In the Ninth Ward of New New Orleans, the CEO of Atomitronics unleashed a flock of flamingobots. John LeChien, walking to work in the morning, heard them before he turned and saw them: a stiff-gaited pink horde clacking across the street and sidewalks.

He evaded the sharp beak of the first one and dropped to all fours to snap its plastic neck with his jaws. The beak of the second ripped his overalls to expose short blond fur. There were too many of them, rushing him from all directions. Tail between his legs, he dove between them and rolled, hearing the too-close thok-thok-thok of beaks striking the sidewalk.

“The Redcoats are coming! The Redcoats are coming!”

“What?” the newcomer asks. “The red what?”

“The Red Coats. You know, Redcoats — the British soldiers: the Regulars, the King’s Men, the Lobsters, the Bloody Backs, etc. etc. etc.”

“But why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you yelling? Why are you trying to warn me about…the British, you said?” The newcomer pauses and kneads his hands. “I mean, they don’t seem that bad.” He does a quick scan of the area. “And I don’t think I see any here.”

Amidst the glut of über-chic boutique eateries crowding the labyrinthine streets of Manchester’s resurgent North-West district nestles the new venture of renowned gastronaut Harley Figgs-Baumgartner. In keeping with its so-trendy-it-hurts postcode, the restaurant plies its trade under the near-unpronounceable moniker of Xtcokpøt, and spreads it tables over seventeen floors in a tall cylindrical building, converted from an industrial chimney.

After all these years of suffering under a hopeless crush, I’ve finally gotten my heart’s desire. I am literally (sort of) sleeping with John Stuart Mill. And let me tell you, darlings, People magazine needs to make up a new contest, because he is the sexiest man no longer alive. Or at least he’s the sexiest moral philosopher no longer alive. For one thing, he is HUGE—485 pages, not even counting the extended bibliography and prodigious notes. Now like most women, there’s nothing I like better than a long, slow read. But it’s not just the size. From the first time I read the Autobiography, On Liberty, and of course On the Subjection of Women, I was sure JStill was the only man who would ever really get me (except maybe Captain Kangaroo).

So, I while ago, I made an Abridged Classic for Pathfinder, an appalling example of racism in cinema, and also an appalling example of cinema. And man, there was plenty to show you. Especially because writing about this movie just doesn’t do it justice. It’s one thing to write, “The Native American characters are useless.”

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