31 December 2008 >>
Just days before Barack Obama was elected president, Pepsi unveiled a new logo. According to some, the updated logo bears a striking resemblance to Obama’s campaign logo. Wonkettesaid it was “what would happen if a can of Tab had sex with Barack Obama.”
To me, the notion that Pepsi would consciously mimic the Obama logo seems like a bit of a stretch. Considering how fickle poll numbers can be, why would a major mass-market brand risk being seen as promoting a particular politician? Nobody in politics remains popular forever.
But when I left work Monday evening, I saw something that made me wonder if I my assumptions were wrong.
You see, my office is in Times Square, where advertisers are revving up for the millions of people who will see tonight’s New Year’s Eve festivities.
And directly across the street from my office, at the base of the building where a crystalline sphere counts down the final seconds of every year, Pepsi placed a sign that looked familiar:
In case your memory wasn’t jogged by the photo above, here’s a hint:
If Pepsi is invoking Obama’s campaign materials deliberately—and I have no reason to believe that they are—then maybe the folks behind it see some business sense in doing so.
Judging from the volume of painted plates and limited-edition coins being hawked on TV ads that gush about Obama’s “kind eyes and warm smile,” the Merchandising of the President-Elect might be the only growth industry left.
Here in NYC, you can’t walk a block in midtown without passing several street vendors pushing Obamawear. But maybe I’m only perceiving this avalanche of advertising and street trinkets because I’m stuck inside the New York bubble.
Could Obama’s campaign imagery help sell sugared water to a entire nation?
I’m skeptical. The United States isn’t Manhattan, and selecting a particular brand of cola isn’t usually where people make political statements.
If the new Pepsi logo was designed to evoke the Obama logo, maybe the Ad Men of Madison Avenue—unable to see outside the New York bubble themselves—simply miscalculated on something that could backfire. Or maybe they launched this redesign fully aware that they were using one of the world’s most recognizable brands as collateral in a big bet on the political fortunes of one person.
30 December 2008 @ 9:18AM >>
An Australian government body will begin removing seashells from a beach because they make the beach too uncomfortable to walk on:
The committee, responsible for managing seven kilometres of coast stretching from Rye to Sorrento, has ordered oyster shells be cleared from Blairgowrie beach in time for the summer peak season.
But the decision has provoked criticism the committee is being overly protective and bureaucratic.
Kelvin Stingel, from the Whitecliffs to Camerons Bight Foreshore Committee of Management, said residents’ complaints about the “hazardous sharp” shells had prompted the volunteer body to act.
“We haven’t had any reports of people being injured but they said that they might get injured,” Mr Stingel said. “I walked across it myself and I wouldn’t let my kids run across it, it is pretty bad.”
[...]
“I think it’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous,” [Sorrento resident Dr. Keith Stead] said. “If they’re going to get rid of the shells I hope they’re not going to decide to get rid of the rocks and stones as well - it would just go on and on.”
Dr Stead said if parents were worried about their children they should teach them to be careful and wear sandals.
“I think we can probably do more harm to our kids by constantly trying to wrap them in the proverbial cotton wool and keep them from all danger and not have them recognise danger when they’re by themselves,” he said.
[...]
A long-standing Sorrento resident, who did not want to be named, said the decision was “misguided, far-fetched” and reminiscent of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
“When I was a kid people were always cutting their feet on sea shells, you can’t control it,” she said. “It’s just another example of the nanny state where people no longer have to make their own decisions because they are looked after by a higher authority.”
Keith John Sampson, a student at Indiana University - Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI), was found guilty of racial harassment for reading a book about a riot that took place in 1924 between Notre Dame students and the Ku Klux Klan.
Called Notre Dame vs. The Klan, the book’s author describes it as a discussion of a historical event and a celebration of the defeat of the white supremacist terrorist group in that event.
In an odd twist, the very book that led to Sampson’s racial harassment “conviction” was carried in the school’s own library!
But that didn’t stop the IUPUI’s Affirmative Action Office from finding Sampson giulty of racial harassment.
You can watch Andrew Marcus’s coverage of this case here:
If this is the kind of story that infuriates you, check out Indoctrinate U if you haven’t already.
29 December 2008 @ 9:21AM >>
Deborah Howell, the departing ombusman of the Washington Post, reflects on her colleagues as her tenure at the paper comes to a close:
My worry is that journalists aren’t as connected to readers as they were in the days of my youth, when the city’s newspaper was the equivalent of the public square. Then, reporters tended to be folks who often hadn’t graduated from, or even attended, college, and they weren’t looking to move to bigger papers. They knew the community well, didn’t make much money and lived like everyone else, except for chasing fires and crooks.
Now journalists are highly trained, mobile and, especially in Washington, more elite. We make a lot more money, drive better cars and have nicer homes. Some of us think we’re just a little more special than some of the folks we want to buy the paper or read us online.
That’s a mistake. Readers want us to be smart and tough and for the newspaper to read that way, but they don’t want us to think we’re better than they are. We need to be worried sick when people drop their subscriptions. We need to think of ways to prevent that.
An unpleasant fact about journalists is that we can be way too defensive. We dish it out a lot better than we take it. It’s not that we have thin skin; we often act as though we have no skin and bleed at the slightest touch.
[...]
Journalists need to be tough enough to face down a mayor, a police chief or the president of the United States, but we also should be tough enough to respond to honest criticism. The worst part of my job as official internal critic hasn’t been dealing with readers, though that has been both daunting and rewarding. Taking those complaints to reporters and editors has been the biggest challenge.
The next ombudsman of the Post, Andy Alexander, will start his term on Groundhog Day, 2009.
17 December 2008 @ 8:57AM >>
If you ever get any odd or cryptic e-mails from me, now you know why:
Doctors have reported the first ever case of someone using the internet while asleep, after a sleeping woman sent emails to people asking them over for drinks and caviar.
It was only when a would-be guest phoned the next day to accept, that she found out what she had done.
The 44-year-old woman, whose case is reported by researchers from the University of Toledo in the latest edition of medical journal Sleep Medicine, had gone to bed at around 10pm, but got up two hours later and walked to the next room.
She then turned on the computer, connected to the internet, and logged on by typing her username and password to her email account. She then composed and sent three emails.
Each was in a random mix of upper and lower cases, not well formatted and written in strange language.
One read: “Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4.pm,. Bring wine and caviar only.”
Jay Carney is leaving Time magazine after 20 years to be Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s communications director in the White House, astonished magazine and gleeful transition sources said.
Carney’s title will be assistant to the vice president and director of communications. TIME.com’s “The Page” first reported his new job.
Carney, the magazine’s Washington bureau chief, is one of Washington’s best-known talking heads, with regular appearances on ABC’s “This Week,” “The McLaughlin Group” and MSNBC’s “Hardball.”
[...]
A Democratic official close to the selection process said Carney had already decided to do something different after the election, and Biden advisers believed Carney would bring “a fresh perspective” to their deliberations.
“It’s an adventure,” the official said. “Everybody thought it was an interesting idea and worth the risk. You never know how guys in your business are going to do in politics or the private sector.”
The official added: “There are those on the right who will see this as the embodiment of their assertions about the media and Obama, and this is just making it official.”
Carney would likely be shilling for the Obama administration whether or not his checks were still signed by Time magazine. At least now his allegiance is out in the open, and he won’t be working in the dying print news business.
14 December 2008 @ 11:38AM >>
The day the world comes together as one may have to be postponed a bit.
Barack Obama’s election was supposed to usher in a new era in which America’s enemies shed their animosity, embraced hope, and began worshipping our new leader along with the rest of us.
Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell al Qaeda (which greeted Obama’s election with racial insults) and Iran.
The leader of the Iranian parliament “has branded US President-Elect Barack Obama’s comments on Tehran’s nuclear activities as ‘cowboy’ talk,” according to London’s Telegraph:
“These comments resemble those of old American cowboys. If you have something to say about (Iran’s) nuclear issue, just say so. Why wave a stick,” asked [parliamentary speaker Ali] Larijani, in a speech in Qazvin province.
“The new US president has said he wants to pressure Iran since it seeks to produce atomic weapons and because it supports the terrorists like Hamas and Hizbollah,” he added.
“We are proud of supporting Hizbollah since they are defending their homeland and you are wrong in calling them terrorists.”
Iran is a staunch supporter of the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese militant group Hizbollah.
In an interview broadcast on Sunday, Mr Obama vowed “tough but direct diplomacy” with Iran, offering incentives along with the threat of tougher sanctions over its atomic programme.
As president from January 20, Mr Obama said he would make clear to Tehran that the nuclear program was “unacceptable,” along with support of Hamas and Hizbollah and its “threats against Israel.”
Mr Obama, whose offer of direct talks with Iran represents a break with three decades of US foreign policy, promised a “set of carrots and sticks in changing their calculus about how they want to operate.”
Three days ago, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said “the carrot and stick approach has proven to be useless.”
Some problems may require a bit more than Mr. Obama’s kind smile and warm charm to solve.
President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle are appearing in Italian nativity scenes this year, alongside the baby Jesus and wise men, according to Naples craftsmen selling figurines in the run-up to Christmas.
The production of handmade figurines for nativity scenes is big business in this southern Italian city and has been for centuries.
But beyond the thousands of angel, sheep, Mary and Joseph figures filling market stalls before Christmas, craftsmen say Obama has become a top seller.
“The ones we are selling the most of are those of Barack Obama, America’s new president, along with his wife Michelle,” said craftsman Genny Di Virgilio.
11 December 2008 >>
Australia’s southeastern state of Victoria may soon encourage so-called “positive” discrimination against white males, according to Australia’s Herald-Sun:
DISCRIMINATION against dominant white males will soon be encouraged in a bid to boost the status of women, the disabled and cultural and religious minorities.
Such positive discrimination — treating people differently in order to obtain equality for marginalised groups — is set to be legalised under planned changes to the Equal Opportunity Act foreshadowed last week by state Attorney-General Rob Hulls.
[...]
Equal Opportunity Commission CEO Dr Helen Szoke said males had “been the big success story in business and goods and services”.
“Clearly, they will have their position changed because they will be competing in a different way with these people who have been traditionally marginalised,” she said.
“Let’s open it up so everyone can have a fair go.”
[...]
At present, individuals or bodies wanting to single out any race or gender for special treatment must gain an exemption from [the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal].
Companies and public bodies accused of discrimination can only be held to account after a complaint has been made.
But the proposed changes go much further, allowing the commission to inquire into discrimination, seize documents and search and enter premises after attempts to bring about change have failed.
Businesses and individuals would be required to change their ways even if a complaint had not been received.
While such an idea may seem foreign, discrimination against whites and males in the United States has been legal for quite some time under the government-sanctioned racial and gender preference system known as “affirmative action.”
Of course, even if you support the idea in theory, the election of Barack Obama to the presidency makes such a concept seem antiquated. Nevertheless, because of the color of their skin, affirmative action assumes that Barack Obama’s children are more disadvantaged than, say, those of a white welfare recipient living in Appalachia. As a result, under affirmative action, Malia and Natasha Obama will always be favored over the children of a white welfare recipient.
Race is an increasingly poor proxy for socioeconomic status. It’s time to end affirmative action, because if we want a society that doesn’t discriminate, we won’t get there by writing discrimination into the law.
Muslim prayer rooms should be opened in every Roman Catholic school, church leaders have said.
The Catholic bishops of England and Wales also want facilities in schools for Islamic pre-prayer washing rituals.
The demands go way beyond legal requirements on catering for religious minorities.
But the bishops - who acknowledge 30 per cent of pupils at their schools hold a non-Christian faith - want to answer critics who say religious schools sow division.
[...]
Islam teaches that Muslims are unfit for prayer if they have not performed Wudhu after breaking wind or using the toilet.
Wudhu involves washing the face, hands, arms and feet three times each, gargling the mouth three times and washing the neck and inside the nose and ears. Some Muslims also wash their private parts.
Catholic schools would need to install bidets, foot spas and hoses to facilitate such extensive cleansing rituals, Muslims say.
Daphne McLeod, a former Catholic head teacher from south London, said it would be ‘terribly expensive’ for the country’s 2,300 Catholic primary and secondary schools to provide ritual cleansing facilities.
She said: ‘If Muslim parents choose a Catholic school then they accept that it is going to be a Catholic school and there will not be facilities for ritual cleansing and prayer rooms.
‘They do their ritual cleansing before they go to a mosque, but they are not going to a mosque.’
Instead of raising money to fight an illness that only affects oppressors, a reader from New Orleans suggests a novel way to bring the races closer together:
There has long been a glaring disparity between blacks and whites in longevity. I think this calls for nothing less than a moratorium on all life-saving medical services for white people. It would also be helpful to remove seatbelts and airbags from their automobiles and police protection from their neighborhoods. Eventually this would lead to equality in longevity, thus contributing to peace and harmony between the races.
2 December 2008 @ 9:03AM >>
My friend Lon Symensma, who worked the camera on my first video, introduced me to my wife Jill, was one of the groomsmen at my wedding, and who supplied me many times with fine meals when I was his Kramer-like mooching next-door neighbor, is currently one of the two finalists for the “Hottest Chef in NY” contest at Eater.com.
After stints at Jean Georges and Spice Market, Lon is now the executive chef at Buddakan, one of the top restaurants in NYC. (If you’ve never been there, you might have seen part of the restaurant’s interior in the Sex and the City movie.)
1 December 2008 @ 9:06AM >>
Multiculturalism as practiced on college campuses isn’t about tolerance and inclusion, it’s about ranking people based on the groups they fit into and treating them accordingly.
Students at an Ottawa university are pulling out of a Canada-wide fundraiser that provides close to $1 million a year for cystic fibrosis research and treatment, arguing that the disease “has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men” - something experts say is untrue.
The Carleton University Students Association voted Monday night overwhelmingly in favour of choosing a new charity to support during its orientation week in September, in lieu of Shinerama, which raises money for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
The foundation funds research into cystic fibrosis, a fatal, genetic disease that affects both sexes with a similar frequency and is most common among Caucasians. The foundation also helps fund services for people with the disease. It affects mainly the lungs and digestive system, causing a build-up of thick mucus that leads to infection and inflammation.
The student council motion stated that orientation week “strives to be inclusive” and “all orientees and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts will serve their diverse communities.”
[...]
Brittany Smyth, president of the Carleton University’s student council, said she is trying to get in touch with the cystic fibrosis foundation because she doesn’t want the group to think Carleton students are switching charities for the wrong reason. She said the clause about cystic fibrosis being a white man’s disease was not the determining factor in Monday night’s vote, but for now the council is sticking to the decision and looking for a different cause to support next fall.
