Cruel, Dysmorphic, Feminist Intentions

My view of myself is quite askew, my fiance knows this well and puts up with it triumphantly. I'd like to say this is merit of a true man, to allow me to comment on my generally mild body dysmorphic disorder and not tell me to shut up, but reply with a lengthy and amusing satire. Today's trip through the imaginary fat-mirror involved trip to the gym, which I found to be particularly unfulfilling (i.e. I still feel fat). I met the return home with the acceptance of my present feeling.

"Eh, this just is how it is, I'm never gonna look how I want. I'm always gonna be a little chunky."

Jab was not about to let this one go, regardless of how lackluster I had tried to make it sound, "what are you talking about? You're skinny. How many people have told you you're skinny lately? And I know it is more than one."

I have become relatively infamous in my own mind for completely denying these instances, of compliment on my body or general appearance. I wipe them from my memory because believing them would erase my dear old crutch, reliable friend "self loathing". Lately, however, I've gotten a bit better.

"Ummm...you? And um..."

Ok so maybe I hadn't gotten good enough. Then I remembered two more.

"Yosuke and Midori said I looked like I lost weight."

"...AND?"

Damn. There were more. My brain failed to recall this, using its shitty and routinely busted Dewey decimal system.

"I dunno." I folded. Here are my cards, I can't remember stuff that should make me feel good.

"Look, you do not see yourself how the rest of the world sees you. You just gotta accept that. You can't worry about it either. Look, I have two legs. I can't stand here and say, 'well I might as well have one leg because what if someday I do.'"

His pragmatic analogy was well taken. Then I forgot about my whining for a while. Then came the American Music Awards. We watch this bullshit because we feel a responsibility to our intellect to know what's going on in the world. As people who are somewhat decent at interpreting pop culture happenings into real meaning (yes, sometimes it exists), we try to absorb this information (I use the term loosely).

I commented on how J. Lo was now wearing tights because the sands of time had begun to reveal that she was not impervious to the demon cellulite. I felt that it was my "gotcha" moment for the rich and famous looking perfect.

"Why do you care? I bet no one else would notice that."

For the record, I do think other people would notice, but I don't think they would feel as strangely vindicated as I did. So I felt the need to explain.

" It's just showing that even though she's rich and famous and perfect, she isn't subject to the rules of nature. She can get cellulite just like the rest of us."

He wasn't satisfied by this. This was the catalyst for one of our epic hour long discussions involing a topic inserted into an extremely existensial vein of social psychology .

I had also just read this article, coincidentally, at theDailyMail.co.uk about a group of women who had participated in an experiment tracking their negative thoughts about themselves. The average woman has 36 negative thoughts about their face, body, or general self each day.

I'm not shocked by this at all, because I'd bet that I have more than 36. But I don't think that it makes it okay.

Dispensing this information, we were off and running on a discussion that would leave me doubting everything I had thought about feminism.

So why does all this shit matter? Why do I care that J. Lo has cellulite? While the thought doesn't take up hours of my day, it's a very brief moment of, "HA! I don't lose to nature as much as I thought I did! You did too! Sucka!"

I would like to say, "well it's because we think men are most interested in flawless bodies, so we attempt to subscribe to it." But I can't blame it all on men, that's complete denial and ignorance. It's a catch 22. This idea to subscribe to an image exists because 1) we let it and 2) we let it and 3) we let it. Yes, media perpetuates the problem, but we have the option to not listen.

This isn't helping women at all. This is hurting us and we all do it. Feminism had success as a civil rights movement, but as far as changing womens' perceptions of each other, it's done nothing. It's done nothing to leave us focusing on successes beyond the physical. Most young girls in the US want to be models, actresses, and heiresses.

Shit in one hand and hope in the other ladies, see which one gets full first.

This is a huge problem. While women are "allowed" and capabale of having great jobs practically anywhere they want, young women don't want them. Young women want the easy way out - more often than not, that has to do with relying on one's looks.

Do I get pissed off at seeing a woman that's better looking than me succeeding? Yes, sometimes, because I assume she succeeded by way of something I cannot compete with: looks. I have no reason to assume this. If I didn't, and no other woman did, we'd be competing on basic intellectual merit. That would be fair. That would be competing in the workplace and in life like men do (for the most part). We wouldn't be getting distracted by whose tits look better in their shirt and who has the best legs. We might actually be getting good at other things...like science, technology, and other pursuits that matter greatly to the human race.

My point of view is that we can see this change in how women associate and view each other in my lifetime. I might be 90 years-old, but it's possible. My fiance pointed out that this is not a civil rights movement, this is the alteration of the point of view and practices of millions of people: it'll take an era, if it happens at all. And even then, how do we decide it is happening at all?

Will women top wearing bikinis? Will women stop wearing make up? Will high heels go out of fashion? Will women stop caring about giant African-maiming engagement rings? Will women's virginity be less taboo? Will the loss be celebrated and not shied from?

My fiance, as much a feminist as I, does not believe that we will see these changes in our lifetimes. I cannot say that I do, but I hope I do. I fancy myself such a realist that hope and faith are such absure ideas they may as well be the same ubiquitous, unobtainable, inconsequential pariah that we all chase. In this case, hope is all I have. My fiance asked that I explain my view, I couldn't. All I could muster was, "I just hope we do." I really, truly, vehemently hope that we as women can get a handle on this obstacle we've given ourselves. We're at a fulcrum, one side is my obsession with my thighs touching and not reading about quantum computing and the other is breaking the glass ceiling. We can't tip it while hating each other for looking hot. So what's it gonna be?

Conservative Talk Radio is Raping my Ears

I understand some things. Like gravity. I know that pi is 3.14. I know that h2o is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. I know that Barack Obama is a president as a result of American backlash to the GOP. I also know that the GOP is using the term "rape" to describe Obama's domestic policies. As in:

"Obama is raping your state."
-- Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck is such a damned eyesore and source of illogical eccentric verbal diarrhea that this should be discounted. However it was repeated by Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh on their radio programs, just to name two.

That's fine if you want to use such hyperbole. I'm not one to talk. After all, I buoyantly declared health reform to be the space program of my generation - I had high hopes, but I was also saying this to place a crown atop its head (and I titled this post "Conservative Radio is Raping my Ears").

This "rape" that the GOP speaks of is taxation, by the way.

The "rape" of the wealthy. Right, because they got that way by hard, honest, work at the Ford plant and stocking shelves at WalMart, like real Americans. The wealthy got that way by doin' some rapin' of their own.

I'm not above hyperbole, but c'mon guys, be fucking responsible. Like right now, I feel responsible to write an entire essay on why I just typed "the wealthy got that way by doin' some rapin' of their own." That's an entirely differently blog on the merits and demerits of capitalism, but for the calming of my own psyche I will provide this explanation: wealth is defined by having capital assets in excess of that of the common man, the only way to get that is by taking it from a large number of "the common man".

Glenn, Michael, Rush, let's pretend your radio show is a car. It's a lovely car and there are people all around it, observing it, they're your audience. Talking out your ass about taxation being equivocal to rape is about as responsible as driving your car shithoused through the parking lot of the superdome during Hurricane Katrina. You've got emotionally distraught people in a country in the depths of the recession: do you want to just plow them over? Have you no sense of responsibility to be honest with them?

Though let's remember, this is the same party that generally harbors values believing that if a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, she need not be entitled to an abortion. Apparently the public is not allowed to abort these fucked up thoughts from their brains either. Glenn, Rush, Michael, you just keep right on humpin'.

Oh my, Monogamy

I'm newly engaged. Which, because I'm an easily amused and obsessed pessimist, means that I am not obsessed with my wedding - but rather issues that can and do affect married people. If you're married, or have been, you're probably already way ahead of me and you are probably already bored with this drivel pouring from the keyboard of a 25 year-old monogamy novice, but still...here it is.

So what are these issues?
- Potential divorce
- Life insurance of spouse
- Joint bank accounts (we have a joint bank account...mine)
- Children (we've decided I'm preserving my genitals, if I could cryogenically freeze them I would, instead, I'm just going to adopt)
And...
- The general maintenance of monogamy

Some of these things I may never have to deal with. Others, or all, I may. The one that is completely unavoidable and all people and couples deal with in varying ways is the general maintenance of monogamy.

Recently, several friends of mine have reached a point in their life that is full of foul marital downgrades. Either their own or of other close friends. Loss of libido, other intimacy issues, parenting disagreements, and life stage realizations and changes. Some will choose to get therapy, deal with them, appreciate their spouse and trudge down the road of "for better or worse". Others, will choose to hang up the towel and move on and create another life.

Overwhelmingly these issues have been sex related. I listen. I hear stories about no horrible defamation of the relationship, no horrible wrong was done, no great upset created by either party. The female just decides she doesn't like sex any more, but she is still in love.

This has got to make the other in the party feel a bit disenfranchised, a bit fooled. However, the female typically feels somewhat vindicated by society. Other females empathize and agree. Comedians(ennes) commiserate. Sitcoms mock, middle-aged radio DJs make euphemistic references to the same situation - it doesn't even need to be spelled out. It's just common - after a while, women don't like sex.

So I must ask: do women stop enjoying sex because they really don't enjoy sex with their partner any longer? Or do they stop because it sounds like it's okay to stop?

We mock fat people because it's the last acceptable prejudice.

Maybe this is the same situation.

Just like being fat is a symptom of our superpower advantage of having as much shitty food around as we possibly want, maybe losing desire to fuck your husband is a result of having so many condolences around us all the time. Both are overwhelmingly understandable and therefore universally understood.

But...but...but...I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

I've been in a relationship in which I no longer wanted to fuck the one I was with. He became repulsive to me. He did not make me feel beautiful. He made me feel like I was nothing but a ball and chain on his Oedipus leg. So, I broke up with him. I didn't marry him, obviously, and I shouldn't have. I also had a boyfriend whose secret non-verbal method of breaking up with me was just to stop having sex with me and let me figure it out. Figure it out I did. It was like I dumped myself. Now that's a mindfuck.

On the other hand, I cannot get enough of my finace. Largely because I will never forget what it's like to be treated like shit, and my fiance on the other hand, treats me like a gold encrusted diamond fused with rubies and sapphires and emeralds.

Maybe this didn't happen to most people. Maybe most people don't know what it's like to be the opposite of lucky.

It's very easy for me to sit here and say that this will never happen to me, this mysterious loss of libido. I have many reasons to believe that this is so, however, I do not know what happened in these other relationships. Maybe there was no abuse, verbal, emotional, or otherwise. I don't know. I will never know. I only wonder, what's this problem with monogamy? If you have it, you don't want it and show it in a variety of ways, and if you don't have it, you want it and humans are pretty fucking good at sabotaging getting it.

Historically, marriages succeeded (and the definition of success being solely that there was no divorce and one spouse didn't kill the other) because it was socially required. It's presently completely optional. Whether or not you want it is completely optional. It should not, and is faulted if it does, depend on what world allows you to do.

I can safely say that if my plan works, and my reason for believing that we can thwart a lot of standard marital issues that rear their bulbous heads over time, it will be because neither of us will forget what it was like to be the opposite of lucky. We feel insanely lucky. I know that part of our success has much to do with our remembrance of our failures, and others having failed us.

Divorced, separated, bereaved? We've got a fair for that!

I'm an extremely negative and forward thinking person. I'm also about to get married. My life is, quite frankly, the best it could possibly be at this exact moment. I guess there could be the leprechaun constantly handing me money or something, but that I'll keep for my warm snuggy sleep time dreams. My fiance will come home soon, I will kiss him, we will dandle on the couch and just be giddy and retarded in love.

That has nothing to do with me being negative, but this does. All he positivity and wonder feels like a lovely and sweet tub of ice cream that is some day going to get moldy and disintegrate - I know this is bad. I'm not fearing our relationship growing lousy, sexless, and generally gut-wrenching. I'm fearing the possibility of, "oh god, I could live the single life again some day...fuck that."

If your single life was anything like mine, you wouldn't want it back. My days involved constantly being in the prowl, drunk in real life at home, or on the internet, and consistently making terrible choices involving my genitalia and self-esteem. Hey heterosexuality, you can keep my fucking single life, I do not want it back.

But what if I have no control over that? What if there is a terrible accident and something happens to Jab? What if we're old and immobile and he dies before me? I would have no choice but to...ugh...prowl again. And of course there would be other issues as well: emotional, financial, legal.

Whilst I'm imagining this in my presently favorable state, it seems to me that I'd want nothing other than the help of someone who was experiencing, or had experienced the same thing.

Some brilliant brain in France did do something about it: The Divorce, Separation and Bereavement Fair.

Now of course my potential, future, and highly unlikely exodus to the single life wouldn't be like it existed in my twenties. For one, I'm aware that the propensity to fuck in bar bathrooms probably decreases with age. However, the other issues: financial, emotional, and legal are all examined in a number of workshops. And yes, of course, maybe you'll find someone to help you rebound. Even if they can't replace the one you lost.

Divorce, Separation, and Bereavement Fair.

Or maybe you didn't lose them, maybe you couldn't fucking wait to chuck them to the side of the road, to burn themselves up on their own devices. Well, in that case, there here is a fine crop of similarly aged singletons for you to peruse! Just please, don't take advantage of the grieving widows. They're using all their moisture for tears, not sexy juices.

Previously married (and presently single for whatever reason) individuals are a minority that are largely ignored. Let's narrow it down a little bit: over age 40, having teenaged children, and having to work. Let's move the age up a smidge: over age 55, empty nester, looking at retirement. Some people want to be alone, but everybody deserves somebody to love. Queue the jewelery commercial.

There are few viable emotional and dating services available to this demographic largely because they are viewed as being old and crotchety. I'm not counting online dating. Online dating is complete bullshit (One of my many blogs on the topic). I'm talking about real life meeting situations, being attracted to someone based upon how they look and carry themselves and your conversation, rather than some specs outlined with radio buttons and single field text boxes.

So, I worry about this because I worry that I could some day be in the same situation. I feel for my friends who are in the same situation. I feel for others that I know that are stellar matter in a filthy world. I hope that something like the Divorce, Separation and Bereavement Fair in France comes to the US because people deserve to have it. They deserve to feel togetherness.

P.S.
I also hope that gold diggers don't ruin such a fair in the US. That would be the way of the American slut, wouldn't it?

The Social Media Marketer's Manifesto

I try very hard to keep my work life separate from this blog. I don't care to have the two intermingle, mainly due to the extremely conservative nature of my workplace and my irreverent use of the English language in this blog. The two crossing swords in an eye-meets text crossing of the swords would end very badly for me - with my head in my HR Director's guillotine.

Nevertheless, sometimes it's necessary to take a chance with this intersection of my two lives. I am a marketer for a very large corporation. This does lend itself, on occasion, to the topical nature of my blog. The monitoring of consumer behavior and communication preferences would be one such instance.

This is important for me because it is my duty to represent my brand wherever potential consumers' eyes may lie. These days, everybody and their dog (and their gerbil, aunt, babysitter, and psychiatrist) are keen to tell me that "SOCIAL MEDIA IS WHERE IT'S AT, FOO'!" Okay, so they don't really say it like that, but the force is there.

Of course I knew this was coming. I'm not simple. But truthfully, I feared it, I put it off as long as possible. It is my responsibility to investigate this phenomenon and make an educated judgment as to whether or not social media is a good investment for my company. So then, I made that fateful phone call to my agency admitting my defeat to the giant marketing buzzword that everybody is an expert on - social media.

"Hey Tracy, I'd like to have a call about social media. Just know that I have one constraint - I can't spend much time on it. I can't hire a team to manage it, I can't even hire one person to manage it. It's just me."

"No problem," my agency is quite an understanding one, that is why I picked them, "we will keep that top of mind."

How can one employee, who is intended to simply "dabble" in this nonsense truly put forth a full effort? It's impossible. The labor hours needed to put forth an honest effort are enormous. Though I wondered if these negative thoughts were just me being a poopy-pants and I should see if anybody else was truly having a better experience at this party. I took to Google to see what I could find.

As it turns out, I was right. The majority of "firms" (sole proprietors and small to mid-sized businesses) reporting relative success (it's always relative isn't it and statistics always lie) from using social media as a marketing method report having done it for "years" and twat on their Twitters and fart on their Facebooks for over twenty hours per week.

For all others out there like me who cannot hire support for their social media shenanigans let's hear a chorus of "fuck that".

Why is that? Because making a true social connection with people, your clients, your potential consumers takes time. One cannot take the shotgun approach to social media marketing. One consumer + one consumer + one consumer equals three. But they are all different. They all, quite literally, have separate identities. This is not like television. They must be treated as individuals, this is something marketing has never been good at and never will be. We are trying, sure, but there are some things that my magical and beloved combination art and science were never meant to efficiently do.

A defining moment is coming and it will be another small economic aftershock: the admission of defeat by marketing in social media. The great savior that was to change the way we marketed anything and everything will fall flat on its face. Consumers have every right to reject a product, they have every right to their privacy. Marketing is the reason that, you may notice, MySpace is dying a slow death.

Did you ever use MySpace before it's overlords Fox Interactive took over? It was a different "MySpace". It quite literally could be your own. It gradually became inundated with advertising, spam, and marketers pushing bullshit products like viagra and Cayman Islands grown Xanax. It is now officially fucking creepy and trying to emulate it's leading competitor Facebook in the most desperate of ways.

Facebook became more successful because the advertising is much less inyaface. But the demographic tracking is there. I can know how many males versus females visit my company's page, I know how old visitors are, I know almost anything in their "info" section on their Facebook. Of course none of this type of information is tracked to the individual level - I can't see that "Bill Joe Joe Smith is 46". Still, you thought you were safe didn't you?

I know you all thought marketers are evil. We are, a little bit, but I'm one of the good guys, I promise - I'm Robin Hood.

A few years from now, the real of social media will return to the hands of consumers. Marketers will largely be shoved out by the real business notion that "there is no ROI here." The gold we were told by the media isn't there to be panned. There are savvy consumers who know who we are and choose to ignore us. Finally, here is a place where you as a consumer have a vote. Pay attention to who you accept as a "friend" or "follower", ignore marketers in social media. Mark my words: in due time your online space will be rightfully returned to you.

Why Your Daughters Should Admire Lady GaGa

When I first heard of this alleged "Lady", an adjective used to describe "Gaga", I assumed this songstress was a transvestite that had somehow made in the big time. I assumed this because of the overtly femme name as well as a very strong and robust, albeit quality, vocal tone.

I don't pay much attention to pop culture. I would normally never condone the emulation, mental absorption, or other learning about any celebrity whatsoever. For the most part they are self-absorbed, already rich, cancer that is killing society. Nevertheless, to keep all of this nonsense in check, I read Perez Hilton and the Superficial every day. I read these celebretard e-zines because, well, they're crass and they provide me with a slight bit of information. I read them for the jokes, I don't really care which proper names are used in each joke, just that the joke is good. And they always are. Whether it's a cock drawn on the face of some entitled financial pariah, or a blog that has such a fabulous sense of humor that it doesn't mind posting nothing but D-list models in bikinis over and over again.

So this is why I had never heard of the entity and person that is Lady Gaga. I had only heard of vague mentions of her in between jokes about other celebrities. Then, Perez Hilton posted the completely cinematically enhanced "Paparazzi" video.

I watched it, slightly irritated by how serious it was. I scoffed, "this is her third single, who the hell does she think she is, pulling this November Rain shit, ugh."

Then something about her intrigued me and I hit the Wikipedia to learn more. It seemed that there must be more than met my eye, I could smell...hmm...maybe...smarts. God dammit. I was impressed by what I learned.

Let's hit the surface level information first: Lady Gaga may be a semi-sex symbol, she has to be a little bit, in order to sell records (unfortunately not everyone waits 40 years to become Susan Boyle). However, there are some imperfections about her that are incredibly charming. She looks like a real girl that is playing dress up. Not a girl who was never real at all. While most female sex symbols' noses are marble sized ski jumps, hers is distinctly shaped and clearly a genetic reference to her Italian heritage. I'll be very upset if she ever changes this. Somehow I doubt she will.

And what of her beginnings? Yes, she did drugs. Of course you don't want your daughter thinking that this is the way to go about success, however, drugs are one of those things that when done at the appropriate time in one's life can either add character or destroy you. For Lady Gaga, it added character. She was performing at burlesque shows and singing in New York. However, prior to this, she was attending Juilliard and Tisch. Why? Because she's a god damned genius. We all know that Juilliard does not accept many students and it is extremely expensive to go there. However, Tisch accepts roughly twenty students per year. Lady Gaga was accepted at age 17. She studied not only music but art, religion, and socio-political order. She was born to be an activist through her medium. She was discovered by LA Reid whilst singing down the hall from his office, the reason is unknown. She was signed but then dropped three months later. She tried and tried again.

But alas, she wasn't signed for some time. She was writing songs for the likes of Akon, Britney Spears (who lacks the similar talent and work ethic that I am describing here), and Fergie (also, lacking the similar talent). She was actually working.

Approximately a year later, thanks to Perez Hilton, she jumped on a fucking NASA made rocket to stardom.

My fiance and I were having drinks with a friend of ours, a fellow successful musician, and Lady Gaga came up. He dismissed her, "she's a whack job."

"NO!" I was immediately defensive of my newfound hero, but then forced to describe why I felt so defensive of her. "She's great! She's a damned genius!"

As is my motto of life, I cannot offer an opinion without subsequently describing why I hold such an opinion.

"Do you understand what she's doing? With her clothing? With her style? She actually writes her own songs!"

He clearly didn't understand, and at that moment, in my slight buzz, I absolutely knew what it was.

"She's fucking with you! She's being a person, a person with actual knowledge and talent, not a singing-head and industry whore. She dresses like she does to make you ask that question 'what the fuck'?" She wore lace/gauze around her face at the MTV Video Music Awards this year because she wanted to symbolize that her face isn't important. She wore a huge distracting feather helmet (I guess?) because, again, she doesn't want her face to be the thing that is important. She is a muse, she is a message, and she has never let a man dumb her down.

The dumbing down and usage of women is clearly prevalent in Hollywood. Women that are a brand, that are a product, that sing, model, act, and do nothing to distribute or communicate their thoughts are everywhere. They are a dime a dozen. Lady Gaga is an experiment in mass psychology. She's testing all of us and making sure that people can appreciate she is an artist and not just a singing-headed woman that is hot. If we can all be convinced that she is as smart as she is, then we haven't been distracted by her body. We have been convinced by her creative strategy and her mission - the things she developed with her mind.

Church of Scientology Guilty of Fraud in France

France, I was really excited for you.

France, you had so much hope glistening in your judicial eye.

France, of all the things you gave us - philosophy, Braille, the stethoscope, and the totally bitchin' gyroscope, something for republicans to project their discontent at from 2002 - 2008 - you couldn't give us the dissolution of the Church of Scientology. For shame.

France, you had such hope and now, well, I am only semi-disappointed in you because you did have a minor success with this whole bit.

On Tuesday, October 27th, France found the Church of Scientology guilty of fraud and fined in 500 million Euros.

In May, it was widely discussed that the prosecution was seeking the dissolution of the Church. While France currently does not regard Scientology as a religion, this would have meant that it's status would likely join the ranks of a "cult". In the following nations, the Church of Scientology is not regarded as a religion at all:

* Belgium
* Germany
* France
* Greece (though there is no formal mechanism that allows an institution to be classified as a religion in Greece)
* Kazakhstan
* Russia
* Switzerland
* United Kingdom

France's reason for not attempting to disband the Church of Scientology completely is rather lazy and appalling: "they would likely continue their activities anyway, 'outside any legal framework.'"

And while we're at it, let's all just make not paying taxes legal because, let's face it - it's going to happen anyway. This smells like bullshit to me.

Not mentioned in the MSNBC report on this case is an alleged law passed on May 12th that prevents a judge from ordering the dissolution of an organization found guilty of fraud. This measure, if it does exist, was supposedly carefully buried in a stack of other legislation that was unrelated. Sounds suspiciously like the American way, we call it "pork". I was able to find some info on this through some rather intense Googling.

The Church of Scientology is notorious for being underhanded and buying off individuals who have power. This means lawyers, celebrities, and government officials. They are so good at this because its members are everywhere and its members are a big profit generator. It's members have jobs that are beneficial to it, it's members commandeer entire industries that hold power - like Hollywood.

I'm hesitant to take this morsel of a sneaky sneak of a law from the netherregions of the internet as gospel. I realize I operate a small time blog full of complaining, cursing, and generally irreverent commentary. However, when it comes to something as serious as the dissolution of a Church that is clearly a financially greedy organization - I would like to get my facts as correct as possible.

Suppose it is true. Suppose for a moment that legislation wasn't bought and sold but it was slipped in by the nearly invisible hand of a fellow CoS member? What of the legal system then? What of the judge's ruling that they'd operate as they pleased no matter what? The 500 million Euro fine is mere slap on the hand for an organization that is 8 million strong. Each member is worth tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime of membership. Though being dissolved, that's worth much more.