« March 2009 | Main | May 2009 »
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 10:26:17
Fox News Edge: We're Shocked! Shocked, we tell you!
So I don’t know if if the anchors had left their brains at home, or were just putting an audition tape together for Fox Command in New York, hoping to move on to more lucrative lobs, but it was physically impossible to watch more than a few minutes of last night’s “news” program, which featured Dana Sargent and her cohort whining about the fact that a gay activist group had posted the information found on petitions in support of putting the infamous Act One on the ballot online - www.knowthyneighbor.org
They included interviews with some of those who signed the petition, who were aggrieved that this information could be so widely seen. The anchors solemnly - or as solemn as someone on such a show is capable of being - seemed morally outraged that this could be done.
Would it not discourage others from signing petitions in the future? What? Well, gee, isn’t this, like, public information?
One who signed the petition felt it was like someone going behind them in the voting booth and telling folks who they voted for. Well, no, not really.
******
And, of course, the Ted Baxter Award goes to . . .
Did I actually hear one of the guys they interviewed say he didn’t even remember signing the petition? I guess moral “outrage” and preening for the camera must have gotten in the way of actually paying attention to what the people were saying.
*****
Quote of the Day
There is more to life than increasing its speed. - Gandhi
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 09:43:38
The Door-to-Door Blues
There are jobs you have in your life that you recall with fondness, and jobs that, even in memory, pretty-much sucked. My brief foray into the wonderful world of door-t0-door sales (such as it was) convinced me that it was no life for me.
This is included in my book, Ozark Mosaic. And though the company is referred to as “Acme” throughout the piece, in reality it was the Kirby company.
I still find it hard to believe that any company would have grown men and women dinging, “Roll out the Kirby . . .”
The Door-to-Door Blues
Written by Richard S. Drake
“All I have to do is bring in forty customers a month," he told me excitedly, “and I won't have to work in the winter months at all. I’ll just live on my savings account." We paused by the jewelry counter, and he fondled a Seiko. “You should see the new TV I have on layaway at K-Mart,” he said as he reluctantly gave the watch back to the clerk.
“Not bad," I said, “for a guy working at a convenience store.”
He smiled smugly. "The days of hitting a time clock are over for me. From now on, it's Donald Trump time. You should consider working on commission, Richard."
I didn't tell him, but not only had I considered it, in 1974, I “worked” for three days on commission, trying to sell America's finest vacuum cleaner. The three days was too long to waste, by seventy two hours.
I had been in Arkansas about a week, and jobs were hard to came by. Gerald Ford was President, and the entire country was in the midst of a recession. I come fresh from a shoe factory in Pennsylvania, and wanted something with a little more variety. Working on commission seemed divinely inspired.
“All you have to do is demonstrate fifteen a week,” my new boss told me, “and you are guaranteed $150.You don't even have to sell any. You can't beat that.” My weekly paycheck from the Billig Shoe Company in Peckville had been sixty dollars a week. My eyes were shining after the interview.
The interview itself was very simple. They asked for my name, address, and gave me a basic math skills test. Third grade level basic, that is. They asked me to come back the next Monday for a week-long training session.
They held these sessions on a weekly basis, which should have warned me right then; if the operation was such a success, why the huge turnover?
Ah, well. I was young.
The training classes were pretty intense, and we learned everything mortal man could learn about vacuum cleaners, dirt and greed.
Did you know that dead skin can fall from your body at night and stick to your mattress? Luckily, the Acme is especially built to pick up dead skin. “Is this the way to your bedroom?” intoned the masterful salesman in our training film. “Follow me.” And darned if the young couple didn’t follow along.
We practiced sales techniques until we could do them in our sleep. We worked on our sincerity until we shone like beacons on a storm tossed night. We practiced eye contact, body language, and subtle shadings of the truth.
I had seen the Glory, and it cleaned my rug.
The next Monday, I was an official vacuum cleaner salesman. We all got together at around eight in the morning,. were introduced to our “Team Leaders,” and mingled together in the conference room for a warm up session.
To warm up for the day, we clapped hands and sang songs like “Roll out the Acme. Let's have an Acme of fun!” Or: “Acme Bells, Acme Bells, Acme all the way!”
We were grown men, standing around a cheaply furnished office, clapping hands and singing stupid songs. We deserved to make some sales, having to start the day off like this.
There were two last details before we left for the day. We were all given a packet containing a thousand S&H Green Stamps (remember them?) in order to entice a potential customer into signing a deal. All they had to do was buy even an accessory, like a handle, or an extension, and we'd plop out the stamps. The manager told us they were a surefire way to make a sale.
Then, he got all the new guys in a huddle and said, "There's a lot of sexy women out there, guys, but if you have to fool around, make a date for a motel. Don't do anything while you are on Company time.”
I couldn't believe my ears; did all those old jokes about door-to-door salesmen have same basis in fact? This night turn out to be a really great job; my fertile imagination was working overtime on the possibilities.
We found ourselves divided up into two teams, and we were driven out in vans. There were four in my team. We had the Team Leader, the Assistant Team Leader, and two rookies.
We drove for what seemed like forever. I didn’t understand why we weren’t trying to sell in Fayetteville. I asked the Team Leader, who waved some sheets at me.
“Look,” he said. “Every time you demonstrate an Acme, you ask them to give you the names of fifteen of their friends, who might also be interested in buying from us. It’s like a big circle.”
“But why are we so far from Fayetteville?” We had just passed the city limits of a place called “Prairie Grove.” I had visions of the Real McCoys.
“Hell, in the past six months we’ve covered all of Fayetteville. There are thousands of Acmes in town since we started.”
Wow, I was pretty lucky to be involved in an organization like this.
We had passed Prairie Grove, and driven even further. Finally, we stopped by the side of the road. “Okay, here’s where we divide up customers,” our Leader said. Each of us got one address. I drew a Charlene Something or other.
I was let out in the midst of what could only be called the poor side of the tracks. I was helped out of the van, along with four boxes of various sizes, and left outside Charlene’s door.
A thin, 40ish woman answered the door. “Ya’ll must be the salesman, “ she drawled. Two young children clung to her legs. Toys and cats cluttered the sparsely furnished living room.
“I reckon I am,” I answered brightly. And we were off and running.
I manfully went through every sales technique I had learned the previous week, But I can honestly say the demonstration was a failure. My performance was wooden, and I stumbled over the script, and forgot entire passages. Besides, the woman and her husband had both been out of work for over a month.
Oh, I knew that other salesmen bragged about selling machines to welfare recipients, but I like to think I have more integrity than that. If I’d had the sales skills, though, I might well have done the same, with no qualms whatsoever.
In desperation, I remembered the infamous dead skin.
“Is this the way to . . .” my voice trailed off. To what? Your bedroom? Things are a lot different in real life than on a training film.
She looked at me, puzzled. '”Do you need to use the bathroom?”
“Yes!” I jumped up. Inside, I gathered what little courage I had left, and came bounding out.
“Did you know that skin falls off your body at night?” I asked brightly.
She looked at me with a hard expression, and her voice tightened. "No skin don't fall off my body."
“No, ma'am," I said weakly. No need in even trying to flourish the Green Stamps around. I finished the demonstration as quickly as possible, and the training film be darned. I waited by the street for an hour, waiting for the van to pick me up.
The next day went just as brilliantly. This time I drew a far more affluent home, out in some God forsaken neck of the woods. I was a little more practiced, though, and remembered most of my lines. I even resolved to go through with, "Is this the way to your bedroom?"
The owner of the house, an incredibly beautiful woman in her late thirties, looked at me just as I was about to launch into the horrors of dead skin and said, “You really are a pest, you know that? All the stories I've heard about salesman are true. I’m really sorry I agreed to this.”
After that, I wasn't about to say, "Is this the way . . .” No doubt she'd heard those stories, too.
“You wouldn't be interested in Green Stamps, would you?” No sale today, either.
The third end last day, I finally got around to explaining about dead skin, and how it caused a variety of dread ailments, not to mention severely weighting your mattress down if left neglected for years, and how I really could clean it up, and show you just how much of this nasty stuff you've been shedding.
My potential customer, a grand motherly type, took me into what was obviously a child's nursery. I scrubbed and scrubbed with this unwieldy machine for at least two minutes, and proudly opened up the bag to show her what I had captured.
A cockroach crawled out, and we both recoiled in horror.
That was it. No more for me, I decided, as the van pulled back into Fayetteville at eleven that night. Three demonstrations in three days, and that meant that I was still twelve away from my “guaranteed” $150.
The next week I was pulling out chicken guts at one of our more prestigious chicken plants. It may have been messy, and wet, but it was a steady paycheck, and that's all I cared about.
I kept the Green Stamps.
Grapevine - April 27, 1990
Sunday, April 26, 2009 - 11:35:37
KNWA: Brooke Hanna "safe" at home. Well, isn't that what this was all about?
The somber news anchors at KNWA announced to a frantic public this week that missing teenage Brooke Hanna had been located, and was now “safe” at home, revealing once again their fetish for press releases and their view that there may two sides to every story is somehow quaint and rustic.
Donna Hanna, who had taken the girl earlier in the month, was shown being led off in handcuffs, while the plaintive cries of a reporter could be heard, “Donna? Why did you do it?”
Wow. That’s really getting to the source of the story.
Oh, wait, I forgot! All the reporter with the quivering voice (and the authoritative news anchors) ever had to was Google to the story, and they might very well have actually known more from Donna Hanna’s perspective - and from Brooke Hanna’s as well, it might seem.
Florida’s Naples News has put our news outlets up here to shame on this story, as well as offering a chance to readers to weigh in on the story. Here are some perspectives from readers that just haven’t had much - if any - play in local news coverage. And yes, I’ve only pulled two comments, and there are many, many other comments on the site, as well, many pro-Burt Hanna.
So, if I have this straight, the teen testified to a counselor that she was "uncomfortable living with her father, had flashbacks to inappropriate touching and ““is in danger from her father””. So they have returned her to the father?
Am I reading this wrong or is this just more head-shaking news?
And also:
" He said similar claims had been made to child welfare services in Arkansas but that none had been confirmed."
YIKES!!!
He doesn't deny doing it, just says it couldn't be confirmed?
Now that's scary.
www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/apr/23/brooke-hanna-found-millionaire-bonita-springs-mom-/
******
Quote of the Day
"Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.": Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) German Dramatist
*****
FOIA: Yes, well, no, not really, dude
From Matthew Petty’s (the Fayetteville alderman constantly referred to as “young”) tabled resolution to the City Council:
WHEREAS, communication and collaboration with social media is cost-effective; and WHEREAS, the public nature of social media reduces time spent on FOIA compliance . . .
Well, it’s cost effective if you have someone else doing the drudge work of your personal crusade, Matthew, like the already over-worked office of the City Clerk.
What has raised more than a few eyebrows is his misunderstanding (deliberate?) of the entire FOIA compliance question. I’ve sent in my fair share of FOIA requests, as have many people I have known over the years, and I’m pretty sure that Twittering wouldn’t have helped me one iota in seeking the information that I required, nor, I suspect, would it have helped a lot of the other folks who have filed them.
A lot of FOIA requests aren’t seeking surface information that is easily available to everyone. We’re looking for what we suspect may be there, or - oh, whatever. I’m sure I’ll get another email from a certain alderman, once again calling me a bigot for not embracing Twitterhood to the bosom of my dark soul.
I also suspect that between the Government Channel, the Fayetteville website, posting meetings online, maintaining email exchanges, and the like, the city of Fayetteville is doing a pretty fair job of keeping the public informed.
You know, early in an alderman’s term, being referred to as young can mean, “Hey, this person is full of great new ideas, no matter young they are.”
But after nearly four months in office?
When people still refer to you as young, it often has a less than complimentary ring to it, as if “young” were code for something else.
****
Letter of the Day
The very able Abel Tomlinson (you have no idea what great pleasure it gave me to write that!) has an excellent letter in today’s issue of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Teabaggers inconsistent
America just witnessed important nationwide Taxed Enough Already, or TEA, parties. However, many Americans do not know that the organizer for these was former Republican U.S. Rep. Dick Armey and FreedomWorks, his corporate lobbying firm.
TEA parties were aided by millions of dollars' worth of free promotional propaganda from FOX "News." The teabagger rallying cry against taxes, debt and spending exposes mind-numbing inconsistency inherent within Ronald Reagan-forward Republican politics
To read more:
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/258253/
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 - 10:30:43
My God, it's full of Tubes (with apologies to Arthur C. Clarke)
I guess Ted Stevens was right - I Internet is a series of tubes.
Well, that just about exhausts my supply of YouTube jokes this morning, for which you can all heave a welcome sigh of relief. For a few years I have been toying with the idea of putting some of my videos of YouTube, so that I can, for lack of a better term, guilt-trip even more of my friends around the world into watching my work, no what the quality.
To that end, I engaged the help of the very able Mark Warren, Internet Master at Fayetteville’s Community Access Television, and away we went.
The two that I chose to go with were ones that have been kicking around for a couple of years, one a bit of social commentary, and one bit of what I like to think of as comedy, but probably won’t cause any professional comedians to lose any sleep over.
It was actually a lot easier than I had ever expected. The source material was on DVD (originally VHS, then SVHS if you want to get really picky), which we transferred to mini-DV. At that point we hooked up a camera to a laptop, followed instructions so simple that even I could probably follow them next time all by myself, and I was now a YouTube Adventurer.
******
Ode to a Drive-In
Sturgeon’s Law, coined by the famous SF writer Theodore Sturgeon, goes like this:
Ninety percent of everything is crap.
Fair enough. I think that most of us, save for the most supreme egotist, can live happily with that. Personally, I’d be happy if ten percent of the stuff I wrote or produced on video approached anywhere near the un-crap stage.
Often it is the most inconsequential things that you produce that grab people’s attention the most, I think. Such was the case with one of the pieces we put on YouTube yesterday, “Ode to a Drive-In,” which was shot at the old 62 Drive-In, located where the Walmart Super Center is, between Fayetteville and Farmington.
With Lanny Anderson operating the camera, I stood in the empty field, about a hundred feet from the opening gates, and just spoke enthusiastically about my love for drive-in theaters. I had hoped that the screen would still be up when we did our shoot that day, but no one seems to mind.
Of all the pieces I have done (except for the past life regression, which will never be shown again) it is the piece that people still stop me on the street and tell me how much they enjoyed it. People love drive-ins, and I think I may have touched a common chord in many people when I did that piece.
It was made back in 1994, and my hair is . . . shaggy is the kindest way to describe it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vo6XlLtCc0
*****
Die, Baby Boomer, Die!
I have always sort of flirted with the idea of stand-up comedy, the way that some men flirt with the idea of being a crooner - though I’ve fantasized about that, as well, truth to tell.
I may be better at writing humor than performing, though, is my own cruel assessment on my abilities. At any rate, I cooked this little skit up about a year ago for the “Short Takes” segment on C.A.T.
Short Takes is a public service that C.A.T. offers the public so that anyone can come to the station and talk about anything they want to, on any subject, for several minutes. You just sit in the studio and let ‘er rip.
It’s like a video Letter to the Editor, only more interesting.
I’ve been watching public access for almost 30 years, and I recall the times when folks would petforms skits on Short Takes (or Take Fives, as they were once known), sing songs, or tell stories, as well as the usual sort of thing you see now.
I just thought, wouldn’t it be great if some of that old crazy energy came back. So I concocted a skit, a rant against baby boomers (who are pretty annoying, when you get right down to it), and I have to be literally get pulled off the set at the end of the skit by Heather Drain, who also works for C.A.T.
I think it’s funny. AARP might not, but as long as I keep paying my membership dues, what are they gonna say?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak-NGc65skY
****
Quote of the Day
By logic and reason we die hourly; by imagination we live. - W.B. Yeats
***
Showing My Age Department
While donating some books to an area library recently, I was going through their books that were for sale, and found a copy of Soul on Ice, by Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers. Back when I was a junior in high school (1971-72), “Soul on Ice” - along with The Greening of America, was assigned reading. And who said class-assigned reading wasn’t fun?
Monday, April 20, 2009 - 11:45:23
The Hanna Affair - the Florida Perspective
“Bonita Springs millionaire mother faces federal charges of abducting her daughter” is typical of how the headlines read in Florida.
From the Naples Daily News - April 16:
. . . The day after Brooke Hanna was to return home, Donna Hanna's lawyer filed an emergency motion for temporary custody. An affidavit by Naples family counselor Dianne Durante stated the teenager was uncomfortable living with her father, had flashbacks to inappropriate touching and "is in danger from her father."
In an interview with the Daily News soon after his daughter went missing, Burt Hanna scoffed at those allegations. He said similar claims had been made to child welfare services in Arkansas but that none had been confirmed.
How many claims have been made in the past about this?
Naples News - April 15:
The two were last seen in Fayetteville, when they urged a deputy to prevent Brooke from returning to her father's custody. They borrowed the car, a cream-colored Chrysler 300 with Arkansas plates, from a friend.
What was the deputy’s response? Was their request taken seriously, or just blown off? A lot of questions are being raised among readers on the Naples News website, questions that don’t seem to have been raised among readers (or reporters) here in Northwest Arkansas.
******
Naples News readers have questions for those of us in Arkansas
The following are postings from the Naples News site, in which readers are free to post their comments. While many comments are highly critical of Donna Hanna, there are several that are very supportive. In fact, more than a few read as though they may have been written by people who may actually know Donna Hanna.
The mother and daughter "snuck" back to Arkansas to go to the Sheriff's office and were told the Sheriff's office declined any investigation. If the mother only wanted to "kidnap" the daughter, why would she take the daughter back to Arkansas to try to get the Sheriff's office to listen to them? As posted above, there is much more to this story than reported. I don't want to hear what dad or mom have to say. I want to hear what the 15 (almost 16) year old daughter has to say. At that age, you are usually allowed some say in your custody arrangement.
And then there are these questions:
Why was Brooke afraid to return to her Dad?
Why didn't the deputy open the case with an investigation inquiry when a distraught Brooke returned with a plea for help?
Why wasn't the FL. counselor's statement regarding Brooke's fears of her dad enough to raise red flags?
Even if every allegation and fear is unfounded, why did a caring Mom and terrified Daughter have to flee instead of being heard and protected by the Fayetteville AR. courts?
Was the voice of the Mom not heard by the courts on previous occasions?
Were earlier allegations of inappropriate behavior by Mr Hanna, the Dad thoroughly investigated? "Old boys network", as the Father of this Dad was a mayor of that Hometown, of Fayetteville, AR.
www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/apr/07/bonita-springs-millionaire-mother-faces-federal-ch/.
*****
Quote of the Day
I've never in my life met a publisher who would make a pimple on the ass of a good reporter. The fact is that publishers don't know anything about readers. The disjunction between the
people who put out newspapers and the people who read them is a problem we all face. Most publishers think they can learn about readers by hiring semi-sociologists to give them focus groups. Whenever a publisher opens his mouth and begins a phrase, "Our readers," you can leave the room. - Pete Hamill (1998)
****
Hijacked! Fayetteville's So-Called Anti-Taxation Tea Party: commentary from Al Vick
Fayetteville’s Al Vick has some interesting (and, as always, well-written) thoughts on last weeks Tea Party on the Fayetteville Square on his blog this week
Yesterday, I checked out the so-called anti-taxation Tea Party that took place in front of the Town Center on the Fayetteville Square. Actually, I didn't really attend the event, but since I was in the immediate vicinity and was curious about what would be said and how many people would show up for it, I popped in once in awhile.
Fortunately, I got to enjoy the company of some Green Party folks and other progressives who apparently, had the same curiosity about the event as me. Their good humor and insight helped improve my mood considerably, especially since my annoyance with tea-party organizers continued to grow as the starting time for the program grew nearer.
To read more:
http://manyhatsspeaks.blogspot.com/
Friday, April 17, 2009 - 00:21:47
Nuremberg Defense becomes new legal standard for U.S.?
A few weeks ago, I watched one of Rod Serling’s great scripts for The twilight Zone, “Death’s Head Revisited,” in which a former Nazi officer returns to Dachau, the site of so much human suffering and cruelty. In the episode, the officer is confronted by the long-dead ghosts of his past, who have returned to exact a justice that the officer has managed to thus far escape.
As he is being driven mad, the words of his accuser echo in his ,mind:
"This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice. But this is only the beginning, Captain. Only the beginning. Your final judgment will come from God."
Justice, for those CIA officers who just “followed orders,” and tortured on orders from higher ups, will have to come from God, because at the moment when it most counted, when the eyes of the world were truly upon us, our country blinked.
For one shining moment we had the moral high ground in sight, and we cast our eyes downward, and turned our horses away.
Befehl ist Befehl, is German for “order is order,” the mealy-mouthed whine of every man who has ever put another human being through agony so severe that most of us can not even imagine it. This may be the first time in history that a society has ever debated torture openly, and had pundits and politicians declaring their fondness for it.
“I’m a Christian and I approve of torture,” is not unheard of.
Even Starlog, the science fiction magazine, had a not-so-funny cartoon about waterboarding Aquaman in some time ago.
I’m sorry; every time I see any of these people profess their enthusiasm for torture, I always see them in an SS uniform.
Befehl ist Befehl.
They had a choice, each and every one of them, and they chose to ignore whatever was left of their soul, screaming for attention in their back pocket, and set about their masters’ work, safe in the knowledge that they were merely following orders.
It’s not merely a time for reflection, but is a time for accountability, and a time to own up to our national shame and even obsession with torture, and behaving like characters in a movie.
By shoving all of this under the rug, and welcoming the torturers back into the fold, we are telling them that it really is okay, and we are telling the next president that is’s okay. And we’re telling the rest of the world that we don’t give a damn about their quaint notions of justice, or morality, or even weeding out the bad apples, as long as we all get along - in this country, that is.
At the end of The Twilight Zone episode, a doctor angrily asks why Dachau is allowed to remain standing. No one present seems to have an answer, but as the cars drive away, Rod Serling renders his final judgement:
There is an answer to the doctor's question. All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes - all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers. Something to dwell on and to remember, not only in the Twilight Zone but wherever men walk God's Earth.
******
Quote of the Day
All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination? - C.J. Jung, "Modern Man in Search of a Soul"
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 - 10:26:00
Weaving "benevolent" messages into TV shows: Stop, Bill Gates! Please!
Comes word now that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has hit upon the notion of inserting messages about disease prevention and surgical safety and other causes into such programs as Law and Order: SVU and Private Practice.
So the foundation would “indirectly” aid production costs, while these messages are “seamlessly” woven into the programs. Yeah, we’ve all seen how seamless ordinary product placement can be, where the entire conversation can revolve around a product - clumsy - or the simple holding of a beer bottle so that the name can be seen.
Wow! The Stargate SG1 guys drink Heineken! Maybe I should, too!
This may seem like just the ticket for those who don’t actually watch television, and think that it should all be just one vast public service announcement, and reruns of The Man Show. But for those who enjoy the rare well-written script (yes, Virginia, there are such things) in the vast desert of crap that is out there, it is nothing short of an abomination.
I think that one of the reasons for the popularity of the stations that offer older programming (nostalgia aside) is that so many of the stories actually hold up well today. Believe me, you could do worse on a rainy Sunday afternoon than watch an episode of Gunsmoke.
Storytelling means something. When we sit down in front of the tube, we don’t want to be insulted any more than humanly possible, so we pick out what appeals to us, to our emotions and our intellects. We love well-told stories.
Nothing hurts the experience more than some someone - no matter how well-meaning - with a hammer and chisel, tries insert a “message” into a story that is complete unto itself.
It is like your neighbor starting up the lawnmower outside your window just when the story gets going. It breaks the link, and you become resentful. You lose interest.
But hey, you think the guys who are paying for the hammer and chisel care?
To read more:
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/04/messages-on-pri.html
******
Quote of the Day
Florence Farr once said to me, "If we could say to ourselves, with sincerity, this passing moment is as good as any I shall ever know," we could die upon the instant, and be united to God. - W.B Yeats
*****
Product placement I could almost live with
Recently on a rerun of Boston Legal I found an example of product placement I could actually live with, if not approve of.
One of the characters struck up a conversation with a woman by the side of a pool, and asked what she was reading. The Da Vinci Code, she replied. Okay, it’s a silly story - but if it gets someone to pick up a book, I’m all for it.
Most product placement concerns itself with just one particular product. But books? After all, who can read just one?
Damn the torpedoes! Full Twitter ahead!
Blanche Lambert Lincoln shafts working-class Americans - yet again
SLAPP Shot
Twitter: I'm just not that into you
Class Warfare and the Seven Deadly Sins
The Secret World of Security Guards
-
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
RSS Feed |
  |
| © 2004 - 07 Arkansas Times. All Rights Reserved. |  |
