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Week 033 (June 8-12, 2009)
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Sunday, 14 June 2009 00:00 |
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 Though it is a dangerous road to travel -- we speak of alerting readers to cute new ninja-themed merchandise -- it's hard to resist these ninja salt and pepper shakers from Patina Stores ($17). If these dainty ceramics don't suit you, perhaps you prefer Patina's manly Dashboard Ninja figures ($9) featured in the April 2009 WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) magazine.
Get your much-scarred fingers ready for the shuriken throwing championship to be held in September and October in Iga (Mie Prefecture), Japan. Participants will wear ninja costumes and engage in a test of shuriken-throwing skill and style in the contest, being organized by the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum... The museum is hoping that the championship will raise the status of shuriken-throwing as a martial art and promote it as a sport.
Before throwing a shuriken, participants must make a "figure nine" shape with their fingers, calling on the protection of the Buddha and Shinto deities. The competitors will each get six shuriken and throw five -- leaving one in reserve just as ninja of old -- at a target 30 centimeters in diameter five meters away for women and six for men. Points will be awarded to the competitors not just for accuracy, but also for the beauty of their movements and personal throwing style. Purchase your rulebook and championship-quality shuriken for just US$31! Uh, be ready to present identification.This past week (June 8-12,2009), Ninjalistics, your top-quality provider of corporate assassination and espionage services, offered intriguing and provocative new content: - Monday: The Ninja News story this week, "Infowar means casualties," may have prompted speculation through its seeming irrelevance to Ninjalistics. After all, what could be our connection to a secret meeting of food packaging executives seeking new ways to foist a possibly toxic chemical on consumers who are becoming far too aware of it? All will become clear soon!
- Wednesday: In our weekly webcomic, The Ninja Agenda, Team 19 grappled with the implications of outsourcing ninja assassination to Bangalore. (This followed on last week's revelation that Ninjalistics might soon outsource their duties.)
- Free Form Friday: Our latest free Ninjagraphic is the Deep Trigger Specification form. Every employer finds it necessary from time to time to subject workers to post-hypnotic conditioning. But you may not be aware of recent Department of Labor regulations that require you to notify the conditioned employee of the visual stimulus you've chosen to activate his or her post-hypnotic conditioning. This colorful (well, mostly red) form lists the most commonly chosen stimuli, including the aurora borealis, Saturn's moon Enceladus, Newtonian fractals, and, of course, Steve Jobs.
(You can view this form, and all our forms, at the free document-sharing site Scribd.com.)
We add new Ninjalistics content each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so check Ninjalistics.com often -- or subscribe to our handy RSS feed. In the recent landrush for Facebook vanity URLs, Ninjalistics naturally seized ninjalistics. Also follow us on MySpace, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Delicious.
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Week 033 (June 8-12, 2009)
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Monday, 08 June 2009 00:00 |
Ninjalistics will soon help you destroy undesirable customers At a late May, 2009 meeting in Washington, DC, the titans of the US$7.5 billion food packaging industry, who bestride the bottle, tray-, and can-strewn North American landscape like a colossus of aluminum and styrofoam, met to discuss a grave danger. Many public studies have showed the popular chemical bisphenol A (BPA) causes cancer, miscarriage, insulin resistance, obesity, and changes in brain structure. These industry magnates, who use BPA in hundreds of containers from soda-pop cans to baby bottles, aggregated their high intelligence to face the obvious problem: how to get consumers, in the face of these dangers, to keep buying BPA anyway?
Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger, snooping around for the May 29, 2009 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story "BPA industry seeks to polish image," summarized the minutes of the confidential five-hour meeting: A pregnant woman would be "the holy grail" to serve as a spokeswoman, the memo says. Attendees said they doubted they could find a scientist to serve as a spokesman for BPA. When asked why it would be hard to find a scientist to tout the chemical's benefits, [chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance John] Rost told the Journal Sentinel that any studies paid for by chemical makers are discounted by the media. "The minute industry pays for a meal or an airline ticket, that scientist is tainted as working for industry," Rost said. "They put their reputations at risk." A great industry is being blindsided by Big Scientific Consensus, an adversary all too familiar to innocent asbestos manufacturers, thalidomide makers, and multinational climate denialists just trying to make their quarterly numbers. Though the US Food and Drug Administration has declared BPA safe, citing two studies paid for by chemical makers, the public continues to ignore the industry's clear message, confused by irrelevancies like 38 independent scientists warning of danger from polycarbonate bottles. Other strategies discussed at the meeting included focusing on how BPA bans would disproportionately put minorities at risk, particularly Hispanics and African-Americans who are more inclined to be poor and dependent on canned foods. Committee members said they would try to get stories in the media that spread the message that canned goods made without BPA would be more likely to become contaminated. BPA serves to seal food in cans, helping to keep out bacteria. The group agreed to pay $500,000 to survey the American public about BPA safety. The sense of helplessness here stirs the heart. These impotent figures -- The Coca-Cola Company, Alcoa, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Del Monte Corp. and the American Chemistry Council lobby, among many other underdogs -- are learning a hard lesson: Corporate public relations is war! It's infowar against the whistleblowers, journalists, and general naysayers who try to reveal to your lawful customers reasons why they shouldn't buy your products. Experts agree, anyone who interferes with your selling anything to anybody is your mortal enemy, who must be contained, subverted, neutralized, and preferably removed.In our Googly age, routine propaganda solutions like the industry-funded Bisphenol-A.org can no longer keep the message from getting out. Any passing civilian can simply search for "bisphenol a" health problems and bypass approved channels. Yet in this nightmare time for an embattled multi-billion-dollar industry, Ninjalistics offers hope. Soon we will announce a new public relations program involving enhanced media-influencer procurement, relocation, and persuasion. Corporate customers will learn that Ninjalistics is not just about assassination and espionage. In service to your business needs, we also infiltrate, misinform, distort, extort, compel, and abduct. Your success deserves no less!
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Week 032 (June 1-5, 2009)
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Saturday, 06 June 2009 00:00 |
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When mists of rain fall gently as cherry blossoms, then does the enlightened warrior truly desire the Samurai Sword Handle Umbrella from ThinkGeek. With nylon scabbard and adjustable shoulder strap, this 41-inch umbrella presents a forbidding impression, at least if your adversary believes samurai swords have plastic handles and pushbuttons. ($30) ThinkGeek has a whole Japan Fan category, featuring items like Origami Sticky Notes, a Japanese Chopsticks Practice Game, and a Wee Ninja plush toy, perfect for concealing a knife, grenade, poison dart, or trained attack hamster. This past week (June 1-5, 2009), Ninjalistics, your top-quality provider of corporate assassination and espionage services, offered a full slate of new or artfully recycled content: - Monday: The Ninja News story this week, Arm & Leg Collections helps payday loan companies encourage debtors, announced our new program to help America's needy payday loan industry, which has heroically built a $40 billion enterprise by cleverly charging low-income workers four-digit interest rates on short-term loans. This fine financial institution has suffered fussy legal restrictions not applicable to its chief competitors, Mafia loan sharks. But now Ninjalistics levels the playing field with its convenient and sanitary debtor-limb-amputation program. Check it out!
- Wednesday: In their weekly webcomic, The Ninja Agenda, Team 19 explored the obscure reaches of their resumes in response to an executive inquiry. Why would the bosses care wehther they know kalaripayat?
- Free Form Friday: Our latest free award certificate celebrates an honorable Victory Over Clients. Obviously it is exceedingly rare for a conscientious worker to deal with customers who are annoying, irrational, or -- preposterous! -- clinically insane. But should this unusual event befall, yet leave you unbowed, print out this certificate and give yourself an award!
(You can view this form, and all our forms, at the free document-sharing site Scribd.com.)
We add new Ninjalistics content each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so check Ninjalistics.com often -- or subscribe to our handy RSS feed. Follow Ninjalistics on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Delicious.
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Week 032 (June 1-5, 2009)
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Monday, 01 June 2009 00:00 |
 These are bright times for the $40 billion payday loan industry, which is now absolutely legal and above-board in 37 American states! Today billion-dollar corporations make the lives of low-income workers interesting, even exciting, by loaning them small sums intended to be paid -- or, far more often, increased and extended -- weekly or biweekly. And though these loans carry 390% to 780% interest, with annual compound interest rates of 2,600% and much higher, the march of progress since the 1990s has made these companies often entirely legal and therefore in no way like organized crime loan sharks. Yet for too long the payday loan and cash advance industry has suffered an unfair handicap compared to its less-legal counterparts. When an irresponsible and dishonest customer blithely defaults on a loan, perhaps merely because it has tripled or quadrupled in size, a criminal loan shark can efficiently threaten to break an arm or leg. In sad contrast, the hard-beset loan company can only call the debtor, and the debtor's spouse, family members, distant relatives, employer, and co-workers, 20 or 30 times daily. This just wastes everyone's time. Now, after forward-thinking deregulation by Congress, Ninjalistics is helping payday loan companies level the playing field nationwide with our innovative and soon entirely legal Arm and Leg Collection Services. Customers can now offer as loan collateral their own limbs and bodily organs or, where state law permits, the limbs and organs of minor offspring (requires proof of parenthood or legal guardianship). Should the signatory customer default, Ninjalistics, operating on behalf of the swindled and dismayed payday loan company, will speedily take possession of the collateral in an entirely legal manner. - For loans under $100, only fingers or toes are required; between $100 and $500, the extremity up to the elbow or knee; above $500, the entire limb.
- For large loans without sufficient financial collateral, the business may seek higher-value organs such as kidneys, livers, and lungs.
- A future iteration of the Arm and Leg program will address gold teeth, hearts, brain tissue, and pancrei.
"Some naive people, like The Huffington Post, call payday loan companies 'loan sharks'," scoffs Ninjalistics Acting CEO Hymen Barong. "This comparison is preposterous. Real sharks devour the entirety of your internal organs immediately, willy-nilly. Working with these entirely legal payday loan companies, Ninjalistics will amputate or operate with our customary surgical precision, and only after the three-day grace period required by law. So that certainly clears that up." Repossessed limbs and organs to serve high purpose Arm and Leg Collection Services is more than a way to encourage debtors to reconsider default. For entirely legal payday loan companies, ALCS-harvested limbs and organs are a profit center! Many wealthy people of advanced age seek new vitality; many poor people with spare organs and limbs need money; ALCS provides the vital link connecting supplier and market. Using close contacts in corporate executive management worldwide, the new Foundation for Human Immortality can ensure repossessed body parts, which once did nothing more useful than prop up some defaulting low-income deadbeat, now serve a virtuous purpose: prolonging the lives and health of society's most productive, prosperous, and admired members. The Foundation regards organs of prepubescent children as particularly valuable. Neophyte glands have proven efficacy in extending the lives of geriatric patients. The Foundation will use child-to-elder transplantation techniques pioneered in the field's most famous test subject, former US Vice President Dick Cheney. New bill passed in bipartisan spirit Ninjalistics commences the Arm and Leg program as Congress moves to repeal antiquated busybody laws about "unconscionable provisions." This represents a welcome reform of the 1960s philosophy of a nanny-state government meddling in constituents' lives "for their own good." After all, if borrowers don't have the freedom to decide who gets their own organs, who does? The payday loan industry, through an effective and entirely legal network of lobbyists, has consistently made Congress aware of the wisdom of laissez-faire capitalism. For instance, Daniel Brooks, in his April 2009 Harper's article "Usury country: Welcome to the birthplace of payday lending," showed the industry's effectiveness when the Tennessee legislature debated whether to permit payday loans: "They hired a Noah's Ark of lobbyists," Steve Cohen, a state senator, memorably remarked to the Associated Press. "They hired a black lobbyist to get black votes. If we'd have had a transsexual, they would have hired a transsexual lobbyist." Ninjalistics helped these lobbyists inform Congress regarding the new bill, HR 2071 "Supporting Entirely Legal Loans using American Organs and Limbs." The SELL-AOL Act initially encountered resistance from Democrats on obscure ideological grounds. But in a lobbying storm of lightning precision and thunderous effectiveness, Ninjalistics operatives swept Capitol Hill with highly targeted informational incentives that quickly persuaded naysayers to say "yea!" The SELL-AOL Act now heads to the Oval Office for President Obama's signature. Owing to unusually strong security in the White House, Ninjalistics does not expect to play a major part in the Presiden'ts decision. However, industry lobbyists plan to be as effective, and entirely legal, as usual.
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Week 031 (May 25-29, 2009)
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Saturday, 30 May 2009 00:00 |
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Grasshopper, when you can pluck the Solidalliance Ninja 2G shuriken-shaped 2GB flash drive from my USB port, then will you truly be a corporate ninja. Anyway, you'll truly be someone willing to spend US$100+ on a 2GB flash drive. The Ninjalistics IT department has already approved these shuriken thumb drives for office use, but that may be because they're looking forward to throwing them at each other. This past week (May 25-29, 2009), Ninjalistics, your top-quality provider of corporate assassination and espionage services, presented content both solemn and healthful: - Monday: In observance of the US Memorial Day holiday this past Monday, our Ninja News story honors Unsung heroes who start our wars -- the anonymous covert operatives hired by worthy companies and financial institutions to provoke profitable altercations. Our historical timeline covers highlights from the Whiskey Rebellion through the Copperhead Riots to the Bonus Army; the many recent instances are still covered by nondisclosure agreements.
- Wednesday: In our weekly webcomic, the Etiquette Ninjas calmed a worried correspondent concerned about swine flu. Why worry, when your chance of dying from the flu is a mere fraction of your chance of being killed by ninjas?
- Free Form Friday: Our latest free Ninjagraphic mini-poster is the Ninja Hygiene Poster. A follow-on to our popular Ninja Safety Poster, this colorful (well, mostly red) legal-size infographic offers helpful counsel to the corporate ninja concerned about the hazards of splashing bodily fluids.
(You can view this form, and all our forms, at the free document-sharing site Scribd.com.)
We add new Ninjalistics content each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so check Ninjalistics.com daily -- or subscribe to our handy RSS feed. Follow Ninjalistics on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Delicious.
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Week 031 (May 25-29, 2009)
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Monday, 25 May 2009 00:00 |
Ninjalistics honors the secret achievements of history's ninjas  Each Memorial Day, Ninjalistics offices across America light a stick of black incense (or, in deference to local fire codes, start a Black Incense Screensaver) in remembrance of the unsung operatives who provoke conflicts in selfless service to finance and industry. Here we recall some often overlooked incidents.
1793-97: When George Washington's administration tries to pay off the national debt by taxing whiskey, frontier farmers harrasses tax collectors. The administration secretly hire ninja operatives to provoke the Whiskey Rebellion, permitting Washington to declare martial law in Pennsylvania and send in the militia to round up troublemakers.1804-05: After the young republic tires of paying tribute to Barbary pirates on the North African coast, Thomas Jefferson sends a group of frigates against the Pasha of Tripoli. In the First Barbary War, the Pasha hires ninja operatives to subvert and capture the USS Philadelphia. After the Pasha unwisely refuses to pay his operatives, they begin aiding the Americans, helping Lieutenant Stephen Decatur board the Philadelphia by night and set it afire. Operatives later guide US Marines and mercenaries to "the shores of Tripoli" to decisively capture the city of Derne.1846: In disputed territory on the Texas frontier, an anonymous operative posing as a local Mexican guide leads a company of dragoons commanded by US Army Captain Seth Thornton into a skirmish with 2,000 Mexican soldiers. The Thornton Affair gives US President James K. Polk a pretext to initiate the Mexican-American War (1846-48), which brings half a million square miles of the Southwest under American influence. Political operatives in Washington also defuse the Spot Resolutions, a failed attempt to obstruct the war by an upstart Whig Congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln.1847: Hired by American agriculturalists in the Pacific Northwest, operatives posing as frontier traders sell measles-infected blankets to the Native American Cayuse tribe. When the stricken tribe conducts the Whitman Massacre, operatives guide hundreds of concerned volunteers to initiate the Cayuse War. This profitable operation secures productive and scenic tribal land from primitive people who were doing nothing important.1863: A group of New York City Democrats known as the Copperheads, opposed to the Civil War, hire operatives to provoke citizen resentment. Competing operatives, hired by Confederate spies, further provoke the provocations, which quickly grow into the New York Draft Riots.1899: To kick off the Philippine-American War, ninja operatives pose as native skirmishers, giving the American army plausible grounds to move in. The US brings peace and (arguably) prosperity to the islands after removing 1.4 million unwanted and annoying Filipinos.1899-1934: In the Banana Wars, operatives employed by the United Fruit Company encourage Central American, Caribbean, and Pacific governments to commit mistakes requiring forceful redress. Today, whenever you eat a banana, thank a ninja!1932: Operatives infiltrate the ranks of the Bonus Army, 43,000 unemployed veterans and their families who march on Washington to demand redress of grievances. Aided by ninja intelligence, the US Army, led by General Douglas McArthur and Major George Patton, successfully drives off the marchers with tanks and cavalry, heroically wounding hundreds of unarmed veterans. (Note: Numerous later incidents remain confidential under continuing nondisclosure agreements.) These are the unrecognized builders who laid the buried foundations of our Gross Domestic Product. They lived in deep cover and often died in abrupt violence, asking for no recognition -- no glory -- nothing save a lucrative short-term contract. Yet though we spare a wistful thought for their anonymous sacrifice, we can reflect with pride these operatives at least did not wind up like American veterans, of whom one in four are homeless. The ninja faces, if not a happier nor more glorious, at least a quicker and less wretched fate. [Photo of Hoover Dam (burial site of many unsung ninjas, usually after death) by Flickr user chalkie colour circles, released under a Creative Commons license.]
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Week 030 (May 18-22, 2009)
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Saturday, 23 May 2009 00:00 |
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The May 22, 2009 New York Times story by Choe Sang-Hun, South Korean Ex-President Kills Himself [free registration required], summarized the unexpected and mysterious suicide of Former Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, 62, who supposedly jumped off a cliff during a morning hike with his bodyguard near his retirement home in Bongha, South-by-southeast Korea. President Lee Myung-bak, Mr. Roh’s successor, found the news “difficult to believe,” his office said. [...] In recent weeks, several of his aides and relatives had been arrested or questioned on charges of taking bribes. His elder brother also was arrested in December on bribery charges. Prosecutors suspected that Mr. Roh, while president, solicited a total of $6 million from a shoe manufacturer, payments that are alleged to have been made to his wife, his son, and his brother’s son-in-law. This past week (May 18-22, 2009), Ninjalistics, your top-quality provider of corporate assassination and espionage services, brought new content of interest to many more people than just, for instance, Korean shoe manufacturers: - Monday: The Ninja News story was "Ninja caught playing with victim's organs," a distasteful episode involving a frivolous operative from our bitter competitor, NinjCo. The YouTube video of the ninja assassin making funny faces with "Mister Liver" has been pulled, but not before staining the ninjutsu-based industry's otherwise sterling reputation. For shame, NinjCo!
- Wednesday: In our weekly webcomic, The Ninja Agenda, Team 19 grappled with an executive request for a fake budget. By presenting a fictitiously cheap bid for the expensive Caracas operation, they could demonstrate good value to a prospective client. What could go wrong?
- Free Form Friday: Our latest free certificate is the official Ninjalistics Employee of the Month award certificate.
(You can view this form, and all our forms, at the free document-sharing site Scribd.com.)
We add new Ninjalistics content each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so check Ninjalistics.com daily -- or subscribe to our handy RSS feed. Follow Ninjalistics on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Delicious.
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Week 030 (May 18-22, 2009)
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Monday, 18 May 2009 00:00 |
NinjCo corporate assassin posted video on YouTube  Controversy flared in the corporate ninjutsu industry last week after a video circulated showing a ninja operative of NinjCo, a longtime competitor and rival of Ninjalistics, using his recently killed victim's vital organs as puppet characters.
The video drew sharp reproach from industry figures. "Dissecting the target's stomach and wearing it as a deerstalker cap to play Sherlock Holmes? This shows grave disregard for corporate best practice," said Ninjalistics Acting CEO Hymen Barong. "At Ninjalistics we adhere to the highest standards of taste. When one of our operatives initiates an Immediate Phase Transition on a target, you can rest assured we treat the remains with dignity, unless the client orders one of our postumous desecration packages. "Even then," Barong adds, "we employ only standard ISO 9000-approved desecrations, such as target decapitation and dismemberment; distribution of selected body parts to specified heirs and associates; painting of significant icons or corporate logos using the target's blood; and ceremonial scattering of unhallowed ashes to the four winds, subject to federal and local regulations. "At no point would we even consider using the target's intestines as a jumprope, or turning his inflated bladder into a balloon animal, or draping his lungs over our chest and imitating Dolly Parton." Use of parts indicates comedic ambitions In the controversial six-minute clip, the unnamed ninja, presumed to be a NinjCo operative from his uniform's prominent chest logo, kneels over the fallen body of retired General Motors financial executive Lamont Englebrook in the well-appointed den of Englebrook's mansion in the Hamptons. "Hewwwwo, Meeester Leeeverrrr!" says the NinjCo employee at one point in the recording, as he slices open Englebrook's abdomen with a dagger and removes his liver. The ninja playfully dances the liver through a clumsy high-kick routine over the wound, then forms the liver into a mouth around his hand and makes it "speak" in the manner of a ventriloquist, such as the late Edgar Bergen or Senor Wences. NinjCo operative: Meester Leever, I theenk maybe you smell of booze! Make me a dreeenk!
Liver: Que? Make you a dreeenk? What you theenk I am, chopped liver?
Operative: Ha, ha, ha! You are fonneee, I theenk! S'awright?
Liver: S'awriiiight! Though both operative and liver speak in a comically exaggerated Spanish accent, the ninja's ethnicity is unknown. Neither the target nor, presumably, the target's liver were of Latino descent.The video appears to have been made using a simple cellphone camera. The camera operator, another NinjCo ninja, appears briefly at the video's end when the two ninjas enact a mock fencing match using Englebrook's thighs. A YouTube sensation More controversial than the organ mockery was the video's release on YouTube. Though current NinjCo confidentiality policy was unavailable at this writing, traditional ninjutsu-based industry practice forbids publicizing a mission's planning, execution, or aftermath. "Ninjalistics, for one, respects confidentiality," says Barong. "After any operation, we share our 1080p high-definition surround-sound recordings with the client only, except for customary permitted use in in-house training videos." Posted as the first video on the new subscriber account thatninjadork, the video received over 100,000 views and was favorited some 5,000 times. Two days ago the video was removed and the account cancelled, after Englebrook's heirs claimed they had been denied revenues from the video's sponsor. After its successful previous sponsorship of dancing traveller Matt Harding ("Dancing Matt"), the Stride Gum chewing gum company sponsored the ninja's video to kick off a new campaign, "Who's Dying for Stride Gum?" NinjCo representatives were not available for comment. A statement on the company website stated the operative's actions had prompted a review of corporate policy on media and merchandise rights to its contract assassinations. A poster on the NinjCo company forum with the handle "DorkResurrected," who claims to be the operative in the video, has asserted he is now in discussions with a "leading comedy-oriented cable channel," which has taken an option on an as-yet-untitled weekly series featuring humorous desecrations. [Den background photo by CodyR, released on Flickr under a Creative Commons license.]
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Week 029 (May 11-15, 2009)
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Saturday, 16 May 2009 00:00 |
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"The ninja of seaweed" is a 19-second YouTube video apparently filmed in the Red Sea. A single touch on this humble underwater plant, and....! This past week (May 11-15, 2009), Ninjalistics, your top-quality provider of corporate assassination and espionage services, brought you this entertaining and informative panoply of content: - Monday: The Ninja News story this week announced our GradsToGrains program. Now all those recent business and finance graduates, suddenly realizing they have no skills of any use to any sane person, can still find productive employment on remote rural farmsteads -- not only through unskilled (yet heartening!) manual labor, but also as entertainment for tourist buses eager to see Harvard grads cleaning the chicken coops.
- Wednesday: In their weekly webcomic, The Ninja Agenda, Team 19's operational postmortem was interrupted by Nathan's surprising discourse on Chromium Dragons and their subversive allies on his team. Just another day at Ninjalistics...
- Free Form Friday: Our latest offbeat Ninjagraphic is -- you'll like this -- a votive candle label offering a Prayer of Protection from Ninja Assassins. This secular meditation appeals to everyone regardless of beliefs, at least if said beliefs include an aversion to being kidnapped by ninja assailants. Print the label, stick it on a candle, follow the directions, and you're as thoroughly protected from ninj-ery as anyone could expect from such action.
(You can view this label, and all our forms and graphics, at the free document-sharing site Scribd.com.)
We add new Ninjalistics content each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so check Ninjalistics.com daily -- or subscribe to our handy RSS feed.Follow Ninjalistics on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Delicious.
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Week 029 (May 11-15, 2009)
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Monday, 11 May 2009 00:00 |
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 Today's business graduate can no longer count on catching a recently tossed mortarboard one day, then walking into an office the next. The job market has taken on Cormac McCarthyesque shades of bleakness. Today's savvy graduate, in weighing job opportunities, either lowers salary (and dietary) expectations or adopts a more flexible approach.
For MBA and finance grads willing to set aside the niceties of an ivory-tower education, Ninjalistics offers the new GradsToGrains program, which helps America's Best, Brightest, and Hungriest become productive by sending young business graduates to work on remote rural farms. Though some supposedly wise people assert "Knowledge is good," Ninjalistics Acting CEO Hymen Barong hastens to correct them: "Let's face it, nobody in this market will invest in a young and unknown go-getter's hedge fund, no matter how well-cut his suit," says Barong. "And the investor class currently faces a society unduly willing to question their traditional position as social lions and media darlings -- even to wonder exactly how they differ from three-card hustlers, shakedown gangsters, and corrupt plantation barons." With GradsToGrains, Barong says, "Ninjalistics offers young Aborted Masters of the Universe a graceful way to contribute authentic value to society through soul-strengthening, backbreaking repetitive labor." Barong conceived the GradsToGrains program after reading an April 15, 2009, New York Times story by Hiroki Tabuchi, "For Young Japanese, It's Back to the Farm" (free registration required). The article describes Japan's Rural Labor Squad, "urban trainees dispatched to the countryside under a pilot program to put Japan’s underemployed youth to work tilling its farms": The predicament of Japanese in their 20s and 30s dates back to the lost decade of the 1990s, when many failed to find good, stable work. Today, a disproportionate number endure low-wage jobs — a potential portent for America’s students and first-time job seekers plunging into a shallow job market in the United States.
As the Japanese recession has worsened, younger workers have taken the brunt of wage cuts and layoffs, especially in manufacturing. Now the government views the slump — Japanese exports fell almost 50 percent year-to-year in February — as a chance to divert idle labor to sectors that have long suffered from worker shortages, like agriculture. Many young Japanese, for their part, have shown a growing interest in farming as disillusionment rises over the grind of city jobs and layoffs. Agricultural job fairs have been swamped with hundreds of applicants; one in Osaka attracted 1,400 people. Following the Japanese example, Ninjalistics will train GradsToGrains graduates in all required duties at our company acreage/dojo in the back woods of Arkansas. The programs starts with a four-day whirlwind tutorial on the broad underlying concepts of tractor operation, milking machines, and barns. Then the former would-be financiers will infiltrate tightly knit and frequently inbred agricultural communities, learning to compete with or, in extreme cases, incapacitate rival students seeking the same positions.Ninjalistics hopes to develop new revenue sources around the GradsToGrains program, such as operation of tour buses around the farms for visitors eager to see financiers cleaning pigpens.
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