How many weeks are we into the writer’s strike anyway? It must be like week 384 based on the hysterical wailings of just about every media source you can name. Apparently we should soon be visited by plague and pestilence unless the writers get another 0.3% of DVD royalties and a 10% discount on all Venti Soy Lattes at Starbucks (non-fat milk of course).

Now you might think, ‘Yes, but with the glamorous, jet set lifestyle at WOTDaily you don’t need TV. What about the rest of us?” As I’ve learned from both CNN and USAToday, nothing makes your point better than some large graphs and charts (take that writers, who needs you when we have 3D bar charts?)

Survey conducted by Pepperdine University

The good folks at Pepperdine recently conducted a survey to try to accurately measure how little of a crap the general public gives about the WGA strike. I can say from some experience that measuring crap giving in these small amounts is very difficult. Now, I happen to own a calculator and after intense analysis I have concluded that 95% of people are, at most, somewhat concerned by the strike. I may be going out on a limb, but when the most you can muster up is 16% somewhat concerned about an issue then its time to rethink your demands. I mean I was somewhat concerned how cold the toilet seat was going to be when I headed to the bathroom today, which is roughly 453% more concerned than I was with whether a new episode of According To Jim was going to be on.

Now to be fair, maybe the folks surveyed really hadn’t grasped the portent of the situation. I mean had they thought this through? Did they really know what this meant to their Monday nights in front of the TV? Apparently they did:

Survey conducted by Pepperdine University

Ok, so what is wrong with these pictures from the strike? Take a close look.

Are they going to camp or are they going on strike? Did that one girl bring a puppy? And I am pretty sure that 13 year old kid is not a union writer. (I won’t even mention the fat gal next to the Top Model poster, you can thank me later).

Here are a few tips for the strikers to gain a little more public support:

• Less girls in jean skirts
• Less puppies
• Less lattes
• More fire hoses
• More German Shephards
• More riot gear, tear gas and batons

If your strike isn’t worth German Shephards, riot gear, tear gas and batons, maybe it’s time to go home. Compare the WGA strike photos with this one from 1912 in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

. . . immigrants were striking against the newly announced law that cut the women and children’s fifty-six-hour workweek to a fifty-four-hour workweek. In addition, they also cut the men’s workweek to the same as the women’s. This new law was to be in effect on January 1, 1912. It doesn’t seem like this would create problems, but it did. To make up for the lost time, managers would speed up the machine process expecting the works to complete the same amount of work as they did before the hours were cut.

Photo: The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

. . . and not a latte in sight.