For a basic (one might suppose inherently neutral) law of physics, the phrase has nevertheless garnered a lion’s share of unfriendly users in the low-rent back roads of the vernacular. Many among us, in truth, would far prefer the virulent lash of a “Bitch!” or a “Bastard!” to being leveled by the contemptuous (and worse, dismissive) charge of taking up space. How did this bland and
If you come into any restaurant in a sour mood, or if you only have just enough money in your pockets to get the daily special, then do all of us in the restaurant industry a big favor and go home. When guests walk through the front doors, which are being held open by any combination of smiling hostesses and managers, and they rudely pass by without so much as
In most of the world, including North America, we do one of two things with garbage: burn it or bury it. Neither one is good for us or for the environment. Across the nation, landfills grow, cities choke on pollution, and water contamination damages the quality of life for people who didn’t formerly suffer this health problem. Just a few years ago in my community of Pueblo, Colorado, the city government announced that it would remove all
“Welcome to gladiator school,” I tell a freshly transferred inmate as smoke from a fire in the cell block fills the corridor and ten of my fellow guards trod by in heavily armored riot gear. We pick him up off the ground, and I note his terror and confusion. This place, buried behind endless layers of concrete and steel, reeks of tension, fear, and despair. There is a smell to this despair:
