Taking a humorous but analytical look at just about anything in the spirit of Groucho Marx: I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member!
Showing posts with label Modern Marketing Excesses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Modern Marketing Excesses. Show all posts
And dressing it up in them in the first place is a BAD idea. Just as bad as the idea that PBS is now floating, according to a New York Times newspaper article I read in Friday's Omaha World-Herald, which also reported that the idea was broached last week to PBS member stations.
It's bad enough that (1) the "sponsor blocks" at the beginning and end of each program are looking ever more like broadcast TV ads [and indeed, some of them actually ARE those ads--Ed.]; (2) those "sponsor blocks" are taking up ever more time out of each hour's programming; (3) we have to endure pledge drives that used to run once a year, then twice, and now seemingly every other month. What's worse is that the smooth narrative flow of PBS programs would be hopelessly compromised, thus making PBS indistinguishable from any other network's programming.
Maybe this is an April Fool's Day joke by a procrastinator, though I doubt that. Maybe this is an idea the PBS executives are floating to scare member stations and members into giving more money as a result of the renewed vigor of the Republican Party's push to defund PBS. A more plausible notion, but rather more Machiavellian than I'd hope PBS executives are. Maybe we really ARE at the "end of days" and this is one more sign that the apocalypse is nigh. No . . . that's too paranoid, even for me. Most likely, however, it's the GOP's recognition that what cannot be done directly can be done indirectly. If the GOP cannot neuter PBS by defunding it, it can neuter PBS by making its programming indistinguishable from everyone else's, and further inure us to having microscopically short attention spans, to boot.
Whatever else it may be, however, it is definitely one thing: it's a BAD idea. So much so that, in a beautifully ironic twist, it ought to be the subject of a Geico automobile insurance commercial.
If PBS is going to make me watch sponsors' ads in the middle of PBS programming, I will stop watching and stop contributing to PBS. I'll just wait till PBS sells the programs to cable networks like the Discovery Channel, and watch them there. I can put up with pledge drives. I can put up with commercials. I will NOT put up with both during the same program.
I renew my objections to the biased content of the History Channel's "America: The Story of Us" project, sponsored by the Bank of America, and indeed, make my objections even more strenuously than I have before. I admit that I have not watched every single second of every single segment that has aired so far, but I've watched more than enough to realize that the problems I had with what I'd seen as of a couple of weeks ago have not only not gone away, but have gotten worse.
Objection the first: the B of A ads have been deliberately designed to be very difficult for a casual viewer to tell from the content of the actual program. Historical narrative (timed to coordinate with the period being discussed at that moment in the program itself) intercut with comments by various "experts" extolling the B of A . . . someone who didn't know much about American history or who wasn't paying really close attention would be left with the impression that the B of A has actually been THE central player in all of US History. One almost expects to see painted portraits of B of A executives at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitutional Convention, the Gettysburg Address, and so on.
Give me a break!
Objection the second: the program itself is designed to exalt the role of business and banking in US history at the expense of actual fact. For an example from what aired last night, one need consider only the segments "explaining" the Dust Bowl, Great Depression, and the lead-up to America's participation in World War II.
(1) More time was given to explaining how the dust storms of 30s affected urban centers such as New York City and Washington, D.C., than was given to explaining how the farming practices of rural America contributed to their creation, and how the rural American economy had been in shambles for years before the technical start of the Great Depression, namely the stock market crash of October, 1929.
(2) I never heard FDR mentioned by name regarding the bank holiday called after he was inaugurated in 1933, to stop the runs on all American banks that threatened to plunge the country into a crisis so deep there would be no digging out from under, ever. One sentence--ONE SENTENCE--was devoted to the fact that economic deregulation had produced excessively risky economic speculation which led to the crisis in the first place . . . while several verbal paragraphs were devoted to the admittedly anonymous single investor who entered a bank in 1933 and demanded ALL his deposited funds back, which triggered the nationwide run on all banks. The result? An impression that this one anonymous individual with his one self-preservative act was responsible for the downfall of our entire economic system, and not the decade-plus of irresponsible behavior by the baking industry that was the hallmark of the Roaring Twenties.
(3) The assertion that FDR's [again, he was never mentioned by name, which makes me wonder whether this was done to avoid a more direct protest against the program's contents by those who know what FDR did for this country--Ed.] public works programs didn't end the Depression; it was our being dragged into World War II that ended the Depression. The writers and producers of this biased interpretation omitted or ignored several salient facts.
--The Republicans, then as now, objected to spending directly to help the American people, and never gave FDR sufficient funding even for his programs that were put into law and effect.
--FDR himself erred in early 1937 when he listened to some of his more conservative economic advisers and pulled back on even the relatively paltry amount of money he had been given to use for his "great economic experiment." This had the effect of shutting down a proto-recovery that had, in fact, begun by 1936, once his public works programs had been in effect long enough to have had real effect on the overall economy.
--The assertion that it was WWII and not FDR's programs that ended the Depression is totally specious. What was it about the war that ended the Depression? Here's a clue: GOVERNMENT SPENDING. It's just that what the money was being spent on had changed from domestic programs designed to help people survive, to armaments production and the entire panoply of what has become the modern military-industrial complex. The source of the spending didn't change. The purpose of the spending did. The amount of the spending increased, dramatically. Had FDR been able to spend on domestic initiatives what he was given to spend on the war effort, the Great Depression would never have been so deep nor long-lasting is it actually proved to be.
(4) The program's continued emphasis on recounting individual anecdotes and what amounts to winning info for the trivia-mad [of which I confess to being one--Ed.] as opposed to focusing on the greater significance of many of the events it describes. Indeed, some of the anecdotes chosen seem to contradict whatever larger point they are cited to "support." A traditional and valid sub-narrative of the Great Depression story is how people, desperate for work, gladly took on any jobs they could find no matter the working conditions, just to be able to bring home even the most paltry pay. The building of Hoover Dam and the sculpting of Mount Rushmore are two of the most commonly cited illustrations, and "America: the Story of Us" does not surprise by choosing them.
However, its telling of the story of Hoover Dam has as its upshot that the money the men earned went to a nearby little, dusty, gambling town of Las Vegas. So the great work of constructing Hoover Dam ahead of schedule and under budget has by implication been reduced to the spark that ignited the boom of decadence in the desert. Talk about your damnation with faint praise!
The story of Mount Rushmore's creation likewise has been trivialized by what the program's writers and producers chose to emphasize. They didn't explain that there was no incentive to implement real safety measures at the site because there were far more men willing to do the work than there were openings available, even allowing for the number of deaths and disfigurements that made new openings available on a regular basis. No, the program implicitly pooh-poohed the dangers by telling the story of one worker who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when a nearby lightning storm hit some power lines, thus ultimately igniting almost 100 dynamite charges 30 minutes early . . . only to suffer naught but a broken ear drum and the loss of his shoes, which had literally been blown off his feet.
One is left with the impression that the work wasn't so much dangerous as quirkily amusing. Truth would have been better served had the actual death and disfigurement totals been cited . . . but oh, yeah! Numbers and statistics are so BORING! We can't have that, now, can we? Well, numbers and statistics may be boring, but they are facts. And it's facts, not anecdotes, which lead to truth.
This entire program is insidious. It's dangerous. It's not the history of America; it's a paean to a right-wing, pro-business interpretation of American history which omits so many salient facts that it cannot be deemed substantively accurate. I cannot protest it strongly enough. It's another example of why certain things, like history programs, should never be put in the position of having to make a profit in order to justify their creation.
Lest any of you think that I protest because of my own biases, let me remind you: my sole bias is for the truth. The truth based on facts. I was not a fan of FDR who thus interprets his response to the Great Depression based on any predisposition favorable to him. I was someone who learned about the Great Depression by studying what happened, and gained an admiration for FDR as a result of that study. Developing an opinion based on fact is not the same as shoe-horning selected facts to fit one's predispositions. I do the former. That's why I'm at heart a historian. "America: The Story of Us" does the latter. That's why it's a piece of pro-business propaganda.
So my love-hate relationship with the History Channel continues. I love that more Americans are being exposed to history, in often interesting and frequently innovative ways designed to pique interest. I hate that this is coming at the behest of corporate sponsors who have their hands in production from Day One, and which call the shots about how that which is being presented will be interpreted. I hope that even such biased efforts will spur viewers to do some investigating of their own--and thinking of their own--about what they discover. I fear that that won't happen. I am left with this question: is exposure to some, albeit biased, history better than no exposure to history at all? 'Tis a puzzlement.
OMG moment the first (the ridiculous): Mattel, for a few decades now, has made and marketed a series of dolls based on the popular (to pre-teen girls, anyway) "American Girl" series. Fair enough. But within the past week or so, Mattel made a HUGE mistake, because it has put itself in a no-win situation. It has released for sale one "Gwen," the latest American Girl . . . and she's homeless.
Mattel says the doll will teach "valuable lessons about life." Given the general response, I beg to differ. The doll costs $95, an irony apparently completely lost on Mattel. Advocates for the homeless and for battered women are offended by the concept of a company making profit off the worst miseries of others. And the girls to whom the doll is marketed have totally missed Mattel's putative point. On the American Girl website, the girls are posting complaints that Gwen doesn't have accessories or other outfits.
OMG!!!!!
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OMG moment the second (the sublime): I awoke this morning to the news that President Obama has been awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize, largely for the change in tone he has bought to world affairs, his focus on engagement, consensus, and getting rid of nuclear weapons. He's the 4th American president to be given the award (and the 3rd to receive it while still in office). The Nobel Committee has acknowledged that the award this year is based more on aspirations than on actual accomplishments, but it's their award, and they can give it to whomever they please.
It was a total shock, however, given the list of other worthy candidates, such as past winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been using the power of the bully pulpit for decades now to encourage a peaceful change in government in Burma (Myanmar) despite being kept under "house arrest" for virtually all that time.
My own OMG reaction was surprised delight. Even if reactionary forces here are driven to cheering when America gets an international rebuff, such as losing the bid for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, and even if this brings still more howls of outrage from the self-emaciated Right, it's a huge win for America and the world-wide understanding of what America offers and can be when at her best. It's not a personal triumph for Obama, though he can rightly take pride in it. The Right will try to cast it as another loss for Obama, however, probably claiming that it shows how he kowtows to others in the world. If it weren't so sad, I'd laugh out loud. The ONLY people in the whole world who do NOT get what America is really about are those on the far Right, who claim to be the only ones who DO get it.
OMG!!!!!
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OMG moment the third (sublimely ridiculous): I should have bought a PowerBall ticket last night. Every channel change I made while surfing cable TV sports events last night was at the absolutely perfect moment. I switched to the Dodgers game just as they started their improbable, bottom-of-the-ninth-with-two-out comeback victory over the Cardinals. I then bounced mostly between the Red Sox-Angels game and the Nebraska-Missouri football game. I was back to baseball just as Torii Hunter hit his three-run homer that gave the Angels the lead, and ultimately a 5-0 win; I saw a couple of really bad NU plays during the football game (like the safety and the defense yet again giving up a huge gain on a deep pass), but I came back to football just as NU took control of the game in the 4th quarter, on its way to a 27-12 win.
Have you seen the Kingsford Matchlight charcoal ad wherein the husband shoos his wife away from the barbecue grill, essentially telling her that since he doesn't go into the kitchen to make salad, she shouldn't try to light his fire [pun intended--Ed.]? He says "there's a technique," and then strikes a match and tosses it in . . . and the charcoal ignites. His wife, with appropriately subtle sarcasm, says "Wow." She then backs away, telling their guests that everything is OK.
I don't know the "genius" [and I use the term very loosely, indeed--Ed.] who created the ad; nor do I know the "geniuses" [ditto--Ed.] at Kingsford who approved it. So I am left with no way even to speculate a possible answer to my question: Why would ANYONE want to buy a product that says its users are idiots?
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I used to think that language was the thing that held America together, given our collective fundamental diversity of ethnic backgrounds and life experiences; but I am beginning to wonder. I've been doing a great deal of proofreading work of late. I am appalled by the lack of care and attention that intelligent and otherwise educated people give to their native tongue. And that's after I've made allowance for the fact that everyone, myself included, speaks less precisely than s/he writes, even in relatively formal situations, such as testifying under oath.
No one seems to care whether his/her subjects, verbs, and/or pronouns match--or even whether he/she includes subjects, verbs, and/or pronouns in the first place. No one seems to care whether his/her questions or answers to questions are understandable or responsive. [I especially hate it when someone is asked a "yes or no" question and gives an answer that says everything under the sun EXCEPT for "yes" or "no."--Ed.]
People have been making similar complaints about such signs of the decline and fall of civilization from, well, the decline and fall of Rome (if not earlier). Between the twin battering rams of modern high technology and the lack of organized, official grammar education in our elementary and junior high schools, however, we have exponentially increased the rate of decline. If we cannot understand each other, how can we expect to hang together as a society?
Then again, why am I spitting into the wind? Entropy increases. Still, whenever my time comes, I'd like to leave this "mortal coil" knowing I did my best to leave things better, not worse, for those who will follow.
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And what in the world is wrong with the people who still insist that Barack Obama is not legitimately the president because he's supposedly not a native-born US citizen? His birth certificate HAS been produced (despite all claims to the contrary); two different 1961 newspaper notices reporting his birth have been discovered and publicized; his election was certified by the US Congress, in accordance with the terms of the Constitution--and Congress never would have done that if there had been any legitimate doubts about Obama's ability to satisfy all Constitutionally-mandated requirements. Before the election last November, a right-wing web site even published all the information confirming that Obama is, in fact, a native-born US citizen. Besides, his mother was a US citizen, which automatically confers US citizenship on him. And Hawaii WAS a state in 1961.
The sad, simple truth is that these people are racists, pure and simple, but they don't want to say so--at least, not overtly. So they've latched onto this "issue" to spew their venom while disguising their real agenda. They are a bunch of small-minded, sad, hateful fools. And no matter how much proof is presented, they won't believe it. And they do America, the country they supposedly love so much, a great disservice.
I really hate willful ignorance. But I must remind myself that no one is ever going to be able to change their minds. Mark Twain was right: Never teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
I hate to admit this, but Burger King has actually made a commercial with that vile fake-headed Burger "King" character that is laugh-out-loud funny. It's for the new Kid's Meal with the Spongebob Squarepants toys . . . and Sir Mix-A-Lot. "I like square butts . . ." Who knew Baby's Got Back would have such longevity?
I must be losing my grip--every time I hear or see (or both) that ad, I collapse into gales of laughter.
It's too late for me, but it may not be too late for you. Turn off your TVs! Head for the hills! Run for your lives!
As for me, I'm going to go buy a couple of Kid's Meals to see if I can get at least the Spongebob and Patrick toys . . .
A local cardiac center is running an ad ostensibly encouraging people to get their hearts checked "before it's too late." The tag line is "Call Or Be Called," and the ad consists of the Voice of God talking to a woman in a grocery store produce section. God tells the woman it's time for her to go, now. She protests, demonstrating that she eats broccoli--which is why she's in the produce section. God tells her it doesn't matter because her condition is genetic. God then gently berates her for not calling to get her heart tested, because now it's too late. The ad then cuts to the tag line, written in Gothic script, floating in front of a blue sky, and then cuts again to the cardiac center's (and other sponsors') logos.
My first question is: who thought up this thing? It's positively creepy! I doubt it will have its intended effect. It certainly isn't funny in the least. Believe me. My sense of humor is as broad as anyone's, and broader than most everyone's. I recognize the attempt at dark humor in the ad. It fails miserably. It's on the wrong end of absurdity to be effective--let alone funny.
My second question is: if the woman's condition is genetic and it doesn't matter that she eats healthy food, why would getting "the test" make one whit of difference? This ad is spectacularly bad at selling what it says it's trying to sell. It's own internal logic contradicts its putative point.
OK. I realize the central point is really that eating right isn't enough: the test will give people additional information they can use to protect themselves better against genetic heart disease than they could do without having taken the test. This ad does not make that point at all effectively, however.
I am hoping against hope that this was a national ad agency's product, and the local cardiac center bought it, as opposed the center's hiring a local agency and having had active input into the ad's contents. I don't know why that matters except as a point of pride that I wouldn't willingly be caught dead [pun intended--Ed.] living next door to people with such tin ears.
And why is it that the truly funny ads never run enough, and the bad/creepy/offensive ones seem to be on the air ubiquitously?
I just saw an ad for a new "as seen on TV" product [which, thankfully, I've not yet actually seen on TV--Ed.]. It's for a product designed to make a woman's hair look fuller, and must be ordered according to the woman's hair color. So far, so good.
It's called Bumpits.
So far, not so good. Even with the product in the accompanying illustration I just saw, my first reading of the name was "Bum-pits," not the intended "Bump-its."
I do not want "bum pits" of any sort, matching my head hair color or not, thank you very much. Why do you think I use an anti-perspirant deodorant every day?
Somebody ought to tell the genius [and I use the term very loosely--Ed.] who thought of the product's name that an en-dash (you know, the printer's measure for a single dash, like this one: "-") would have been in order, just to clarify matters.
Bum pits. Now there's a mental image I do NOT want to conjure. Eeeuuwwww! Too late!
Holiday madness and all it entails are truly upon us. According to an NPR report I heard earlier this week [Thursday, I think, but no promises--Ed.], a gentleman in Germany is so distressed about the rampant commercialization of Christmas that he is producing and selling gold-foil-wrapped chocolate Jesuses. Spokesmen for all the churches in Germany are up in arms, claiming this is downright sacrilegious.
Put me on the side of the churches in this one. If the chocolatier had genuine concern for the true meaning of Christmas, he'd either be giving away his confections or requesting donations in exchange sufficient to cover their costs of production. But no! He's making them and selling them for resale at retail, which means he expects to turn a profit. That's totally hypocritical. It trades directly on the religious significance of Christmas. The purveyors of chocolate Santas and reindeer are not so blatantly flouting the religious reason for the season, and thus do not share our "hero's" culpability.
Besides, the idea of munching on a personal (even if it is made of the world's best chocolate) Jesus is viscerally gross.
Please do not add Depeche Mode to any holiday classics soundtracks.
How gullible are some people, anyway? I have seen a commercial of late that promises to give parents the ability to solve all their problems with their children in about a minute. I refuse to list the specific product name or the people hawking it on the grounds that I do not wish to (even inadvertently) increase sales of this claptrap.
I will say this: you've probably seen the ad, too. It's the one that starts with the teenage girl screaming "I hate you!" at her mother.
If this product did even half what it promised, we could eliminate Child Protective Services from all levels of government. Just hand out the book/DVD and pass a law saying whomever receives it is required to prove they are using it. All problems solved, and a way to cut a huge amount of government expenditures, to boot!
What's not to like?
Well, to start with, the promises this ad makes are thoroughly impossible. Unless, of course, the book/DVD consists of the advice to lock away your children until they are of legal age. The only sure way to stop disagreements is to give them no place to be expressed. So the book/DVD could suggest that you drug your kids into submission, too, I suppose.
Whatever it suggests, I am not going to spend what little money I still have to find out. You shouldn't, either. If you feel you must spend the money, however, make a donation directly to Child Protective Services, where it will at least do some good.
I know P.T. Barnum is proud of these snake oil salesmen, and I know that such claptrap and hype are part of a free market economy, but I don't have to like it. Truer words were never spoken: caveat emptor!
My jaw literally dropped when I saw and heard John McCain offer up his wife Cindy to be a Miss Buffalo Chip contestant at the Sturgis (SD) motorcycle rally yesterday. Was it ignorance or really bad taste? Miss Buffalo Chip contestants have to take their clothes off . . . and the winners also usually simulate various sex acts with bananas . . . Gross! Of course, the bikers ate it up. Cindy just stood at her husband's side, head down, a strained, close-mouthed smile on her face. If I were her, I'd have socked McCain right in the chops, walked off the stage, and filed for divorce. Is there no low to which his pandering for votes will not stoop?
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Any and all of the current Citgo ads. They are full of sunniness and light, talking about how all Citgo stations are locally owned, and how that by supporting Citgo, buyers of its gasoline are helping their local economies. They very conveniently do not mention that Citgo is owned by Venezuela. Yep, it's the state-owned and run corporation of Hugo Chavez--you know, Hugo Chavez, whose anti-US rhetoric will curl your hair [or straighten it out if it's already curly--Ed.]. So we as a nation aren't fit to wipe his shoes, but our money is more than good enough to fund his nation's economy.
And for all of you who think I'm betraying my beliefs by condemning an avowed Communist, let me remind you of two things: (1) my opinions are based on fact--I do not let my personal proclivities color my evaluation of anything; (2) Communists in practice are much more to the right than to the left, as philosophical orientations go. The mistake that people make in calling Communists leftists is that thinking because Communists run their abusive power through "the state," they like "big government." And that "big government" equals being "leftist." No, no, no! They are dictators, pure and simple. And that's to the right end of the political spectrum. The mechanism they use to wield their power isn't the issue--their control over everything is.
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Baskin-Robbins has an ad wherein a soccer dad promises the team Oreo shakes (or sundaes, or something) if they win the game, and a soccer mom promptly kicks the winning goal, then screams at one of the opposing players, "Go-o-o-o-al! In your face!" As of a few days ago, the "in your face" has been cut from the ad. I guess B-R got a lot of complaints from people about that. I hope so. It was beyond obnoxious. I confess to not paying close enough attention to what exactly the winning players were promised, as all the local Baskin-Robbins franchises left the Omaha area years ago, and I see no point in torturing myself by wanting something yummy that I can't have. Even though the temperature is well over 90° every day lately. Even though I still miss B-R's World Class Chocolate [which, in my perhaps not-so-humble estimation, is the single best ice cream flavor ever made.--Ed.].
The Woodhouse family owns and operates a number of auto dealerships in the greater metro Omaha area, from Chevy to Mazda. The current Woodhouse TV ad campaign startled me with its frankness.
The ads end with children of Woodhouse customers saying their names and ages, and then saying, with various degrees of pronunciation clarity, "I am Woodhouse." (One little blond girl with pigtails is painfully adorable.) The ads all begin with a Woodhouse spokeswoman [and family member?--Ed.] cheerfully informing the viewers that Woodhouse is establishing a relationship with the viewers in order to establish a relationship with "the future generations."
It is well-established that a major purpose of advertising is to generate brand loyalty and repeat business--after all, those things guarantee positive cash flow, which in turn guarantees the business's continued successful existence. But it's not usually so blatantly stated in the ads themselves.
So as cute as the moppets are and as friendly as the spokeswoman's tone is, all I can think of every time I see a Woodhouse ad is, "boy, they get them when they're young, don't they?" The use of the children in the ads strikes me as being akin to brainwashing, and that's scary.
Yes, the Woodhouse ads are being honest . . . blatantly so. Nvertheless, I can't help but put these ads on my list of evidence supporting the notion (which I've expressed several times in these posts) that we as a society have lost our collective sense of shame. That's just sad.
This year's hot trend in beer is adding a touch of genuine lime flavor to one's brew. Corona commercials for several months have been showing Corona bottles with a real wedge of lime in their openings; Miller Lite has been advertising its "Chill" beer (lime flavor and a hint of salt flavor added) since at least February; Budweiser recently released Bud LIght Lime with a flurry of ads on TV sporting events.
I am glad that one series of those ads has already died and been yanked off the air--at least, off the air of the channels I watch. These are the ads wherein an oversized lime with human arms and legs--and no head--breakdances (among other things). Creepy!
The only time fruit should be dancing is when it's in Carmen Miranda's [or Bugs Bunny's when dressed as Carmen Miranda--Ed.] hat.
I confess to being a bit of a TV commercials junkie. I get a kick out of critiquing the excesses of modern marketing. One thing I've noticed over the years is that really good--i.e., funny--ads never get shown enough, while the nauseating ones run constantly.
I never got tired of the Guinness Stout "Limburger Cheeseheads!" ad, for example. Just thinking about it makes me giggle. [It's probably the Irish inflection on "cheeseheads"--that is truly priceless!--Ed.]
For its diametrical opposite, watch the Pedia-Sure ad that's been running for at least a year now. You know the one: the mommy is steering the grocery cart and reading aloud from her list, while her little girl, riding in the cart, objects to everything on the list. "Chicken . . ." "I don't like chicken." The point being that even the most finicky eater likes and will drink Pedia-Sure, and moms everywhere who give their children Pedia-Sure will be doing a good thing. The more subtle message is that moms are here to cater to and be doormats for their selfish, bratty children, not to teach their children any manners or other social skills.
That is a message I do not like, not one bit! I'd rather the mom said to the daughter, "I don't care what you don't like. Until you are working and contributing economically to this family, you're going to eat what is put on the table for you or not eat at all."
But then again, not only would that put the family hierarchy right side up, it wouldn't sell the product.
Nevertheless, I can dream, can't I?
In the meantime, if you give me a brick to throw at the TV, make sure it's a Nerf brick. I can't afford to destroy my TV for real, no matter how irritated I get!
I understand that Target Stores Inc. has entered into a marketing agreement with some chi-chi Beverly Hills designer. For the first time, Target is allowing its logo (the ubiquitous red bull's-eye) to be put on merchandise not sold in Target stores. You know, on jeans, purses, jewelry, and other accessories. And yes, the collection is called "Target Couture" . . . and yes, it's pronounced "tar-zhay."
So rich and silly people like Paris Hilton are paying lots of money (the purses are going for several hundred dollars each) to promote the logo of a store in which they would not be caught dead shopping. A little frivolity in the world is not a bad thing, but frivolousness is quite another thing altogether.
Isnt it wonderful that the 19th century can still be relevant to the 21st? P. T. Barnum was right about two things: (1) no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public; (2) there is a sucker born every minute.
Wendy's got a lot of sympathy last year once the news was out that the "finger in the chili" was a fraudulent extortion attempt.
Wendy's just wasted all that sympathy--and more.
Dan Mirvish, former Omahan, former speechwriter for US Senator Tom Harkin, and current independent film producer, recently got royally dissed at a Wendy's in Park City, Utah. He was there to host his annual Slamdance Film Festival, in conjunction with the more well-known Sundance Film Festival. He's also in a wheelchair at present, thanks to a broken leg.
He wanted a hamburger before going to attend one of the several late-night parties associated with the festivals, and the parking lot was icy, so . . . he wheeled up to the Wendy's in his chair. The dining room being closed, he did what any hungry and enterprising soul would do, and moved over to the drive-up window, which was still open.
The cashier then informed him they weren't allowed to serve "walk-ups" at the drive-thru. [What's wrong with this picture?--Ed.] So, he went off to his party, gathered together several of his filmmaker friends--with cameras--and then returned to the restaurant, whereupon restaurant manager "slammed the window literally in our face," according to Mirvish.
As if that weren't bad enough, the manager had also called the police, who drove up, lights flashing, and demanded that "You in the wheelchair--pull over!"
The police thereupon ordered Mirvish and his companions to leave.
Mirvish is considering filing some kind of complaint or lawsuit against Wendy's for violating the Americans With Disabilites Act. I say more power to him!
It would have been different had the Wendy's dining room been open, but under the circumstances, it's a slam dunk that Wendy's failed the ADA's requirement that commercial establishments provide "reasonable accomodation" to those with disabilities.
Wendy's spokesman Bob Bertini only made matters worse when he tried to defend the restaurant manager's behavior by saying that the "no walk-ups" policy had nothing to do with the ADA, and that it rather was a matter of public safety and security "particularly late at night, for employees and customers as well." [How nice that he included customers in his comments, considering that customers are the entire driving engine of Wendy's business.--Ed.]
Everything Bertini said is probably true, but is so insensitive as to be absolutely crass. I, for one, no matter how much I like Wendy's chili on a baked potato, will not buy from Wendy's again. Please join me in my boycott.
OK--let me begin by saying I was half asleep when I heard what I think I heard on NPR this morning. So, what I am about to say may be merely the product of my fevered imagination. Nevertheless, . . .
Some group of scientists has tested the amount of pollution (methane, mostly) produced by cows in California, and determined that cows pollute more than cars now do.
As a result, the state is going to implement pollution-control requirements. Expensive pollution-control requirements. And the dairy farmers are most emphatically not happy about it. It may cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars, each, to comply.
A lobbying group for the dairy farmers has started lawsuits challenging both the measurement methods and the results in the hopes that the proposed requirements will not be forced on them.
Several Central Valley dairy farmers are threatening to take their cows and the jobs their farms provide and leave the state.
If this isn't "real California cheese," I don't know what is!
