The American Occupation of America received less attention this week as the country (in my dad’s words) “celebrated the near-genocide of the inhabitants of this hemisphere through the killing and consumption of its friendly, harmless, innocent birds.”

This week also saw the emergence and global domination of a particularly virulent meme: Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop.

This one is my grandma’s favorite. (Nah, actually it’s not. She really religious. But she’s also kind of a bitch, so…)

Is this what a police state looks like? Or was UC Davis police John Pike just in a hurry to get his copy of MW3? (He probably shouldn’t bother. According to my cousin, rejected titles included “Old Fashioned Warfare,” “Modern Recycling,” and “MW2 II: The Search for Curly’s Gold.”)

Of course pepper spraying fellow shoppers is no different from blowing a little rosemary and thyme their way. And it can’t help but spice up that drab old sacrificial Thanksgiving bird!

I hear it’s like Sriracha. Once you start using it, you put it on everything. Check out these Amazon reviews for tips from home chefs, and more!

Yesterday was Veterans Day and the American Occupation of America was focused on its members who have served in the armed forces.

In the hot front city of Oakland, Scott Olsen, the first veteran seriously injured when police fired ordinance against their fellow American citizens, was released from the hospital, and much more is going on as well. Events are being live-blogged by local news here and here.

In Atlanta, Veterans foreclosed on Bank of America.

At least one story emphasized the veterans’ usefulness as people “expert at living in tents” who “take solace in the act of being useful. [As one vet] puts it: ‘I haven’t had one nightmare since I’ve been here.’”

In New York, the slogan was “Honor the Dead, Fight Like Hell for the Living.”

Deaths and other unfortunate events at Occupation sites are being used as rationale to support the desire some municipalities had to see the protests “go away.” (In my best Seven of Nine voice: “they will fail.”)

The Occupation is not just in big cities, and small local television stations are capable of some damn good reporting. This local TV report from Niles, Indiana tells us not just that veterans are part of the occupy movement, but why veterans have particular reason to get involved. Hint: it involves some troubling statistics.

Latest from the American Occupation of America:

The Oakland Occupation is the hot front in the struggle against Corporate Exploitation: an attack by the police that injured Iraq vet Scott Olson led to a general strike and a large and successful march that closed the Port of Oakland. It was followed by a small destructive spree, and now a second Iraq vet has a lacerated spleen after being beaten by police batons.

Perhaps after this, more Americans will have an opinion on the movement?

Occupiers in cities across America are co-habitating with homeless people and working to make these ad-hoc communities safe for everyone.

The Atlanta Occupation has taken the issue a step further by moving the protest to a homeless shelter.

And the Des Moines Occupation wants Occupiers from the other 49 states to converge here in Iowa for the Republican Caucuses.

“As I writer, I dream of readers who approach a book with the same kind of engagement that went into the writing.” …more

I first heard about the U of New Mexico controversy via Facebook, when Joy Harjo left a status update reporting that she’d had to quit her job because the university was preventing her from protecting her students from sexual harassment. Based on just that description, I was sympathetic. …more

Today we ran an interview with Kilcodo, a furry who makes her living making full-body fursuits for others, by Amy Letter. Here Amy tells the compelling story behind the interview:

Prior to interviewing her, I knew only vaguely about her furry-related adventures, and didn’t think much about them. Frankly I have lots of friends into lots of things, plenty of them plenty weird. …more

Kilcodo is a friend of mine; she makes a living making full-body fursuits for other furries. She also moonlights as a lemur. The other night she let me interview her, and get to know her lemur persona, Bingo. …more

Ana Menendez’s new novel, The Last War, deals with Iraq, infidelity, self-deception, and exile. …more

Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle is a crass and hilarious slice of growing up “different,” as fun to read today as it was in 1973. Molly Bolt is an unashamed lesbian in a queer-hating world, an ambitious natural leader in a culture that values longsuffering femininity, and a no-BS thinker surrounded by the ridiculous rituals of racial and sexual segregation.

It’s a tiny book full of literal LOLs and jaw-dropping no-she-didn’ts – a perfectly paced and structured page-turner with an ingenious, confident narrator whose humor brings the world’s most frustrating absurdities into focus, then kicks them down like a pack of cards. …more

…more