Category: Uncategorized

Commercially repulsive QUESTION

I loathed these commercials so much that I have, years later, never purchased a package of Wisk.

I’ve refused to buy a number of products over the years for various reasons: political/economic boycotts for iceberg lettuce, orange juice, and the like.

But there have also been commercials out there that have just offended my sensibilities.

One was for a drink mix from Pillsbury called Funny Face, targeted to compete with Kool-Aid. Not only did the character on this particular envelope look like a caricature, if memory serves, he also sounded like one. It’s no surprise that the product was replaced by a more generic Choo Choo Cherry a couple years later.

But no long-running commercial bugged me more than those for Wisk laundry detergent and its irritating “Ring Around the Collar”. Often featuring a woman looking frustrated and shamed when her husband, a friend, or even a total stranger noticed that the husband’s shirt collar was less than pristine. Here are some examples here and here, plus you can find plenty more on the Internet; this later ad was less bad, but by then it was too late. I loathed these commercials so much that I have, years later, never purchased a package of Wisk.

(Company policies generally can cut both ways. On one hand, a potential boycott against Butterball turkeys, because they are halal, might make me MORE likely to buy them. On the other, Butterball being sued by EEOC for harassment and the firing of an HIV+ employee, not so much.

What commercials, or company policies, backfired with you, making you LESS likely to purchase the product?

The Naked Communist

The point of the recent recitation, I’m guessing, was to show how much of a Communist/socialist country the United States has become.

One of the lowlights of an otherwise pleasant Thanksgiving was when one of my relatives, in whose home we were all staying for a couple of nights, decided to read to us the list of 45 goals of the Communist party as stated in the book The Naked Communist, “written in 1958 by conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist Cleon Skousen.” The goals were read into the Congressional Record in 1963. There are also YouTube videos about this, but I won’t link to them.

The point of the recent recitation, I’m guessing, was to show how much of a Communist/socialist country the United States has become. For instance, 7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N. has happened – aha! There are those who have argued that 15 – Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States – has taken place, and you can guess which party. Likewise, the so-called liberal press (20), social welfare program (32), et al. Add to that some items that many people might agree with has happened to some degree (25 – changes in morality) and you have an apparently prescient document that lives a half-century later in some circles.

Here’s the thing: I KNEW there would be some religious/political provocation that would take place before we got there. I had previously vowed: “Don’t engage. Don’t engage.” But it was tough, really tough; the hole in my lower lip, where I had been biting it, has only recently begun to heal. Not sure that it was the right decision either; if/when it comes up again, and it surely will, I’ll have to decide then.

I was most pleased, though, by my mother-in-law, who, in response to a comment about how difficult it is to follow God’s law perfectly, noted an American Indian tradition to put deliberate imperfections in their crafts because only God is perfect. Suggesting that a Native American deity is somehow equivalent to THE God was quite an…interesting response in this setting.

35 iff

Just like civil rights activists were firehosed, beaten and even killed, it almost always takes struggle before a modicum of justice can be achieved.

 

Psalm 90:10 in the King James Version reads, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they are fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

It occurred to me that Matthew Sheperd would have been 35 today – half of three score and ten – had he not been crucified on October 7, 1998. The peculiar thing about his death is that it always seems to take a tragedy for attitudes and behaviors to change. There are several activities the Matthew Shepard Foundation is involved with, including support for The Laramie Project, a play that has “become a powerful tool for communities to discuss and explore how hate impacts every part of their society.”

Just like civil rights activists were firehosed, beaten, and even killed, it almost always takes struggle before a modicum of justice can be achieved. Not incidentally, it was 56 years ago today that Rosa Parks sat on a bus in Birmingham, Alabama, and ended up getting arrested. This led to the yearlong boycott, which, along with court remedies, helped change the course of segregation – not all at once, but just a little bit at a time.

It’s also World AIDS Day. Here are CDC Statistics and UN data, and AVERT projects. The good news is that more people are living with, rather than dying from, AIDS, but more still needs to be done.

November Untranslatable Rambling

gobsmacked AND flabbergasted

I lead with some heavy stuff; it gets lighter after the pic.

Read the sad tale of Bill Mantlo, former comic book writer and attorney, until a hit-and-run accident wrecked his life. Mark Evanier, linking to the article, writes: “Those who still fear government ‘death panels’ should take note of the portions of Mantlo’s story where his private insurer keeps trying to cut off all payments to him because, after all, their primary duty is to their stockholders.” Here’s the direct link to the article, and here’s Evanier’s correction to the article about the comic book process, which does not negate the insane way Mantlo has been warehoused.

But for sheer devastation, few things I’ve read actually made me weep like Jaquandor’s recollection of a particular day.

Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky’s Next Coaching Gig

The Beatles album artwork worth £70,000: Top 10 most valuable record sleeves revealed

How music changes our brains

The Beach Boys An Introduction to “SMiLE Sessions”, released this month. It’s great seeing Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and Brian Wilson on the same page.

Michelle Shocked – Quality of Mercy (version)

Evanier also found The Lambeth Walk as performed by Adolf Hitler and a batch of Nazi soldiers, which reportedly had Joseph Goebbels running, screaming from the room in anger. In fact, there are about a dozen versions of this song on his blog this month.

A song about Roman Emperor Constantine…sung to the tune of “Come On Eileen”. Of COURSE, it is.

SamuraiFrog linked to Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me) by Reunion. What caught my eye, though, were the initial visuals, which I recognized INSTANTLY from a commercial for Country Corn Flakes; I knew that ad by heart, I’m afraid.

American expat linguist Lynneguist, now in the UK, lists the untranslatables, those British and American English terms that don’t travel well across the pond. I made a comment, and a word I used as a jumping-off point for even more discussion.

Saucy Shakespearean Slings

Sid Melton, R.I.P. – if you watched a lot of TV in in the 1950s and later, you might say, “Oh, THAT guy.”

Maine Man’s Car Logs One Million Miles, Equivalent to Driving Around Earth 40 Times. Imagine how far he would have gotten if he’d only taken care of the vehicle.

Dustbury’s Today’s brain-cloud generator. Say What?

Mike Sterling was gobsmacked AND flabbergasted. Which is how I felt when I saw the middle item, about a new font, on Jaquandor’s page.

The Harvey Pekar Library Statue at the Comics as Art & Literature Desk — A Comics project in Cleveland Heights, OH. And Steve Bissette’s support for the same. Plus, in support of this memorial, Joyce Brabner has “coaxed Alan Moore out of the darkness wherein he dwells to video record a special message to comics folk in which he’s offering several hours– by invitation only– video conference from his home in the UK. Viewers may ask impertinent questions. Alan tells great stories.”

Bill Cosby – The Playground

Hawkeye Pierce as a serial killer

GOOGLE ALERT

Pols’ promise to themselves by Roger Green, Scottsbluff

George Harrison: 10 Years Gone

George was executive producer of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a film I just picked up on DVD.

 

Unless I am misremembering, the first TIME magazine cover after September 11, 2001, that was not about 9/11 or the subsequent war in Afghanistan was the one announcing the death of George Harrison. I was sad that George died, of course, but I knew he was sick and not likely to get better. The top cover was the US version; the bottom one, the UK take.

This is obvious, I imagine, but one deals differently when someone dies expectedly or unexpectedly, by disease or by murder. John Lennon’s death a couple of decades earlier was a jolt; George’s was just sad.

In fact, George’s passing made me melancholy the more I thought about his contribution to the world, especially around the time of what would have been his 59th birthday the following February. He was a Beatle, of course. But he also organized the first of those superstar extravaganzas, the Concert for Bangladesh. He put out some great music as a solo artist. And he was executive producer of a couple dozen movies, including Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a film I just picked up on DVD, I liked it so much.

There was a Martin Scorsese documentary about George this year, which I haven’t seen. Here are some photos from it, and a piece from the New York Times. Also, there was an article Living in the Material World – 5 Things I Learned About George Harrison from the Scorsese Documentary, four of which I actually knew.

Other recent articles about George:
Rolling Stone magazine AGAIN did one of those 100 greatest Beatles songs. George had two in the top 10.

George had an Indian soul, according to his wife

The unseen GH photo album

George Harrison exhibit at the GRAMMY Museum

Borders liquidators sell off George Harrison guitar

And, of course, some music:

A couple of songs where George namechecks the Beatles:
Living in the Material World – GH
When We Was Fab – GH

Two versions of the Wilbury Twist by the Traveling Wilburys
1990 version, with lots of then-current stars
2007 version, which dumps most of them

A cover version of one of George’s best songs as a Beatle:
While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney, both of whom played on the original.

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