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Sunday, May 27, 2007

Blame Lincoln.

I was talking to Ambrose on the phone last night, as he packed to leave for OCS (which he did at 0600 this a.m.), and he stopped in mid sentence to ask me something. "And answer honestly," he added.

"Is there a cotton shortage in the United States? Are the sheep dying of disease?"

I had no response, and so he pointed to possible causes for a textile problem, all stemming from the lack of slave labor around the world (except China, which doesn't reach entirely around the world and so does not count), specifically in the American south. Since there are no longer plantations humming along productively from the Gulf to the Potomac, a shortage of cotton is at hand. But I wanted to know why he was asking me such a question.

"These women," he said. "They aren't wearing anything."

Having spent three of the past ten days in crowded amusement parks, faced by thousands of pounds of obese American vacationers wearing little more than underwear and a smile, this made me laugh. Quite a lot.

"So, basically, Abraham Lincoln is to blame for the degredation of modern society," he finished. "I must call Sammie."

And that was the end of our discussion. Now, I must disabuse the Yankees out there of the notion that no cotton is grown anywhere any more--it sprouts by the acre all across the southern and midwest United States, as well as in South America, Africa, and even parts of Europe. Fine sheep graze on hillsides, giving up their own modesty once a year for the sake of hiking socks and plaid scarves. All across the Small Blue Planet (trademark) are sources of textile goods in all shapes and sizes. Ambraham Lincoln did not, in fact, cause a cotton deficit by emancipating the slaves. The problem is people, actually, and their attachment to good bodily ventilation.

Digression. This is part of my blog where I lose my inspiration, decide that I should have stopped at least a paragraph ago, and then ignore that realization and plow onward to a silly, meaningless, and uninspiring finish. End digression.

Fat people, it has been proven, love to show off their fat. Skinny people love to show off their skinny. Tattoed people love to show off their tatoos. The textile production market aids them in their daily quest to show as much fat, skinny, and tatoo, by providing them with as little material as possible which might obscure the fat, skinny, or tatoo. In the meantime, we save the environment by spending less energy on waching machines and dryers, and kill fewer turtles and penguins by keeping detergent chemicals out of the lakes and streams of Mother Earth (trademark).

Thank you for reading. I'm sorry I don't blog more often, nor finish my thoughts when I do, but I have a busy life and too few brain cells to make this an everyday event. This is the uninspiring finish.

11 comments:

  1. The argument makes less sense then anything Sam could've come up with.

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  2. Oh please, we grow more cotton now without the slaves; and the people growing it make more money too.

    Those people who show off their fat/skinny/tattoos, I think they own more outfits than they would have century and a half ago. Significantly more.

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  3. Somehow, I get the distinct feeling that you guys didn't get the joke.

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  4. No, I got the joke. I just get all serious when I'm on the Internet.

    Actually, I get serious when people talk about economical things. Not only are they important, but folks consistently get them wrong.

    Actually, this reminds of me of the essay I sent in my application to UVA which attempted to advance the theory of devolution and how it proved that the earth destined for a violent destruction. I was turned down.

    God Bless.

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  5. uJMJ

    hahaha...i got it...too well:P

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  6. You know, there's an interesting bit of twisted truth in that.. if Lincoln hadn't made the war, the South could have left, established international borders and customs agents, and (hopefully) we wouldn't be seeing so much lack of clothing from tourists from the North as we'd be able to bar them from entering Florida (and the rest of the South) if they hadn't packed enough clothes that'll cover 'em.

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  7. I love you, Andrew. :-) I really do.

    Everyone else......I'm thinking.

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  8. I took it as a joke. I thought it was funny.

    See, something is lost when one writes.

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  9. Hehe... Interesting. Even in the event of a cotton shortage, one could still (I _think_) make clothing from flax. Or hemp. Or palm leaves, or something, anything rather than seeing people go around without enough clothing!!>.< Sorry, but it's the factory work. A lot of my co-workers are continually trying to see how much they can get away with. Thankfully the dresscode is very clear about wearing trousers- but they never said _baggy_ trousers and people think the next best thing to skin is skin-tight.
    Meanwhile, yours truly goes around clad in a shirt that could fit two of me (tucked in for extra modesty/safety) and similarly oversized trousers. I think the Moslem guys approve.

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  10. My lord, Flam, where are you working?

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  11. Kawasaki plant- currently in 'MSC paint' whatever that means, hoping to transfer to wheels. The pay is great but the hours are long and the work isn't terribly intellectually stimulating. ;)

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