The Center for Rock Abuse

In your own words, who is the Center for Rock Abuse?

As our name says, we abuse rocks. Now before you stop reading right here and think we are just another radical wacko organization, know this: It is legal!

Why do you think it is legal? Because congress understands that abuse is necessary and can even be beautiful. Who has not wondered, when looking at a cute little sandstone, how it would look like with a crack through the center? How the mineral structure would change under pressure? What it would reveal when sandblasted?

What do you DO?

To be short, our goal is to provide excellent service in torture, abuse, pain and suffering to our clients (as we prefer to call them). Additionally, we expend considerable amounts of manpower and money on research how to improve our service for greater pain (especially on the mental level).

Most centers for abuse try to prevent abuse. Why does yours encourage it?

Well, there are a few reasons. The first and foremost is: Rock abuse is fun! Who doesn't like to crush, abrade, cut and squeeze rocks? Thanks to some "porkbarrel" politics, it is even legal! (Don't ask about the hold we have over our Representative). Even our tools - the presses, saws, pliers, spikes, hammers and nails we use - are legal. I know it sounds crazy, but it is.

The second reason is, Why not? Rocks are not under human rights law, so nobody will pick up the fight for them.

Third, it is educational. To maltreat them properly, a good knowledge of a broad area of mechanics is required. Good rocks deserve good torture! It just would not do to soak them in only slightly noxious poisons or to squeeze them with uneven forces.

All in all, we would like to counteract the anti-abuse movement by showing that rock abuse is a wholesome activity everybody should embrace.

Please provide a brief history of your group.

Our fearless leader, Mike, used to work for one of the largest rock abusing associations in the world, ARCO. That acronym, of course, stands for American Rock Crusher Organization. They did the real large-scale work, crushing rocks many cubic miles big.

But as much fun as that was, he always had a love for the smaller, more detailed abuse. You might not torture as much mass or volume, but the individuality of injuring every small crystal in a rock sample appealed to him greatly.

So he came to the Colorado School of Mines, one of the best schools to teach and learn violation of nature's creatures, including rocks. Since then he has spread the word, cultivated his industry contacts and instructed new talent.

Tell me about other people in your group.

Beside Mike "The Crusher" Batzle, there are

Ronny and Hans - brought up in the Eastern Block, they early learned to appreciate good torture, be it themselves or others. In this enlightened age, they redirected their efforts on rocks and are now happy, well adjusted, rock abusers.
Weiping learned rock crushing from Mike. Missing the relaxed athmosphere and individuality of academia in the rock torturing industry, he has returned as a part time abuser.
Jason - Brought up with american videogames and movies, he can live out his phantasies here.
Mila has just started at the CRA. At the start she was a bit suspicious ("Don't rocks have feelings, too?") but she is coming around.

How can people join?

It all depends on enthusiasm, talent and ability. Without enthusiasm for violence, any talent of torture is wasted. Without talent for abuse, no ability in the techniques of punishment can be taught. If ability for crushing can not be brought out, we will practice on you.

How can you tell when a rock has been abused? Are there certain rocks that are more fun to abuse than others?

The fun thing is that rocks tend to bounce back after a while, so they are fresh for a new round of torture. One of our research efforts is on microfracture healing (that's what it is called): if we can speed it up, we can re-abuse rocks faster.

To your second question, different people like to hate different rocks. Some go for the smooth impenetrability of certain carbonates (oh, the pleasure when they are finally breached), while others enjoy the brittleness of the sandstone as it breaks into innumerable pieces. A new fashion are the heavy oils that combine brittleness at low temperatures with malleability at high ones.

Why are we most likely to see you in the news in 2010?
How would you like to change in the next 10 years?

There has been a push from the highly specialized, expensive abuse to more off the shelf, standardized torture using standard, inexpensive procedures and implements. We would like to show that it is possible to mistreat fast, efficient and repeatable, but at the same time paying attention to detail and to the indivdual characteristics of our clients.

Nothing shows respect to our clients more than a professional and individual attention to pain and suffering.

Besides this focus on efficiency, the female members of our team would also like to branch into ball breaking. But we are not so sure this is a good idea.

To increase our monetary base, it might be judicious to change from a practitioner/research kind of organization to a more spiritual one (or "cult" as the mainstream would call it). There is a great need of guidance in contemporary people that we can fulfill.

What will happen when your group takes over the world?

Actually, thanks to extensive lobbying efforts and liasons with other groups that espouse similar goals, that has already happened. We just don't talk about it much.

Imagine that you have to either resign as a member of your group or lose a toe. What do you do?

Members of our group don't resign. If you don't put out you might become a client, though.