Shocking news out of Los Angeles this month:

Federal authorities have charged a trendy Santa Monica sushi restaurant with serving whale meat — an investigation that was spurred by the team behind the Oscar-winning documentary, “The Cove.”

I am almost speechless. How barbaric. How morally, and digestively, repulsive.

Armed with a hidden camera, the two women captured the waitress serving them whale and horse meat and identifying them as such, a federal criminal complaint said.

Unbelievable. I mean, I cannot – hold up.

A receipt from the restaurant at the end of the meal identified their selection as “whale” and “horse” with the cost — $85 — written next to them.

Wait, wait just a second.

The sei is found throughout the world’s oceans.

Whalers began to hunt them after the population of blue and in whales declined due to overfishing.

Is it just me, or are we galloping over a crucial part of the story here? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. I mean, whales are highly intelligent mammals – oh, right.

Well, I guess it’s not like eating horse meat is illegal or anything.

The law puts horses (including ponies), donkeys and mules under the same pet classification as dogs and cats.

Okay.

Date: Friday, December 4, 2009

Time: 9:00 AM approx.

Place: Orange Coast College Recycling Center, Costa Mesa, Calif.

Incident Report:

A white Dodge Ram pickup parks. A burly man steps out. He is Caucasian, in his late 30s, bearded, wearing a baseball cap, athletic team t-shirt, and shorts. He brings out two large Dell Computer boxes.

An attendant takes the boxes from the man, notices Styrofoam blocks inside, and takes the blocks out. He returns them to the man, saying, “We don’t recycle Styrofoam.”

Paranormal Incident #1: The burly man, in an agitated state, shouts, “HOW ABOUT I LEAVE MY PHONE NUMBER AND IF YOUR SUPERVISOR HAS A PROBLEM, HE CAN CALL ME.”

The attendant says something inaudible. It does not appear to sit well with the burly man, who kicks the boxes aside, throws the Styrofoam into the back of his pickup, and shouts again…

Paranormal Incident #2: “I SPEND THOUSANDS OF FUCKING DOLLARS HERE.”

Analysis:

Three key events stand out in the narrative:

1) A recycling center attendant refuses to accept pieces of Styrofoam.

2) The man who brought the cardboard boxes containing the Styrofoam offers the attendant his phone number.

3) Faced with the attendant’s continued refusal to take his Styrofoam, the man protests that he has spent “thousands of dollars” at the recycling center.

Event #1 is perhaps puzzling but can be explained within the bounds of known logic and science. Events #2 and #3 represent substantive departures from reality as we understand it.

Theories

a) The man, suffering from a recent head injury, has confused his surroundings, thinking he is still at the Dell Computer store and arguing over a matter of commerce with a sales associate.

b) The man and the attendant, representing foreign governments or domestic security services in a covert capacity, are engaged in an elaborate code language rendered indecipherable to passersby.

c) For a brief moment on the morning of Friday December 4, 2009, the Orange Coast College Recycling Center hosted a breach in the time-space continuum between the known world and an alternate universe, where offering a phone number results in someone accepting your trash, and it is possible to spend significant amounts of money at a place of waste disposal.

I regret any confusion that may have been caused by inaccuracies in my LinkedIn professional profile.

There a few particular misrepresentations I’d like to clear the air about.

• The role of “Senior VP-Patriotism & Getting Things Done” does not exist at my current place of employment, nor was I promoted to it.

• I was not responsible for an integrated tourism campaign for King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. To my knowledge, “King of Prussia: Where you’re the king of King of Prussia” is not the official motto of King of Prussia.

• The late Charles Bronson of Death Wish movies was not a colleague of mine at any time, before or after his passing in 2003.

• I did not deliver the keynote speech at this summer’s “Emergenting of The New Medias” conference. The conference itself, and the town of 2.0, Utah, in which it was purportedly held, are fictitious.

• Although I was briefly employed in a sales capacity with Time Warner Cable, my efforts in that position did not result in a 20% decrease in meteors.

Thank you. I look forward to further discussing opportunities with your company.