“OWS is going to start buying distressed debt (medical bills, student loans, etc.) in order to forgive it. As a test run, we spent $500, which bought $14,000 of distressed debt. We then ERASED THAT DEBT.” It’s the Rolling Jubilee! There are some tricky issues with this as a program but guess what? TECHNICALLY, it actually works.

@fox25gene @shannonmulaire elizabeth warren was a hot mess yesterday. And wth is going on with her hair? She is “absurd” and I’m appalled!

— Dani Lyn Henderson (@DibbaDo) November 9, 2012

They’re already turning on Elizabeth Warren up in Boston, after her first brief presser; (she begins serving on January 3, 2013). She spoke to the press for “less than 12 minutes”! Can you imagine? “Uncertain”! “Impatient”! “Terse”! And what IS up with her hair? How dare she not have her hair done for this.

As I stood on the precipice of Atlas Shrugged after a lifetime of merely saying the expected, snide things about Ayn Rand, I found myself consumed with foreboding. I already enjoy listening to Rush. I have a surprising amount of money for someone with my background and skill-set. I have the unwarranted ego of a white, female Kanye West without musical ability. Moreover, I have terrible natural instincts.*

*Evidence of the Latter

1. I thought Clinton was telling us the truth about That Woman.
2. I thought John Edwards was nobly devoted to Elizabeth.
3. At the age of six, while watching a documentary about JFK, I concluded that Jackie did it.
4. I dated three men in a row who “didn’t think Spinal Tap was all that funny.”

And then, of course, knowing these things about myself, the great fear: what if this is actually an amazingly convincing book? Will I become an Objectivist?

That didn’t happen. HOWEVER, let’s start with the positive stuff, maybe? Sometimes the way we make very funny fun of Ayn Rand is a little gross. It is! It’s a little gross. First, and Saunders does this too, even though he is absolutely a Gift From the Universe, enough with the rape jokes. Don’t do that. I know why you want to, obviously, because THESE FUCKING BOOKS, RIGHT, but don’t. Second, yeah, she was not attractive. She was an unattractive woman. But so was, you know, Bella Abzug, and if someone says shit about it to me, they’re gonna lose some teeth. Not literally, or anything, but I might Tweet something rude in their general direction (throws down carpal tunnel wrist guard, demands satisfaction). It’s not important, you know? You can spend the rest of your life talking about how bad or dangerous or naive or WHATEVER Atlas Shrugged is, and never need to say, “oh, she was kind of toad-looking, so tee-hee.” Moving on.

I really wanted to be extremely open-minded about this novel. Obviously because we take our Classic Trash deathly seriously, but also because people who are super into Atlas Shrugged are the sort of people who send nasty emails about how you are a parasitic Communist who couldn’t make a better kind of steel to save your life. Guilty as charged, curiously combative Randians! But I feel as though I have given it a fair shake. I was a reed, bending in the wind. My mind was deliberately vacant, waiting to be filled. My iTunes was playing “Closer to the Heart.”

Why is this book so long? Longer than any other book you’ve ever read? Because Ayn Rand has to say what color absolutely everything in the world is at any given moment. Bright gold! Fresh green! Clean white! Blinding white! Glowing brown! Dead blue! Fire is red and steel is grey!

(Wait, wait. Wait. Is that just being mean? Would I still be eye-rolling if those bits were jammed into an Annie Dillard book, or some random prose poem by William Carlos Williams? Yes, yes, I would, but it’s important we engage in frequent Intellectual Honesty exercises.)

But, no, really, enough with the colors. The colors were what first made me realize This Whole Thing is Just Batman. New York has never been more Gotham-y than in Atlas Shrugged. Our protagonist Dagny (!) takes that first train ride into the city, with Taggart Transcontinental towering over everything, and it is just too Wayne Enterprises for words. The city is grimy! Dark satanic mills! Smelting! Urban alienation! A dark knight must rise! The people need him! Who is he?

Motherfucking John Galt. Jesus Christ. After a few hundred pages, the question “Who is John Galt?” becomes “When is this asshole going to show up?” It’s like watching a meme take off that you haven’t personally committed to, like “Overly Attached Girlfriend” or “Shit Women Say.” Oh, is that an awkward metaphor? Did you not enjoy it? Then do not read this book, because UGH the oak tree is your childhood and GAH your lonely apartment is the prow of a ship and WHY are you telling me that cigarettes are like holding the power of fire in your hand? It is too much. It is just too much. Obviously, it’s a polemic, so you’re going to have to grit your teeth and take it, but, then, is this not our great question? Shall we write polemical novels? Is it acceptable to write polemical novels? Are they ever any good? Rand, of course, insists that Atlas Shrugged is a love story. Which, okay. I was happy that Hank Rearden cheated on his horrible wife with Dagny. I was kind of happy for Hank and Dagny. Dagny clearly has a lot of shit to put up with at work, and Hank is surrounded by losers, so it’s nice they found each other, prior to John Galt weirding everything up. PLUS, Hank doesn’t rape Dagny, which immediately makes this the Free to Be… You and Me of Rand’s oeuvre.

And so we come to Objectivism. Aw, man. It’s just not that compelling, I’m afraid. I don’t even think it’s evil, just… meh. And it’s kind of adolescent and goofy. And it’s obviously meant to be taken seriously, but it’s just so The Last Scene of Fight Club, and everything, that I feel obliged to come up with a workable alternative for the young people seeking some kind of similar ethos: try to be good at things and take some initiative in the workplace, or whatever, but don’t think that gives you the right to feed stray cats into ATMs. Go forth and build some railroads. Maybe be so good at your individual thing that people might notice if you went on a symbolic strike? That sounds like it could work. Okay, let’s talk this out!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• Ahhhhh, so many movies and movie attempts. Let’s do our casting suggestions! So many hot men, so little time. So many bitchy ladies and one superior one.

• Ugh, you just know that all the past, present, and future film adaptations will involve agonizing billboards asking us “WHO IS JOHN GALT?” and then your eyeballs will fall out.

• I don’t like Catcher in the Rye, either, in case I didn’t mention it. Wah-wah people are so fake.

• HOW ABOUT THAT ELECTION, HUH?

• Did you go through a Rand thing? Are you still in a Rand thing?

• Are you better at what you do than other people are?

• Was “parasitic Mexicans” actually a plot point? On a related note, did ANYONE not see that the Mexican government was going to nationalize that railroad? It shouldn’t take Dagny to see it.

• Hey, Argo was pretty fun. Even if, like this Canadian, you sat there grinding your teeth like HEY BITCH WE’RE THE ONES WITH SKIN IN THIS GAME.

• What are the good polemical novels? And do not say Uncle Tom’s Cabin because it is truly a terrible novel, though I am obviously happy it was written and widely read.

Previously in Classic Trash: Robert Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land

Or read more about Ayn Rand (and Alan Greenspan!) here

: When Alan Met Ayn

Nicole Cliffe is the books editor of The Hairpin and the proprietress of Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviews.

Joseph Ratzinger, the World War II hero who miraculously became the pope even after his army lost the war, is jumping on the Twitter bandwagon — if by “jumping” you mean “having his handlers announce, two months in advance, that a papal Twitter account will be launched at year’s end.” Also, the pope will not actually be typing crazy tweets about Obama being a Kenyan and gay people not being able to get married because they are infected by Satan. (Just kidding, the latter position is actually Vatican doctrine.) What kind of elderly sociopath right-wing public figure doesn’t type his or her own insane observations on Twitter? Somebody doesn’t understand Twitter is all about the entertainment value.

“It’s going to be nice having the Pope up there,” a Vatican press officer said, because he apparently believes Twitter is “up there,” maybe on the side of a blimp? Also, look at how the Vatican attacked the talents of the greatest musician of this or any other generation: “If you look at the top 10 tweeters in the world, those with the most followers, I think eight of them are entertainers — Lady Gaga, actors and singers.” (Lady Gaga fans should definitely protest in Vatican City until the pope’s flack renounces this ambiguous and possibly mistranslated insult. #OccupyVaticanCityGaga or something catchy. Work on it, Lady Gaga fans!)

But the important thing about this announcement is that Pope Benedict plans to use Twitter in a way that violates all Social Media Norms and Best Practices. It is like he wants to screw everything up.

According to the Vatican, the pope will not tweet anything interesting or personal, such as “A great new pizzeria has just opened in my neighborhood,” which is the actual example provided by the Vatican, or “Just had my Swiss Guards kill another gay-love-triangle double-agent spy within the papal manservant staff,” which is not only a funny example but also an actual real, ongoing criminal event/investigation in Vatican City.

But because the pope will not write his own tweets, the world will be denied the terrifying hilarity of Jack Welch/Donald Trump-esque outbursts about socialism, abortion, renegade nuns, etc. When the rich and powerful fail to reveal the true levels of their psychoses on Twitter, we are all a little less safe.

What else? The Pope will not retweet or favorite or reply to anyone, because he’s a jerk, and also the Vatican is telling everyone not to tweet stuff to the Pope, because … ?

“Let’s hope his followers are re-tweeting rather than engaging, because I don’t see the Pope sitting down and answering replies to tweets.” Umm, then, who cares. Why not just skip Twitter? Get a Bebo or MySpace or something, maybe a Bing? There’s probably already a “Christian Social Network,” but Catholics would probably not be welcome unless it was during GOP primary season, and that’s still two-and-a-half years away. Also, there is only one God on Twitter and it doesn’t appear to be the one the Pope is always talking about.

Let’s all re-dedicate ourselves to using Twitter the right way, and let’s have the pope try to set an example for all of us, instead of once again being on the wrong side of history and the criminal justice system. OH BUT WAIT, the pope did his “first tweet” on a crappy old iPad way back in June 2011, so this is just a scam to distract us from what’s really going on. Also, is this his account? If not, lamest parody Twitter account ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC8s44MRGVA

★★★★★ An ugly morning, deeply chilled and choked with clouds, leaving pockets of darkness. People were out in dark and drab clothing, protection foremost, with rubber boots and big umbrellas at the ready. Cold rain began to fall, a few splashing tolerable drops quickly multiplying, sinking into the hood and the coat, starting to saturate. Then: snow, coming at an angle. Fat, wet, sloppy flakes, plopping onto the fire escape. Horrible. No one asked for this. But the snow kept falling, insistent, through the hours. It started to stick to things, to accumulate. There, in the streetlights, in the tinted glow of traffic lights, in the margin of light under awnings, giant chunky flakes — crude snowglobe representations of themselves, vulgar wonderments. The slush under boots compacted to a hard, slick ice pack. It was treacherous footing even if you recognized it and tried to adjust. The body was not in control of itself. The boots slowly luged down the slope of a curb cut, toward oncoming traffic. The flakes stung and lashed at the face, so thick that even downtown, at this age, without thinking, the mouth opened up to catch them, thick cold droplets on the tongue. Disgusting. Overpowering. Yes it was beautiful, by now, it was. There were responsibilities, travel plans for tomorrow, errands. All being smothered by this unwanted brutal softness. The train now packed with coats pressed into coats. Uptown, upstairs into even more of it. A passing dancer, hair pulled back, parted her lips to receive a flake. The snow floated in the gutters, covering the deepening puddles of its own melting. Faces in the grocery store, unhooded, were flushed, moistened, avid. The snow was sticking to the north-facing signals on the crosswalks, a translucent layer transforming the instructions, the forbidding orange hand fuzzing into a mitten, the white walking figure thickened to wear a puffy coat of his own. There, up in the tower, were the lights of home. And still, before them, the snowflakes fell.

Football Pick Haikus For Week 10

Thursday, November 8

Indianapolis -3.5 At Jacksonville

Jags on National
Television! It’s like why
they canceled “Joey.” PICK: COLTS

Sunday, November 11

At New England -11 Buffalo

Patriots, coming
off the Bye, have installed spy
helmet cameras. PICK: PATS

NY Giants -4 At Cincinnati

Giants will do all
they can to lose this game then
Eli bails them out. PICK: GIANTS

At Tampa Bay -3 San Diego

Doug Martin’s nickname
is the Muscle Hamster. That
is a creepy name. PICK: CHARGERS

Denver -4 At Carolina

Away from the thin
air of Mile High Stadium,
Broncos seem human. PICK: PANTHERS

At Miami -6 Tennessee

This is too many
points to ever give the Fish
Post-Dan Marino. PICK: TITANS

At Baltimore -7.5 Oakland

The Ravens are old,
quoth I. But the Raiders are
so awful, quoth I. PICK: RAIDERS

Atlanta -2.5 At New Orleans

Falcons undefeated
But down the bayou you meet
some real bad mojo. PICK: SAINTS

Detroit -2.5 At Minnesota

Lions saved season
last week just in time to wreck
it completely now. PICK: VIKINGS

At Seattle -6 NY Jets

Seattle’s loud crowd
makes it tough for Rex to call
desperate Tebow runs PICK: SEAHAWKS

Dallas -1.5 At Philadelphia

Both these proud teams stink.
So the Philadelphia
crowd should throw snowballs. PICK: EAGLES

At San Francisco -11.5 St. Louis

Rams will beat the spread!
I haven’t figured out how
yet, but they just might. PICK: RAMS

At Chicago -1 Houston

The Bears defense
at home is like that Saw guy
in his death dungeon PICK: BEARS

Monday, November 12

At Pittsburgh -12.5 Kansas

The Chiefs couldn’t win
in PIttsburgh with bazookas.
But I’ll take the points. PICK: CHIEFS

Haiku Picks went 7–7 last week. That’s 57–73–3 for the season. I’m too sick this week to come up with something cute about that.

Jim Behrle tweets at @behrle for your possible amusement.

Good News, There Is No Big Socialist Government, Or Else It Would Be Eagerly Helping Cold Hungry People in New York City, Instead of Ignoring Them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUlI2QX2dn0

The National Guard is dropping off food and water in the Rockaways at least, if you know where to look. (Some folks there didn’t even know that for days.) Come on, people. (via)

by Phoenix Tso

Throughout its 63-year history, the People’s Republic of China has had to maintain a fine balance between controlling its own people and appeasing them. Walking this line becomes even more important in years like this, as the government prepares for a national power handover, a transition that began this week, while dealing with the fallout from a number of embarrassing political incidents, including the Bo Xilai murder-and-corruption scandal, and the escape of blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng from house arrest.

This governing mindset was in evidence this past May, when a video of a British man sexually assaulting a Chinese woman went viral. The government turned to nationalism, instituting a 100-day crackdown on foreigners living and working illegally in the city. What followed were over three months of random document searches, as well as raids on foreign-owned businesses. To get a sense of what it was like for foreigners to live and work in Beijing during the crackdown, as well as what it means for the expat community going forward, I spoke to two friends, Amy, currently a manager at a media company in Beijing, and Paul, who started his own Amazon-type business there, about their experiences during that time, and how it’s influenced their perspective on China.

AMY

Phoenix: Can you tell me a little about what you experienced during the crackdown?

Amy: Honestly, there wasn’t any difference in our day-to-day life. There were rumors of cops checking papers of foreigners living in “foreign” compounds, but I lived in one of the most prominent ones, and no one ever checked on me. Nonetheless, we carried our papers everywhere.

Work was a different story. We got two visits from the police. The first was pretty traumatic. Two officers came to the office demanding to speak to the HR manager. We didn’t have an HR manager at the time, and the officers weren’t too keen on that answer. When I stepped in and told them they could talk to me (as I had access to all the files), they demanded to have a list of all foreign employees and their files. I asked them to give me fifteen minutes to pull them, and they in turn accused me of trying to cheat them. I was able to keep my cool for a while, but after several rounds of accusations, I started breaking into a cold sweat.

I spent a solid hour with them arguing about whether or not interns were employees, and kept on being accused of being a liar because, “Why on earth would anyone work without compensation?” They even went so far as to antagonize the interns directly, as well as some other foreigners who came to visit the office. They spent about three hours at the office, and after collecting and reviewing all the papers they left with a stern warning that we’d better keep in line, which was ironic, because we were already doing this.

What was your initial reaction to being investigated?

I was completely frazzled that night, and went home to cry on a friend’s shoulder and call my parents. I Facebooked a little about the situation and promptly received an email from my boss pointing out that all of this was par for the course, and that I shouldn’t make such a big deal out of it. He told me that this kind of stuff happens whenever there is any kind of political shift, and that all you have to do is go with it, cooperate, keep smiling, and accommodate them. And he was right! A few weeks later the same officers showed up at the office to return some papers, and acted as though we were old chums, just as my boss predicted. Obviously that’s not something I could have known back then, and I’m still not sure what to make of this in retrospect.

What did you make of all this, later on? What were the reactions of the people around you?

I was furious that our senior management didn’t do a debrief. They’d assumed I’d been through it already and didn’t need any extra help to deal with the situation. Apparently it gets easier every time, but this was my first time. I talked to a handful of other locals, and everyone who’d been working in Beijing for a long time just brushed it off, saying that it was a part of life. Just some wheels you have to jump through whenever the country is heading for a bumpy road.

But people in the company were on edge for a few days, especially the interns, who were accused of working illegally, but with a couple of debriefs from senior execs and strategic meetings, we realized that we had nothing to worry about, and life quickly returned to normal.

Have there been residual effects from the crackdown that persist today at your company?

Nope. Business went back to normal, lives went back to normal, and I haven’t met anyone who has suffered any long lasting effects from the crackdown. What’s interesting though is that there are always small, hidden rules that pop up alongside Chinese politics. Like Filipinos not being approved for visas due to politics. It’s not on the books, but when we talked to our visa agents, they just told us to hold off on hiring them for now.

After experiencing this, what do you think of China, its politics, and your place is in Beijing?

I’m still living in China and plan on being here for the long run, so obviously, not too much has changed. But it did make me realize that my ability to live and work here is not something that I should take for granted, and ultimately, that freedom and rights are really precious. I always knew that, but I don’t think I ever felt it, until the crackdown happened.

PAUL

Phoenix: What was your experience like during the crackdown?

Paul: Immediately after the sexual assault, I went on Weibo [Chinese twitter], and I saw this palpable sense of anger on there that quickly turned into this hysterical hatred of foreigners in China. It then manifested itself in daily life. For instance, it was so hard to get a taxi in Beijing. So many times, the driver would pull up, see that I was a western foreigner, and then just drive away.

Then the authorities started raiding English schools and bars, and that was kind of scary, because no one could know what the consequences of that would be. Why are they raiding this place? What are they looking for? What happens to you if you’re caught without the right documentation? Are you thrown in jail? Nobody knew the answer. So there was almost this panic amongst the expat community. I also can’t tell you how many texts and emails I got in those first few weeks warning me to keep my passport on me, because of the possibility of random stop-and-searches.

There was one incident that I witnessed at a bar in the Gulou area. It was a Spanish bar; the music was quiet and the atmosphere was very sedate. When the police came in, the music stopped and there was complete silence. The police started asking people for their documentation, starting at the front, and actually, that night I hadn’t brought my passport or my visa, and I was thinking, “Oh my God, I run a business in Beijing. I don’t want to get on the wrong side of the authorities.” Fortunately, I was at the back, and they only checked a few people. Nobody was arrested. But one minute after the police left, everybody went home. There was absolutely no one left inside.

Then there were reports of attacks, or altercations between foreigners and Chinese people, particularly around the Sanlitun area [most of the expat-frequented bars and restaurants are in Sanlitun]. I actually had a friend, a woman, who was harassed by a man there, and I think some of her foreign friends tried to intervene, and they were severely beaten up. In fairness though, I can’t say whether this was a direct consequence of that video going viral, or whether it was a typical drunken altercation on a Saturday night, but it seemed like you would hear more reports or anecdotes from friends of that kind of thing happening during that time.

Wow. I didn’t know that it was that bad.

I never felt like I was necessarily in danger. When everybody cleared out of that bar, it was strange, because Beijing isn’t exactly a party city, but it usually feels quite liberal and comfortable. You don’t feel like you’re in danger from other people and the authorities, and that feeling changed a lot during the crackdown.

What were other expats’ reactions during that time?

There was the feeling that the guy who had done this — who sexually assaulted that woman — was an absolute ass. That goes without saying. People were also mad that this man undermined perhaps months or years of relationship building that they had engaged in with their Chinese friends or colleagues.

Everybody knew that this was a very serious incident, but they thought that some of the reaction was misdirected. The perpetrator should’ve been made to deal with the legal consequences of his actions, of course, but people also thought that the reaction was a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are so many law-abiding and hardworking foreigners who live and work in Beijing, and they felt like they were being tarred with the same brush.

Did this incident affect any of your daily business dealings with Chinese people?

Chinese people did react with anger initially. But when that anger is portrayed in the media, it can seem a lot more permanent or serious than it actually is. I think the majority of Chinese people said to themselves, “Perhaps I should be a little more suspicious of foreigners living in my community,” especially if they’ve never had a personal relationship with any foreigners. But it wasn’t like I felt any hatred from every single Chinese person living in Beijing, and I don’t think it affected our everyday business dealings with suppliers, or other partners. People still saw you as an individual, albeit a foreign British individual, so it didn’t have a huge impact.

How about the business climate in general?

During the crackdown, there was a sense for expats that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to go out on a Saturday night, so perhaps that extended to consumer behavior, to people buying things online. If so, I think those effects were small and indirect.

I heard anecdotally though that it was harder for people to get visas to work and study in China. And speaking more broadly than just about my business, I think a lot of businesses thought twice about hiring foreign staff, because if you apply for a visa for a foreign staff member, you bring increased scrutiny from the business administration.

But I still feel that China and Beijing offers a lot of opportunity for foreigners who want to work in business, whether they want to start their own, or consult. I’ve found that you can come with an idea that has been niche-d to death in your own country, but chances are, in a place like Beijing — it hasn’t been done. There’s a lot more opportunity to develop new ideas and take them to market, even after everything that’s happened.

With everything that has happened, what do you think your place is in China as an expat?

I came to China initially with a plan to stay for 6 months [as of now, Paul has been in China for almost a year and a half], and then go back to the UK. And the original reason was to just get a sense of what China was about and to get some experience here doing business. Honestly, I would say that before I came here, I felt skeptical about China, and its culture and traditions, because in the West, we have a skewed view of what China is, so we can’t really understand what it’s really like.

Now though, I feel like I understand and appreciate the culture more, in terms of doing business and building personal relationships. But I feel like I will never fully understand or appreciate what it means to be Chinese. So what does that mean in the long term? It probably means that I won’t stay here for the rest of my life, but for now, I’m enjoying myself.

I really liked how nuanced your answers were. In my experience, some other expats are like, “Why am I not accepted in China?” and they form really stringent views about Chinese society because of that.

I grew up with mixed parentage in a city that was very racially diverse and also racially divided, so I guess, as a kid, you almost feel like you have a divided identity. You don’t necessarily belong completely to either community you’re raised in. There’s a little bit of that at work when you live in China too, but, because of my childhood, I was already prepared to deal with that.

In one respect, I would echo some of those comments; you never really feel that you’ll be fully part of Chinese society. But is that too much for me? Is that a reason not to stay here and enjoy it while I can? I would say no, and the reason for that is because that’s how I grew up. For example, my mum is a staunch Catholic, and my dad was raised as a Muslim, and it’s not the only way to gain that appreciation, but it’s how I came to appreciate different cultures, and even cultural clashes. In China, you see those cultural clashes all the time, but there are ways to deal with them, rather than becoming entrenched and saying, “This is what I believe about this country.” I think that’s perhaps how my experience is different from that of the average expat.

Related: The Perils Of Storytelling As A Stranger: A Chat With Tom Scocca

Phoenix Tso lives vicariously through her friends who are still in China. Photo by Vivian Chen.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Degrees

This town is a proverb: a woman
waiting. Thoughts have citations,
skies are marine.
All this strong weather.
Chance is dead or
just got tenure.
Mt. Olympus is a tea.
Fleeced heads loll on
valedictory brick. Jam jar
gaslights hold not much new.

Nobody’s money made strangely.
No fragrant extras of our wilder port
cities: cleavage, pulse points,
direction. No secular vespers or seared
artichokes. No agented lust.
Read the town best in a porcelain
serving dish; the chipped tail
of its hand-painted fish.

Alissa Quart’s poetry has appeared in Open City, Fence and soon the London Review of Books. She’s the author of three non-fiction books including Branded and the forthcoming Republic of Outsiders. Her journalism has appeared in many publications, most recently The New York Times’ Sunday Review. She also writes bi-weekly for New York’s Broadminded

.

In a world where poetry offers the best chance of salvation to a weary population, the one place to turn is The Poetry Section’s archives. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

“The BBC’s star science presenter Brian Cox thought he might have a scoop on his hands when he trained his telescope at a newly discovered planet in search of alien life. But the professor said his hopes for an exclusive were brought back down to earth after he was told by the BBC that impromptu extraterrestrial contact would break health and safety guidelines.”
 — Best check with the Department of Live Radio Broadcasts With Space Aliens before doing anything hasty.

Photo by Karen Roe via Flickr.