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Nov. 2 2009 - 12:54 pm | 1 views | 1 recommendation | 1 comment

Metaphor Alert!

By MICHAEL SCHAFFER

Is it just me, or does the launch of the 20-story, $1.5 billion, 6,300-passenger Oasis of the Sea seem like the beginning of some bad movie? The ship has a golf course, an ice rink, a number of luxury suites with the same square footage as my rowhouse. It left its shipyard Friday. In other words: It’s doomed!

The only question is what symbolic comeuppance will this hubristic ship receive? Icebergs have been done before, or course, as have undersea earthquakes and giant, reptilian sea creatures. But there’s still hijacking, Legionnaire’s disease, tsunami, a drunken captain, and that old favorite: murder.

Oh, yeah, there’s also this one: Unprecedented, massive global financial panic that strikes between when the ship was ordered and when it first set sail.

The Royal Caribbean ship makes its US debut Nov. 20. I’m not planning to be there.

 
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    I'm a former staffer at three dead-tree publications--Washington City Paper, US News and World Report, and the Philadelphia Inquirer--only two of which are currently in Chapter 11. My book, One Nation Under Dog, will be published March 31 by Henry Holt. The book is about how America became a pampered-pet country. It's one part straightforward report about a (still!) booming $43 billion-a-year industry, one part zany tour through pet-obsessed country, and one part meditation on what that all means. I think of it, sort of, as Bobos in Paradise meets Marley and Me. When I'm not writing about how petcare explains America, I freelance for a handful of magazines, writing about politics, culture, and whatever else I can think of. Over the years, I've reported from Pakistan and Iraq as well as Mississippi and Philadelphia's city hall. A Philadelphia City Councilman once called me "the biggest slob of them all" and described our interactions thusly: "He gnawed at me for days and weeks, asking me what he thought were 'the tough questions,' following me down every pathway, hovering that damn tape recorder at my neck. I usually cast a blind eye, but blindness only masks disgust." The Councilman is now serving a six year corruption sentence in federal prison, and I have a blog on True/Slant. Go figure.

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