Occupy Wall Street? No, Octopi Walks Shoreline. Checkout the YouTube video, Octopus Walks on Land at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. It is a pretty amazing home-made movie. This little guy, but not as little as the finger in the frame might indicate, crawls out of the primordial sea, crosses an expanse of land, deposits a crab carcass on shore and then slithers back into the water. The questions abound around this movie. Why did he/she leave the safety and comfort of the sea? What’s with the crab? It has gills, right? Does that mean it was holding its breath all through the movie? Is there a marine biologist in the house? The Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, where this movie was shot, is located at Moss Beach, CA, located just southwest of San Francisco. I was there a few of years ago and shot the following photograph of some of the tidal flats.

Continuing along with the meme line, I offer up this news item, courtesy of Facebook friend Josh, and the Onion. The gist (read jest) of this “article” is that the Labor Department has announced that the economy created 4 million new jobs last month, but unfortunately they were all created in Saint Louis. Still this job growth brings down the national unemployment rate to 6.5%. The article says that these jobs are being created in the high paying fields of engineering, medicine, and manufacturing. It goes on to warn that this employment boom means that all these people will have to actually move to Saint Louis, with its “high crime rate and lack of culture”. (What about baseball? That’s culture, sports culture) You know, there is a grain of truth to this article, at least where I work.

This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. – Voltaire

Last Week, the Oxford University Press (OUP) announced its global word of the year, “squeezed middle”. According to Slate author, David Haglund’s article, this word choice is neither global, a word, or of this year. Last year, British MP, Ed Miliband coined this phrase, which describes how the British middle class is feeling pinched during this global economic downturn. According to Mr. Haglund, in America, this phrase has more to do with cookie filling. I must agree with him on how poor a choice OUP has made this year. Going down the list of the other finalists, Arab Spring, Fracking and Occupy, all seem like better choices for the global word of the year, in my humble opinion.