemist Bruce Ames makes the point clear: ‘The natural chemicals that are known rodent carcinogens in a single cup of coffee are about equal in weight to a year’s worth of ingested synthetic pesticide residues that are rodent carcinogens.’"

Now, the article goes on to disclose that this level of natural rodent carcinogens is not exactly harmful to consume either, so please do not be alarmed over your rat-tail soy lattes.

There is no crime in trying to do the healthy thing, but to wear your self-righteousness like a badge of courage is an uncouth practice. We know you're a vegan, but please don't throw this in our faces as if you were awarded the Purple Heart. And nutrition shouldn't be treated as a fashion trend or status symbol.

We want not only a more even distribution of wealth, but a more even distribution of health. A proper chemical-free diet should not just be a dream of the well-off.

No. 423 - Mickey Louse

Perhaps no cultural icon is more heinous than the big-eared antichrist himself, a rodent who's perpetrated nothing short of crimes against humanity, and along the way burnishing his three-circled symbol that gleams like a proud pentagram.

On the surface, the culture spawned from the Happiest Place on Earth is sunshine and rainbows, a utopian playland where everyone lives happily ever after, but the drivel spewed from this company's sundry TV stations, music label, movie production company, and all of the other pawns in its multi-media empire, is nothing short of toxic.

Disney Corp. is a prime example of a far-reaching enterprise gone awry, one that places a stranglehold on childrens' psyches at a time when their reality is still being shaped. The company's eponymous founder has long since passed, but his ideals live on in a mutated manner that was likely never intended by the Walt-astic forebear of all that is mouse; that aside, it's only fitting that Disney's current iteration, which has always been touted as "kid friendly," actually plays a large part in the deterioration of pre-teen culture.

Children are essentially instructed who to worship as the next tween celebrity -- Hannah, Jonas, Cody, Zach or Cheetah, or whoever else is instantly thrust into the kleig lights with shaggy hair and a winning smile.

This enterprise takes advantage of young minds during their most susceptible years, and that alone is not necessarily a vile act, although this demographic should be developing their imaginations throughout these years, not staring into the TV screen like zombies as they're spoon-fed pop culture junk food. They'll have their adult lives to indulge in mindless entertainment.

The real transgression lies in the way these pre-teen stars are hyper-sexualized and thrown into adult situations. Many of the current celeb icons are trust fund kids or silver spoon adolescents with stage parents, most of them with nothing better to do than answer their hormonal whims and party like it's 2099. And the message to pre-teenagers is to be innocent yet look like tarts, to consume but be moderate, to pursue intellect but villify the geeks of the world.

And parents worldwide are in turn subject to horribly written jokes and plot lines that couldn't even live up to the quality of a Mad Lib. Current Disney sitcoms reveal a theatrical and literary mastery that only Shakespeare himself could have created -- if Shakespeare had a full frontal lobotomy, that is.

Then there are the movies, revisionist propaganda at its finest, along with the historical dark skeletons that the Mouse Mafia itself can't even spin into profits, so they remain locked away like a bad drug habit. (Song of the South, anyone? How about the black handmaiden centaur in Fantasia? Get the blackface ready for the Disney on Ice rendition of these and other cultural embarrassments.)

Princesses and frail women weaken at the knees until the uber-male heroes come to their aid. Animals give life to the most deplorable of racial stereotypes, whether it's rasta lobsters, jive crows, Asian cats or derelict hyenas. Generations of bigotry, chauvenism and repressed dreams rolled up into one cute, castrato-esque, pants-less mouse.

This mouse must be stopped, or at least ignored into irrelevance. Might we suggest a lollipop laced with rat poison, sprinkled with a tad of pixie dust and arsenic?

No. 355 - It's Square to be Hip

Are you drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon with your ill-earned trust fund money, a flannel shirt tied around your waist, blabbing about your latest philanthropic cause and your vegan lifestyle astride a fixed-gear bicycle, or perhaps a scooter? Are you wearing an ironic trucker hat and an American Apparel long sleeved shirt? Do you look down your nose at anything anyone else likes, but secretly covet it?

Does your second-hand-esque wardrobe clash with your $100 haircut that gives you a permanent disheveled bedhead? In your strenuous attemps to look "thrown together" and act like you don't give a damn, do you actually take heavy stock in what people think about you?

Yes to all the above, you say? Well then, you, friend, are a hipster douchebag. That's correct: it's a scientific fact and a well researched topic, from the mouths of culture's greatest thinkers; they say hipsters, who don't really have an identity, are destroying our very idea of a counter culture. It's a manufactured, prefabricated personality, as insincere as it is strangely appealing.

Hipsters have strangled some of the finer things in our society and mashed them into a two-dimensional self-caricature, cannibalizing bits and pieces from longstanding counter cultures into one disingenuous identity that makes hipsters more like uniformed drones than intellectual outsiders who have the "in" on every cool style, movie or band.

In fact, if you happen to be a hipster, you are most definitely too cool to be reading this. Your coolness meter is so in the red that even if you do think something is cool, you'll go to your grave never admitting it.

One exception we'll make in our skewering of hipsters is Wes Anderson, whom, we feel is more pre-hipster. In fact, hipsters likely attached themselves to this master of cinema regardless of how he felt about the assimilation. Wes Anderson is genuine, swept up in the hipster movement in the same manner that Kurt Cobain shunned the grunge moniker. Same goes for indy rock. And PETA. And Greenpeace. And scarves.

We must be rid of hipsters at once; inaction is tantamount to guilt for being a part of hipsterism's growing influence. Hipsters are infesting our best restaurants and nightclubs, even overruning Salvation Armys across this great land. They're ruining literature and art, blurring the lines between brilliance and crap, kitschy and just plain dumb. They're yuppies in vintage clothing.

We shall not be overcome by this societal scourge. We are burning our horn-rimmed glasses in effigy. And then we'll burn all of our Decemberists albums and cook a big steak over the fire.

No. 65 - Advertising Rage

Ads Hole

There's a giant eye in the sky, sinister and all-knowing, watching every one of us -- kind of like Sauron's eye in "Lord of the Rings," but not nearly as kick-ass (and a lot less friendly). This omniscient being sees what you do in your most private of moments, and yes, even watches you when you do that...thing that you do with the shampoo bottle and the cocoa butter. You know.

This eye is searching for something intangible, something no one can pinpoint. It's looking for coolness, and how to sell this coolness to you with lots of plastic and twistie ties and limited warranties.

There may not be a literal eye watching you at all times (notwithstanding those PCP users reading this right now), but we are being watched and communicated with via the thousands of messages that lurk everywhere we look. Execs in starched shirts and khakis are plotting our psychological futures, what we will think we need tomorrow, or in ten years.

What we see in ads are beautiful people having fun, more bliss than we'll ever imagine, the equivalent to approximately two million drunk circus clowns. Wow, does holding a candy bar really make someone that happy? We want in on that action. Is it possible that buying anything will make me this cool?

And then you think, if I open this bottle of beer, will a party spontaneously erupt in my tiny hole of an apartment with strobe lights and hundreds of people? If I buy this car, will hot models throw their panties at me while I'm driving by?

Messages are at every turn, swatches of rural highways lit up and animated like Times Square. We have enough personal distractions to begin with, yet we're bombarded with these messages every single day.

Even a trip to the most rural areas of this expansive nation are not exempt from advertising's evil grip. Just the other day, we were in the deep woods of Minnesota and witnessed a deer carrying a giant sign for Crazy Fanny's Furniture Factory, and nearby, a raccoon ran by with a Nike symbol shaved into its side. Shame.

Let's digress and be realistic: we would not turn down advertising of any sort, because we could abandon our desk jobs if advertising were generous enough. The point is, those creating advertising are not bad. It's the repercussions, the smiley mascots that take on lives of their own -- the babies who recognize McDonald's and Walt Disney characters before they even utter a word.

Bless the advertising gurus, some of whom are brilliant and funny, but damn them on the other hand for studying us and waging war on our psyches. But like Patton, we fight back. We record our television, only to skip the commericals, and what do they do? Infiltrate the shows themselves. Case in point: "The Office," a brilliant program, but also a blatant shill for HP and Cisco, among other products. But we tolerate this because the show is that good.

We would let advertisers tattoo messages inside of our eyelids if that's what it took to watch our favorite television shows or movies. Yes, this particular entry is inspired by Adbusters (http://www.adbusters.org/) for whom we thank graciously for opening our eyes to many new ideas and for introducing us to Culture Jamming.

No. 39 - Oversized, undersized

We've long been a country of extremes, desiring the most lascivious of luxuries, yet condemning them at the next turn. As Americans, our vices identify us and shape how people perceive us. This imbalance is most evident when you look at what we consume.

In our need for consumption, the word moderation doesn't even enter the equation.

We love the monstrous portions of food, but with a diet drink. Our sisters and daughters wear next to nothing to school, yet the strongest voices are clamoring for abstinence (just thinking about sex will burn your retinas from your eye sockets!).

First, the oversized: king-size beds, giant pickup trucks and SUVs and trough-like syrupy buckets of "Biggie" drinks, not to mention oversized backsides that women owners like to display all too prominently in all its rippling cottage cheese-esque glory.

And then there's the other end of the spectrum: undersized. Again, these same ladies with oversized backsides tend to throw undersized clothes over their gelatinous mounds of flesh, creating a three-dimensional map that's way too vivid and leaves nothing to the imagination.

Food makers are now giving us 100 calorie diet portions of our favorite food. In actuality, they're reducing the portion sizes and charging the same price, then slapping a "healthy" sticker on the box, and voila! Instant health. Amazing. It's like we're all infants and will keep eating until we explode were it not for the rations that these food makers are so generous to mete out to us.

And while we're on the topic of undersized, our culture has an obsession with tiny things. Little salt-shakers, miniature tubes of toothpaste, those tiny bottles of ketchup that are ridiculously difficult to empty, tiny burgers, palm-sized computers: it's as if there's some little person conspiracy afoot. Their master plan is to miniaturize the entire world.

My phone's better because it's tinier. This iPod is so small, it's awesome, you can't even see me holding it right now, you can only see it with a microscope. The earbuds actually fell into my ear canals, so the iPod is now part of my nervous system. My dog is cool because I can fit it in my pocket. That's not a dog - that's a keychain, genius. And while you're at it, quit putting clothes on the little furry beast.

Maybe the big girl holding the dog can use the poodle tutu as a hankie, or a patch for when she sits down and rips her ....