Ration Reality

When I started planning this post, it was going to be just about stupid product recalls. I saw a recall at Wal-Mart for a kite a couple months back and seriously - how the fuck does a kite cause ’serious injuries up to and including death?’ Of course, this being Wal-Mart, I wouldn’t put much of anything past the fucking drooling hicks that shop there. I went looking for some information about this and I couldn’t find that kite on the internet, but I did find something just as scary.

China is murdering us.

Slowly but surely, they’re trying to kill each and every one of us. First it was our pets. Then they put antifreeze in our toothpaste. But now it’s something even worse. Even more insidious. They’re trying to kill our children, now.

Our fucking children.

Now, this one is really pissing me off. I mean, I don’t actually get to see my kid that much, but I sure as fuck don’t want him to die at the hands of a Chinese toy company.

How are they accomplishing this nefarious task? Lead fucking paint. Okay, when I was a kid, we’d joke about someone being a retard because they ate paint chips when they were a kid. Ten years from now, they’ll still be making this same joke, but with two big differences. First, it’ll be lead from Chinese toys, and second it won’t be a fucking joke.

About 75% of toys in America come from China, and in a two month span in 2006 over a million fucking toys were recalled due to lead content. These toys include everything from the bullshit found in supermarket vending machines, all the way up to relatively high-end toys and games sold at major retailers like Target.

Let’s look at a few specific items that have been recalled recently.

Reebok Charm Bracelets

300,000 charm bracelets were given away as free gifts with the purchase of a pair of children’s shoes priced between $33 and $50. Why do we care? Because the charms are made of fucking lead, and at least one kid died from lead poisoning. (This leaves aside the question of why anyone would want to spend that much money on a pair of shoes that the kid’s going to outgrow in three or four months. I guess it’s because mommy is a little brand name store-whore, and doesn’t want to look poor at the next play-date.)

Thomas The Tank Engine

Thomas is a favorite of yuppie children everywhere. Status-whore parents pay between $10 and $70 for bits and pieces of these anthropomorphic trains and give them to their children. But here’s the catch: their overfed children are stuffing pieces of the trains into their fat little mouths, ingesting lead paint and even metal parts made of lead. These children will grow up to be just as retarded as their parents. Where did these toys come from? You fucking guessed it!

High School Musical Jewelry

At least the lead stuff appears to be sticking mostly to products marketed for status-whores and people who are already stupid. If you shop at Limited Too, then you probably fit in this category. And if you bought metal children’s jewelry featuring High School Musical, then you’re killing your kids.

Cardinal Distribution: Vending Machine Toys

Okay, these rings weren’t made in China, but these fuckers deserve the asshole of the year prize for this one in spite of it. In July, 2004 the CPSC recalled 150 million pieces of children’s toy jewelry for containing lead. Cardinal cooperated and pulled their shit out of circulation. Fast-forward to 2007 … and guess what? Cardinal has put the same product, the exact same product back into vending machines. I don’t mean that they got a new stock of this shit and put it back out there. I mean that they took the box marked ‘recalled lead-based shit’ and said ‘hmm … let’s send this back out there.’ Fucking assholes.

Although … the rings all have a gambling theme. They’re decorated with dice and horseshoes. Does that mean that the parents are promoting gambling in their children? But still, parental responsibility notwithstanding, Cardinal is still the asshole of the piece.

Lead-based Jesus Fish

This one is interesting. It was sold through Oriental Trading Company’s web site for 2 years or so. CPSC says to go to Oriental Trading’s web site for information about the recall. I checked on this one, and couldn’t find shit about it. I even searched for ‘lead’ on their web site and came up empty. Searching for ‘recall’ actually found me a bunch of shit, but it apparently translated ‘recall’ into ‘regal.’ Let me be clear here: I don’t mean that searching for ‘regal’ will take you to information about ‘recalls.’ I mean that searching for ‘recall’ will take you to a list of products containing the word ‘regal,’ which are in no way, shape or form up for recall. Tiaras. Dolls. That sort of shit.

Now here we are at the end, and you know what? I’m starting to have mixed feelings. I started this article off as a condemnation of China for poisoning our children, but now that I’ve reached the end, I’m wondering if maybe they’re actually providing us a valuable public service. Think about it.

The products that we’ve discussed may actually help in purging our society of destructive elements. If all the fat little shits spawned by the yuppies die of lead poisoning, then in a generation or two we won’t have any yuppies left. If the people that like shitty pseudo-theatre die of lead poisoning, then in a generation or two we might actually start seeing better movies. If all the people that support gambling kill their kids with lead poisoning, then they won’t be able to reproduce either. As far as the Jesus fish goes, I’ve long been in favor of the notion that anyone who goes out proseletizing ought to wear adornments of toxic metals, though I would prefer uranium to lead. If they’re right, then Jesus will protect them. If they’re not, then I won’t have to put up with their earnestly hypocritical brainwashing for long because they’ll die of radiation poisoning.

Manufacture on, China. Your lead-based poison products may just save our civilization from itself.

-Jesse

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