Ups and Downs
Ease up on creating violent weapons out of shit you left lying around the yard, China. Also, Lebron James is great, but not as great as you think.
Up: Holy hell, is this actually possible?: I've long been operating under the assumption that the only people reading this column are my mother, my roommate, and every single A-List celebrity in Hollywood (minus Renée Zellweger, because I don't understand her appeal, and "Down With Love" was awful, and I won't stand for that kind of shit); so pay attention, Vin Diesal, because I just found the plot to your next movie.* According to Reuters in Beijing, a farmer in China's Hubei province has been fighting off local land prospectors using homemade weapons. Eviction teams have twice tried to force Yang Youde off his land outside Wuhan City, but Youde kept them at bay by shooting at them with a cannon he made out of a wheelbarrow and some pipes he found. Holy shit, China.
A few thoughts:
1. This is the best episode of MacGuyver that never aired.
2. This is vaguely reminiscent of the adult-themed sequel to "Home Alone" that I scripted and tried to sell to Twentieth Century Fox in which a young boy keeps petty burglars out of his home by throwing a corrosive acid in their faces. It was called Home Alone 5: Watch As A Plucky Child Savagely Murders Two Incompetent Adults. I'm probably going to sue for copyright infringement.
3. Youde is angry that his local government sold his land to retail develops and is only offering him 130,000 yuan to vacate, when he feels the property is worth more than four times as much. I was going to convert that into a dollar amount for you, but when the answer didn't come up 7 seconds into my Google search, I just assumed it was impossible to do. Youde apparently used rockets (which he had lying around?) as ammunition and fired at eviction agents, but told China Daily "I didn't want to cause injuries [...] I only shot over their heads," which I think is pretty reasonable given how easy it is to predict where a cannon made from pipes and a wheelbarrow will fire.
4. In May, Youde kept away a team of 100 eviction agents by firing rockets at them "from a makeshift watchtower." This guy is making cannons and bombs and watchtowers and shit; I'm not 100% certain where Wuhan City is located, but now I'm guessing it's pretty close to either Sherwood Forrest or Waco, Texas.
5. The best part of the Reuters article is the understated language the writer decided to use in saying that "Construction ditches have already been dug across the land of less obstinate neighbours." Yes, "obstinate" is one way to describe Youde; "guy who built his own goddamn cannon" would be another.
*Absolutely no one considers Vin Diesel an A-List celebrity.
Down: I know you think that, but you're wrong: All together now, let's clear a few things up:
Lebron James: If you pay any attention to the NBA, then you know that July 1, 2010 marks a day that sports fan and writers have obsessed about for the better part of the past three years. It marks the beginning of free agency (when players whose contracts have either expired or entered into a final option year in which they can opt-out are free to sign with any team) for the greatest class of free agents in NBA history, including Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, Joe Johnson, Amare Stoudemire, David Lee, Carlos Boozer, and Rudy Gay (this is a guess on my part, but watch, it'll happen), among others. If you live in Chicago and pay attention to the NBA, you know that the Bulls have an excellent core of young players and enough money to sign a max free agent. All the talk for the past month has centered on Lebron James, mostly because he is the best free agent in the class, and most people also assume he's either the best player in the entire league, or shortly will be (depending on your thoughts on Kobe). I know you think that, but you're wrong. Lebron is great. He scores, he defends, he blocks shots, he's a leader, and he is a physical freak (6-8, 250 lbs of muscle and headband). But in a dream scenario in which I'm the GM of the Bulls -- which I should be anyway -- and I can choose any player in the league for my team, regardless of contract status, I'd take OK's Kevin Durant all day long. No questions asked. Durant does have all of Lebron's hardware, but his scoring average is higher, he passes better, and he is a better on-ball defender. This isn't really a knock on Lebron, who is incredibly gifted and who, if he were to sign with the Bulls, would instantly make me crap myself. But people get mesmerized by watching Lebron gallop around the court like Hercules on quaaludes, and talk about him as if it were a given that he's the next "best in the league." If you ask me, it's Durant.
BP Oil: I know a lot of people think that protesting local BP stations is either the best or worst thing you can do. You're either using your wallet to express displeasure with a company who has fucked up on the level of what is turning into the worst man-made environmental crisis in history, or unfairly punishing local franchisees by taking money out of their pocket when they had nothing to do with the oil spill in the Gulf, respectively. I know you think that, and while neither perspective is entirely wrong, neither is entirely right, either. People who want to protest BP by skipping out on 10 gallons of gas twice a week for the next two months should keep in mind that BP is the fourth-largest company in the world (judging solely by my neighborhood, Subway and Western Union are #1 and #2). British Petroleum has a net worth in excess of $100 billion. They can pay for all the costs related to the clean-up of the oil spill and its repercussions and still make a profit this financial quarter with incredible ease. I'm not encouraging people not to protest, because something needs to be done, but well-meaning attempts to hit BP's wallet won't do much. A much better way to register your anger and displeasure would be to write and call your senators--again and again and again--and demand legislation that keeps government regulatory agencies from having cozy relationships with the groups that they are supposed to be regulating. BP owns the majority of the blame for the disaster, but some portion of it belongs with a government that so freely gave drilling permits to a company absent of any proof that the company knew what it was doing.
The flip side of the argument comes from people who say that protesting local BP gas stations hurts the franchisees who own the stations and who had nothing to do with dumping hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the ocean. Well, sort of...but not entirely. You see, the majority of the profit from actual gas sales goes back to the parent company (ahem, BP). I know someone who franchises a string of gas stations, and he makes something like 3 cents for every dollar of gasoline sold at one of his stations. Franchisees make the vast majority of their money from car washes, food and drink sales, and all the other crazy things you can buy inside the actual station. So if you really want to punish the company and still support local business people, avoid buying gas at BP, but stop by your local BP mini mart and purchase a ton of candy, car air fresheners, and 64 ounces of iced coffee.
Self-esteem: I know you think you're doing fine, but you're not doing as well as this kid. I do the same thing on my sink in the morning.
Posted by Ryan Peters on Jun 10, 2010 @ 1:13 pm
