Author: The Mighty Reptile | Submitted: Aug 19 2004 at 06:14:49 PM Companies describing themselves as "a family" ASDA, apparently, is now a member of "the Wal-Mart family" I have also recently noticed that I am a member of "the Ascent Media family". Both these revelations come as something of a suprise in the first instance because ASDA is A FUCKING COMPANY!!! and in the second because I have honestly never seen any of the 560 worldwide employees of the Ascent Media Group on my parents christmas card list.
I have to say this thought has disturbed me somewhat, the word family can hold many connotations; the Mafia and the Moonies sit side by side with motherhood and apple pie however even these dangerous and violent institutions pale into blandness compared to the draconian construct that emerges when the family analagy is extended in the above two instances:
If the hypothetical Father of the Wal-Mart family is running a little low on cash he can, if the mood takes him, dismember any one of his adoring brood and sell the bleeding chunks off for cash.
Even in a less extreme case the head of the family can simply sell one of his offspring (or adoptees as the case may be) to anyone who shows an interest and has the cash.
Such a family is the stuff of Hogarthian farce all we need now is for ASDA to contract syphilis in an Ill advised tryst with a drunken and disreputable lieasure goods wholesaler and we will be there.
The Ascent Media family is only a little less brutal; the hundreds of children blatantly elbow each other out of the way, scrabbling for the attention and pecuiniary benevolence of their almost infinitely flatterable parents. More Anthoy Trollope than Hogarth but equally unpleasant.
If these are familys then they are certainly not he kind of families that I would want to belong to and I advise any one to treat companies claims to familydom with a great deal of suspicion.
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