Yes, I realize I’ve been gone a while. About a month, actually. I’ve been reading (a lot) and writing (just not here). Anyway, given I’ve been away for so long, I thought I’d bring it back with a few words about time. Specifically, Russian Time.

More specifically, Dmitri Medvedev’s plan to slash nearly 2/3 of Russia’s time zones. That’s right, the president who has so far distinguished himself as a very attractive and well mannered sock puppet of Vladimir Putin is putting his foot down. Frustrated with his lack of power, the president IS TAKING ON TIME ITSELF.

As surreal as it sounds, there’s actually a long history of time tampering in world politics.  China has just one time zone (until 1949 it had five), making it the largest country in the world to eat dinner at the same time. Since partition, India and Pakistan have been separated by half an hour (because I mean, heaven forbid it be the same time in Delhi and Islamabad). And wedged between the superpowers India and China, Nepal finds itself 15 minutes ahead of the former but an hour and 15 minutes behind the latter.

Across most of Asia and Africa, daylight savings time is an abstraction; yet, walk into a telemarketing office and it’s a hard and fast reality.

Iranian President Ahmedinejad was so pissed off at DST  he actually banned it in 2006, but was overruled a year later by an angry parliament who thought he was being capricious and a dickbag. DST was reinstated in Iran in 2008, but may not be there for long.  And Arizona STILL won’t get with the program. Motherfuckers

But all I can think about is this:

Police are trying to track down the psycho parents of a toddler who was ABANDONED in a stroller on an UES sidewalk after a fight. The only shred of evidence is a receipt for baby shoes (from H&M), never worn, which has since led to the arrest of the baby’s father for reckless endangerment of a child. Bet Hemingway never thought about that.

When THIS woke me from my slumber early Saturday morning, the first place I  turned to find out what it was was SF Gate.

That’s the last time I fucking do that. The level of incompetence at our local hometown paper has reached new lows. Lows you never thought you’d see, living in one of the most expensive, “cultured” and “European” cities in the Union.  San Francisco deserves a better paper than the Chronicle, even if that paper is just a local insert of the New York Times.

Fin

Although I am crying as I write you this letter, I am confident that immigration reform will be achieved in the near future – Dov Charney

For once, Dov Charney is not being sarcastic, or self-referentially ironic, or just shitting you when he says he’s crying, fucking crying over the 1500 workers his Downtown LA factory will shed this fall after it was discovered they didn’t have the documentation to work in the States.

I’m not being sarcastic either. It’s a sad, sad day for retail when Old Navy can employ indigent Indonesian children to sew their Plus-Size line and American Apparel can’t hire hardworking adults from Pico Street to sew zebra-print thongs for the perilously thin. I AM BEING COMPLETELY SERIOUS.  IT’S SAD.

To emphasize the point, Charney penned a letter to his followers out there in Internetland, describing his grandparents difficult journey to the New World and their pride in seeing the company they helped him form.

It is my belief that immigrants bring prosperity to any economy. They become motivated workers, and they sometimes become motivated business owners like me. They bring fresh ideas, optimism, and passion to any economy and they help contribute to a prosperous future.

Unfortunately, Charney writes, Obama isn’t getting immigration reform done (although maybe he should be kissing the man’s feet for writing him a letter instead of rounding up his workers and summarily deporting them ala AgroProcessors). Meanwhile, we have this shit clouding up the conversation. If you think healthcare is acrimonious, don’t stick around for immigration.