Maggie Shnayerson

“Today’s commercial fishers use massive ships the size of football fields and advanced electronic equipment and satellite communications to track fish. These enormous vessels can stay out at sea for as long as six months, storing thousands of tons of fish onboard in massive freezer compartments. Commercial fishing has become a big business...commercial fishers kill hundreds of billions of animals every year—far more than any other industry."

Oh, PETA. Excellent cause. And so well-argued. Fishing is such a "big business" in the United States these days that the average fisherman brings home $28,280 a year and works in the occupation with the highest rate—by far—of fatalities on the job in the entire country. Commercial fishing is so gargantuan, in fact, that in 2007, it contributed just $34.2 billion to the United States GNP, which I think doesn't even warrant it a single percentage point.

But hey, cute fishie graphic. I myself like my sea kittens grilled and marinated with rosemary and basil-infused olive oil. Preferably fresh out of Nantucket Sound. Oh wait! There's only one commercial dragger left there. Damn.

Is there anything more abrasive than having to listen to an uncomfortably close drunk white forty-something with blond iced tips and a marginal fake bake dressed head to toe in Thomas Pink slurring to his male friend about how “Ssssan Francisscoo gay” their third friend is and how “totally annoying, oh my God,” it is? I tell you that at this very moment in time, there is not. I always have the urge to tell guys of this particular breed that their women think they’re weak and they look like they’re about to vomit. Generally one of both these things is true and stopping myself from doing it is like being back in church, digging my nails into my palms to stop from screaming “Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!” at the top of my eight-year-old lungs. Which I’m sure would have proved immensely disconcerting to the Holy Trinity, among other persons.

Also? Please shoot me and really anyone, straight in the head if you hear them discussing right next to you, thank you very much, outside of the inside of their heads the immense woes associated with managing their current losses on their “$8 million home, a $2 million home in the country, and $10 million in the bank with a yearly lifestyle of seven to a million bucks a year.” It’s probably a really good thing I’m not carrying my .22 right now. For this woman’s sake, I hope the guys hung, because he’s a mind-suck.

So the favorite in today's NBC-broadcast Kentucky Derby did precisely what he was expected to do and won the thing handily. When undefeated Big Brown (I reluctantly await next year's lineup, sponsored by Fedex and DHL) came in five lengths ahead of second-place finisher and lone filly Eight Belles (above), the horse looked stunned that the Derby was so short. "What, that was it?" were his exact words. Big Brown's jockey is kind of an asshole (what thinking being in a post-2005 world likens himself on national television to Tom Cruise? Creepy.) But I won't hold it against his horse. I would, however, like to slap NBC around a little.

It took NBC anchor Bob Costa and his team twenty-odd minutes to even mention Eight Belles, who was euthanized almost immediately after her front ankles snapped across the finish line. Substantive information took longer, preceded by nonstop coverage of the winning owners leaping about in live, million-dollar-purse jubilation. At the New York Times, equine softy Alex Brown was live-blogging the Derby and pulled out his best passive-aggressive for the network: "NBC is choosing to focus on Big Brown," he sniffed. "Death at the Derby," screamed Matt Drudge in a rare display of appropriateness.

There are plenty of sights sicker and more gripping than confetti falling to the track around a still and prone horse (save me the HETA indignation, please), but it's up there. Emmy-winning sportscaster Jack Whitaker once said "the horror of seeing a horse break down" was "like seeing a masterpiece destroyed." Whitaker would know, having watched as filly darling Ruffian refused to stop running on her broken leg at Belmont Park in 1975. Wasn't pretty. Protruding bones and such. Two decades later, the prolonged demise of Derby winner Barbaro was a ratings bonanza for NBC, and just about anyone else who covered the country's ensuing absorption with the animal. Barbaro was so in vogue that his fans earned Deadspin's unwavering disdain! You know you're somebody when a Gawker Media blog takes the time to point out the many ways in which you are a nobody.

All of which explains why I'm extra annoyed at NBC's insistence on focusing on the ho-hum (if efficient!) Big Brown win to the near complete exclusion of Eight Belles' compelling story.

Go ahead and be impolitic and heartless, Oh Peacocksters. But for God's sake (and the shareholders too!) don't turn up your nose when a viewer-friendly ratings bonanza (now with extra pathos!) literally falls down at your feet.

It almost makes me think they didn't actually receive that messengered copy of my world-famous manual On How To Be Constantly Right And Other Preachy Parables.

Is this. And yes, my mom is more lovable than Alex Balk, what do you want from me?

Which one of the Parker Brothers came up with this hideous and probably long-overdue concept of giving Rich Uncle Pennybags a debit card and a fucking Segway on which to token his way around the board? Okay, so this particular travesty is about two years old, but it's new and fresh to me, as is my deep and unabiding indignation over this perversion of my—nay, the American—childhood.

The gamemakers tried to keep the spirit of Monopoly's delusional real estate market alive—in this version, you can buy Times Square for a couple million bucks. But since you can also mortgage your property at a subprime adjustable rate to a predatory lender who will suck both your reality show winnings and you dry—and not in a good way—they still blow for this one. Hard.

Sigh. Possibly I too am finally, undeniably, incontrovertibly, officially, irrevocably old. Or maybe I'm just a cranky sentimental crab. Balk?