In the past few weeks I've had a couple of days in town and browsed the shops to look critically at the junk people are sucking up this festive season. Mainly in Melbourne Central, David Jones, Myer and so on. The Disney store too. I think it's pretty safe to say that a majority of consumer goods these days are manufactured in the People's Republic of China, where it's okay to say 'Merry Christmas' as long as you don't believe it. It's okay to work an assembly line pumping out Nativity dioramas, as long as you don't worship at one. The ice needle in my brain was this article from The Age last weekend that outlined the human rights abuses going down up north. The amount of crap at the Disney store, (which, it pains me to add, will be closing down in the beginning of next year) that is made in the PRC is amazing. Ultra-ironic was the footage running on the big screen of Donald and Daisy Duck re-enacting the TREASONOUS! story of Noah and the Great Flood. While I'm a pretty Slack humanitarian in general, the extent of my goodwill being some highly selective rewarding of panhandlers (shoes too new? going to buy smack? am I in a good mood?), this apparent tragic irony has chipped away at my 'consumer conscience' over the past few weeks, motivating me to design some all-purpose 'MANUFACTURED IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA' stencils to adorn all relevant casual garments in my posession, and, disturbingly, to overturn entire tables of stock in department stores, yelling, "FOOLS! IMBECILES!". Merry Christmas?