"I'm here to tell you that we don't need to look at the car crash. We don't need to live off of the pain and humiliation of the unfortunate. We don't need to celebrate our pornographic obsession with celebrity culture. We are better than that...Only with your courage, and your vision, can we begin to imagine a world of broadcasting where the general consensus of those with real power say 'enough is enough.'... Now is the time to admit and recognize that we aren't just businessmen, but the guardians of the human spirit."

Full audio here, via Ad Age.

The phenomenon of (always) stupid (usually) young men—often bored graffiti writers from the outer boroughs—surfing on the outside of subway cars has been admirably covered by the New York media. It's one of those evergreen, slice of life stories that publications can recycle every few years, as events warrant. Every so often, somebody dies riding on top of train, and the populace of the city remarks to itself, "My, how stupid. And possibly tragic."

And the, um, "sport "isn't confined to America. Not by a long shot! The Japanese enjoy surfing on trains and dodging oncoming bridges:

In South Africa, kids like to boogie on top of trains, duck for their lives, then continue to boogie:

In Barcelona, some kids ride on the back of the subway, which is relatively safer. Very relatively:

And to answer my original question, who would be stupid enough to ride on the side of the train? Some guy in Manchester, England, for one! His trip ended as you might have guessed:

In conclusion: Kids, if you want to go subway surfing, keep your activities confined to the inside of the car. There's really only one safe way to do it—as performance art:

[pic via Subway Blogger]

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How can you stand the shame?

"Brooklyn principles can be found anywhere that young people gather to share their search for love and meaning, a search that they alone are qualified to pursue by virtue of their pristine vision of the deep oneness of things. Whereas physical danger or emotional grief leaves most people lonely or ruined or dead, they triumph over adversity.... [The resulting books are] kitsch, which Milan Kundera defined as 'the translation of the stupidity of received ideas into the language of beauty and feeling [that] moves us to tears of compassion for ourselves, for the banality of what we think and feel.'"

The one problem with Brooklyn writers that goes unmentioned is that they discard all criticisms. In the land of emotional truth, who can be wrong? So while history may prove this essay on-target, it's a bit like the crazy lady muttering in the food co-op—everyone can hear her but oh my God isn't all that organic home-grown kale just so special and amazing?

Wonder Bread [American Scholar, via]

Arrrrr! It's Talk Like a Pirate Day [Mixed Signals]

*Note: these assholes are usually the same individuals who love Mad TV and think robots are awesome.