1. Hold Your Breath—Scientists have recently discovered that each human exhale releases enough carbon dioxide to give a bee shingles. In 2006 Kate McKinney decided to lower her carbon emissions by holding her breath for 10 to 30 seconds every minute she was awake, “It’s great to know that I can empower the planet from home…[pause for held breath]…and it’s really fun and easy!”

Kate’s selflessness has caused some problems with her lifestyle siting a recent pink slip and a divorce as her “toll for forward thinking”. However, Kate’s sacrifice may turn into a lesson for those in her community, “I’m trying to open an organic ‘breathless’ coffee shop in my area where like…[another breathless pause]…minded community members can have a cup of free-trade coffee, enjoy free Wi-Fi, and not breath.”

2. Talk—Global Warming is a threat that must be fought, not debated over. Next time you’re at a party and a global warming denier doesn’t recycle an empty beer can, “…scream, whine, and yell to get your point across and after you lose your voice, cover your ears.” says Amy Jonas of Scream Green, a non-profit dedicated to only hearing out one side of the story.

“As the end of the world rapidly approaches we must all over-pay for green items…if you see someone who’s eating at a fast food chain remind them loudly where the Whole Foods is located…let them hear you’re green voice.” Amy also suggests wearing clothing and tote bags that provocatively address the issues of global warming. Her favorite tote slogan simply reads: “Hitler Used Plastic Bags”

3. Grow–Most American cities and towns have community farms and agricultural groups that teach locals how to plant their own crops so they don’t have to relay on chain stores and big growers who use harsh chemicals for profits.

Local farmer Tim Peters loved the idea and has been a local grower for almost 6 months now, “I’m sooooo hungry….feeed me.” Tim’s last harvest of potatoes, beets, and spinach yielded 2 pounds of fresh produce and he’s been living on that ever since. His first homemade, carbon friendly, dish of raw potatoes and beets soaked in rain water is remembered fondly by Tim, “It was soooo good [incomprehensible mumbling].” Tim has also excitedly reported a loss of “…at least 20 pounds…I’ve never looked so good in Summer.”

4. Reuse—Throwing out those old gulf clubs? Looking to replace your missing passport? Well, you should reconsider because you may be increasing the size of your carbon footprint–drastically.

Beth Chambers of Reuse-Renew Org knows the importance of reusing items at home and in the office, “People don’t realize that every shopping trip is really just a fresher smelling trip to the dumpster; old things are still things.” Beth’s company is already making a splash and Hollywood insiders tell us that their next ad campaign will feature some of Disney’s more famous characters next to a concerned (and very green) Van Diesel.

Currently, Beth is working on a project that will teach office workers across America how to reshape and mold together twisted and used office staples, “If Project Re-Staple goes as planned we are projecting to shave corporate America’s emissions by a fraction of a percentage point.” It may seem small but the reduction of pollution will preserve the Polar Bear habitat in the New York City zoo.

The Dwarf (1945) by Par Lagerkvist reads like a diary written by a really angry and cynical dwarf.

Set in medieval Italy the dwarf, named Piccoline, busies himself with critiquing the human race. He comfortably teases humans because he believes he belongs to an older, separate, dwarf race.

The dwarf angle allows Lagerkvist to easily bullet point the hypocrisies, foibles, and bad-logic humans are susceptible too.

The dwarf’s criticisms read like this: “Human beings are too feeble and exalted to shape their own destiny” and, “They [humans] are so strangely secretive and incoherent” and, “People look so strangely idiotic when they are in love.” etc.

The dwarf resents art, music, and poetry and only finds logic, excitement, and beauty in war. His blood-lust attracts him to one human, Boccarossa, a brave mercenary with a long war record. Boccarossa, in the dwarf’s eyes, isn’t flawed since he values strength and promotes a strict Machiavellian world view.

Working in a medieval Italian court, the dwarf gets a birds eye view of the varied personalities of the ruling class. He collects court gossip and uses it to illustrate the many contradictions within human desires.

His resent, in large part, allows him to remain an unbiased spectator but he ultimately injects himself into court affairs in an attempt to preserve his city-state and kill assumed moral degenerates.

The dwarf, growing ever-smug, knows he can detect human hopes and decides to help his allies pursue their desires to there logical, sometimes violent, end. His actions, in part helpful, fail as a whole and lead to the death of the Princess and her daughter.

The book ends with the war-torn, plague-savaged citizens taking solace around a public art project and the ringing of new silver bells. The dwarf hears the celebrations from his new jail cell–anticipating when he will be called upon to serve his court once more. The message here is clear: art, the human hobby the dwarf wrote off as inconsequential does matter since it easily props up the beleaguered human spirit–but art, regardless of how noble or beautiful it may be, will never get in the way of the illogical, occasionally bloody, desires of humans.

It took time to warm to the simply written, anger-filled, prose. However, as the story picks up and the dwarf’s statements lose credibility it’s easy to get hooked in order to figure out who is more crazy: the dwarf or the humans.

The characters mirror real players in medieval Italy, notably: Leonardo Da Vinci and the bad-ass prince (Cesare Borgia) who inspired Machiavelli to write about power plays. The allusions to the historical figures help make the story more compelling and they breath needed life into the very boiled down writing.

Lagerkvist’s laundry list of human follies caused by blind ambition is extensive and he can see no escape from repeating them since, like the townspeople, our desires may by momentarily exhausted but they’ll never expire.

Martin Amis’ short story collection, Einstein’s Monsters, tries its hardest to get you worked up and angry about living in a ‘nuclear age’.

The collection of stories touch on the grim aspects of nuclear weaponry and the likely insanity of the people behind them.

It starts off with a essay / introduction entitled, Thinkability.  It begins dramatically with a young, well-read, Mr. Amis ‘feeling sick’ and running away every time a nuclear holocaust is discussed on the news. Really? Are we supposed to feel bad for the clinically nauseous Amis or are we supposed to feel bad for not having a similar reaction to sensationalist news anchors?

The straight, dash and period filled, writing dresses up (in Mr. Amis’s opinion) a poorly phrased nuclear debate. He works hard at detailing and crippling varying ‘nuclear weapons are necessary’ arguments through smart logical deductions and emotional pleas.

Mr. Amis fails on the latter account. His constant stomach aches, visions of ghost cities, and keen perception of eerie silences are haunting enough but they hardly evoke fear of an upcoming nuclear assault but rather they worry the well-intentioned reader as to the state of Mr. Amis digestion.

The five short stories that follow are all interesting reads and chock-full with even more haunting visions of a world going through its post-nuclear-war growing pains.

The best story of the lot, Insight at Flame Lake, is also the most traditional. The story is told through the diary entries of a boring British vacationer and the journal entries of a British schizophrenic. The beauty of the story lies in the well-paced momentum of the varying diary / journal entries that lead to a dramatic, impossible to guess (but plausible) twist.

Interestingly, Insight at Flame Lake is the only story that doesn’t entirely hinge on the explosions of nuclear weapons. The detailed passages of a post-nuclear, haunted, world are easier to digest coming from a professed schizophrenic–rather than a British writer known for being ‘a dazzling star of wit’ (Wall street Journal quote that is on both front and back pages of my 1990 Vintage edition).

Most everyone has bad things to say about reality TV. And if they don’t say bad things about it, they’ll say ‘Reality TV is my guilty pleasure!’ in an excited whisper. Not yet have I met a true, hard boiled, fan. I think it’s the same reason why I haven’t met a career criminal yet; dirty secrets won’t come up over just a few beers. You have to catch them in the act.

Anyways, good news! Reality TV will be better soon since our future candid stars will hopefully attend NY’s Reality TV School! They’ll hopefully learn how to entertain us better and make their day-to-day conversations sharper–for that ’scripted feel’ true TV fans crave.

Problem 1: Taking a writing, acting, art, or cooking class won’t guarantee you success. Instead, you’ll be supplied with some confidence to have fun with your after-work hobby. With Reality TV school you are guaranteed the same low-rate of ‘craft’ success. However, this is a ‘craft’ that you can’t use in any other part of your life–unless your friends tape you over the weekend and edit the footage down to a sex-charged, guilty pleasure inducing, 45 minutes. But friends don’t let friends do that kind of stuff.

I went to Fordham University’s Career Fair in hopes of finding a full time paid gig.

Around 60 companies showed up and set up booths and handed out free pens, brochures, and more free pens.

ALL employer representatives LOVE their jobs and apparently they always learn daily life lessons from them. Every company, according to their qualified Representative’s descriptions, is ‘young’, ‘hip’, and ‘relaxed’. Every company wants their prospective employees to ‘have a good time’.

Career fair veteran Reps will have an adjective filled 5 minute speech on how ‘awesome’ their company is and one anecdote about how they got to go to ‘Washington D.C.’ for ‘like a laid back Conference’ where among other things they had the chance to throw a ‘branch office pizza party’.

As a job seeker your supposed to eat this up and surrender your resume to these glowing people in hopes that you’ll be able to join their young, laid-back, team.

The odd point here is employeers are selling themselves, to these college kids at least, by highlighting the lack of work at work.

First, it’s a lie. These entry-level gigs will all consist of a lot of boring work: data-entry, memorization of the company mission statement, and cold calls to socially unstable citizens.

Second, you’re doing your company no service by attracting people who are looking for ‘laid back’, ‘hip’, and ‘relaxed’ work environments.

But, I understand a Career Fair Reps gesture. They are trying to sell their boring jobs to college kids and so they appeal to the lowest stereotypical denominator: that college kids are lazy. True. But they’ll snap out of it once they have to start paying bills.

My absence from wjbriggs.com has produced PandaRunner.com. My amazingly talented brother put together the site and designed the logo. Check it out and tell us what you think.

So my friends are sending me a lot of China pictures and here’s one of my favorites of Zhugu village which is 4 hours out of Shanghai. It’s a bit blurred but I like the scene. Zhugu gets its name from their famous local: Zhu-gu (two family names are a rarity in China) who wrote Romance of the Three Kingdoms and other historical classics (all around the 2nd century).

And here’s the picture of the day:

Two Zhugu lanterns lose their jobs to a single light bulb. I know how it feels.