"As much as the Internet circle-jerk disgusts me, it's not a patch on the businesses themselves. You Disney people with your minimum wage and all the sexual harassment you can eat labor policies in your nice right-to-work state, you get away with murder. Anyone who criticizes you does so on your own terms: Is Disney exploiting its workers too much? Is it being too aggressive in policing its intellectual property? Should it be nicer about it? "I'm the writer who doesn't watch your corporations on your own terms. I don't care if another business is unfairly competing with your business. I care that your business is unfair to the world. That it aggressively exploits children to get their parents to spend money they don't have on junk they don't need. I care that your workers can't unionize, make shit wages, and get fired when they complain or when you need to flex your power a little. "I grew up without any power at all. When I was working for a living, I had no say at all in my destiny. It didn't matter how much shit a boss wanted to shovel on me, all I could do was stand and take it. Now I've got some power, and I plan on using it to setting things to rights." Sammy chewed his roast long past the point that it was ready to swallow. The fact that he'd made an error was readily apparent from the start of Freddy's little speech, but with each passing minute, the depth of his error grew. He'd really fucked up. He felt like throwing up. This guy was going to fuck him, he could tell. Freddy smiled and quaffed and wiped at his beard with the embroidered napkin. "Oh, look -- the jousting's about to start," he said. Knights in armor on horseback circled the arena, lances held high. The crowd applauded and an announcer came on the PA to tell them each knight's name, referring them to a program printed on their placemats. Sammy pretended to be interested while Freddy cheered them on, that same look of unholy glee plain on his face. The knights formed up around the ring and their pimply squires came out of the gate and tended to them. There was a squire and knight right in front of them, and the squire tipped his hat to them. Freddy handed the kid a ten-dollar bill. Sammy never tipped live performers; he hated buskers and panhandlers. It all reminded him of stuffing a stripper's G-string. He liked his media a little more impersonal than that. But Freddy was looking at him, so with a weak little smile, he handed the squire the smallest thing in his wallet -- a twenty. The jousting began. It was terrible. The "knights" couldn't ride worth a damn, their "lances" missed one another by farcical margins, and their "falls" were so obviously staged that even the chubby ten year old beside him was clearly unimpressed.