I have the most beautiful teeth.

White, smooth, and perfectly even.

They are marvelous and precise, a wonder to behold.

My gums, however, are disgusting.

Blood and ragged, like a horrendously ugly frame around an exquisite work of art.

"How can this be?" I ask my dentist. "What kind of cruel joke is it to have such beautiful teeth held prisoner within this putrid mouth?"

This dentist is no different than the others. He has no answers.

I wish I were the Cheshire Cat.

I'd vanish from the world, along with my gums, leaving this most wondrous, precious, beautiful smile.

Normally I don't get into rants on the blog for the podcast, but Steve Ely said something so mind-numbingly ignorant on Escape Pod a few episodes back, it pissed me off.

Episode 148: "We're the last country to give up slavery."

Perhaps Steve needs to take a look at the United Nations' reports on slavery to see that it's alive, well, and practically sanctioned by the state in Saudi Arabia and other regions of indentured servitude and generational debt-laborers.

Yeah it happens in the US, too. Mexicans trucking other Mexicans here for labor, the palaces off of Miami's shore with maids always in fear of their owner's hand, drug mules, and so on.

But it's not systemic. And there's always hope for the victims to have some kind of redress to the law. Someone stumbling across it, they can do something.

Over there, well, can't exactly say the same.

Yeah, he's had some rough times as of late, and I hope he comes through it all stronger and inspired. Escape Pod and Pseudopod and his other projects are a great podcasting resource for fiction, and if I had the time, I'd dive into the forums and contests and even submit some stuff.

But Ely needs to toss out the moldy history books, toss the Idiotarian "America is Evil, Bush is Hitler" glasses, and take a fresh look around.

There. Done.

Like you give a shit, right?

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