"It's Fun to Use Learning for Evil"*

Disquieting Modern Trends: We Do More Than Watch “Nip / Tuck” till 3 AM (Seriously, We Do) Edition

by Will Layman & Chris Osmond

The “Life is Good” T-Shirt

You have seen this, certainly — a high quality, “yarn dyed” T-shirt in a Martha’s Vineyard-y faded orange or blue, with a little post-Haring cartoon smiley face guy engaged in a sport that you are to imagine the wearer has a particular affinity for, with the affirmation in a smartypants script just beneath it, “Life is Good.”

Gentle “Life is Good”-shirt-wearing populace: it (i.e., life) is not (i.e., good)! Not in any deep and abiding sense, and your grimace betrays your knowledge of same. Life may be rich and interesting and layered with the utterly fascinating prospect of what it’s like to find yourself thinking about your root canal at the same time that you discover and old but remarkable well-preserved Cool Ranch Dorito in your couch cushions — a typical day, we suppose for most Americans — but “good” is plainly an oversimplification that glosses over even the our most nacho cheese-flavored pleasures. We recommend to you instead the T-shirt made by a private acquaintance of ours from our callow youth; rendered in black (like our hearts), it shares the following irrefutable sentiment: “Knowledge is Power. Power Corrupts. Study Hard. Be Evil.”

I want that shirt. It would be nice to have something to wear on the days when I'm not rocking my Diesel Sweeties.*