[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

The purpose of POETS Day is to follow the acronym and Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Get out of work mid Friday afternoon, read a little poetry and enjoy life. Free time is always better when it’s illicitly gotten. Towards that end, in the past I’ve encouraged untruths and subterfuge, recommended apps that show incoming hospital calls on your caller ID, invented religious exemptions, and advised on recruiting co-conspirators.

I recently picked up a copy of The Simple Sabotage Field Manual, billed as “a World War II-era document created by the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to provide guidance to resistance groups on how to disrupt enemy operation through covert means.”

There’s a lot in it about slowing down deliberative processes; recommending committees, enthusiastically suggesting an idea be fully explored into oblivion, and otherwise crippling organizations by inviting bureaucratic involvement. There are instructions for stopping up toilets too. I confess to being less than wowed by most of the entries. I expected it to be more like The Dangerous Book for Boys but with Tatiana Romanova in tow.