Follow the money after Rush's apology

Strange, is it not, that Rush Limbaugh would actually apologize for smearing Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown law school student, by calling her a "prostitute" and "slut"?

This is reportedly the first time that Limbaugh, a  serial smearer, has ever apologized.

Odd. Does Rush's half-hearted apology actually signal a change?

Not really. Rush is entirely consistent.

Rush is in it for the money.

When his advertisers started dropping his program in the wake of the Fluke attack (Thank you, President Obama, for shedding light on it by calling to console Fluke), the advertisers were using the only language that Rush understands — money.

How does he win back the lost revenue?

Apologize.

The real test will be whether the apology will work to win back the ad revenues. Will his advertisers finally own up to paying for Rush's poisonous language each and everyday broadcast day? Indeed, aren't THEY the ones who should be apologizing?

Who knows how many deranged listeners are actually persuaded by Limbaugh's extravagantly-rewarded verbal smears.

Let's see whether the advertising money returns to pay for the poison.

PS Ron Paul makes the same analysis HERE.

Herbert hits the mark — again

For the second Saturday in a row, Bob Herbert of the New York Times, has hit the mark. This time the reader has to get to the bottom of his column to find the target, but there it is for all to see.

Among the many heartening things about the workers fighting back in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere is the spotlight that is being thrown on the contemptuous attitude of the corporate elite and their handmaidens in government toward ordinary working Americans: police officers and firefighters, teachers, truck drivers, janitors, health care aides, and so on. These are the people who do the daily grunt work of America. How dare we treat them with contempt.

It would be a mistake to think that this fight is solely about the right of public employees to collectively bargain. As important as that issue is, it’s just one skirmish in what’s shaping up as a long, bitter campaign to keep ordinary workers, whether union members or not, from being completely overwhelmed by the forces of unrestrained greed in this society (My emphasis. RS).

The predators at the top, billionaires and millionaires, are pitting ordinary workers against one another. So we’re left with the bizarre situation of unionized workers with a pension being resented by nonunion workers without one. The swells are in the background, having a good laugh.

As George Lakoff has observed, politics is all about "framing" the issue. As long as this is about Republican politicians versus Democratic unions, the real culprits remain invisible. Herbert is rightly using a much bigger frame and hoping that the political action fills it.

It may be wishful thinking.

When will the protest move from the state capitols and follow the money trail back to Wall Street, the offices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the gated mansions of the super-rich?

When they are identified as the source of the problem.

What makes Herbert's columns so refreshing is that in very few places in the mainstream media do you see the issue framed as a symptom of a plutocracy. The reason should be clear: the media are owned by the plutocrats. When, and if, protesters direct their action against the real cause, rest assured the media will described those in the streets as "radicals waging class warfare."

Funny that all those protesters in the Middle East aren't also labeled "radicals waging class warfare." Instead they are "pro-Democracy forces." That's because they are over THERE and we are HERE, where the corporate boards are interlocked and the hefty media paychecks (from corporate advertisers and underwriters) get written and cashed.

Good News: Media giants may darken your TV!

For several years I’ve been among a group of activists encouraging folks to turn off their TVs — at least for TV-Turnoff Week, the third week in April.

With no support from the media (surprise!), it’s been a tough sell.

Now it seems that we have some help from battling media giants. The battle may turn off FOX on the hundreds of thousands of Time Warner cable-connected TV sets.

One of many stories about the struggle is here.

Not surprisingly, the fight is over money. With media, it’s always about money. Ultimately, it’s your money. Think cable subscription costs and the add-on price you pay for advertising.

FOX, the cable content provider, wants Time-Warner, the content delivery corporation, to pay more for Fox’s programming. Dueling full-page ads in the newspapers thinly hide the greed that is behind the industry.

Today’s New York Times ran the vying ads just pages apart.

Here’s FOX’s headline:

“TOMORROW NIGHT
TIME WARNER CABLE
MAY STOP CARRYING
FOX!”

Shocking!

The ad tells viewers they may not be able to see the college bowl game in which Cincinnati plays Florida. Horrors!

Or watch the NFL. A real blow!

Or tune in to “American Idol.” Say it isn’t so!

Faced with such dire threats, says the FOX ad, irate viewers should sign an on-line petition.

My suggestion: Let the screen, on all channels, go to black. Give life a try without televised football and “American Idol." Go out and toss the football with your kids or sing idolized (TV) freedom songs together. "We shall over come...."

Now for the Time Warner ad. This one is laid out like a ransom note from FOX. It is headlined with cut-out, askew, mismatched ransom-note letters:

“PAY OUR PRICE
OR YOU’LL
NEVER SEE
FOX AGAIN”

Get it?

Time Warner’s tag line is “Don’t let FOX hold your TV hostage.”

Consider this. How threatening is the demand and how valuable is the hostage if said hostage is actually stealing your time and money?

Is there another hostage here? Could you be hostage to your own TV addiction?

The fact is that whatever Time Warner and Fox work out as their deal is going to come out of the pockets of cable subscribers like you. Could it be that Time Warner is worried you will actually pull the plug on your cable service if FOX goes missing, or if your rates go up?

Perhaps. Imagine, no more inflated monthly charges in this time of economic hardship. And then there's always the competition from the Internet.

No, this is not a life-and-death hostage situation as Time Warner would have us believe. It is take-it-or-leave-it time for cable television.

So just leave it. And leave FOX and Time Warner to fight over programming that is suddenly worthless because no one is watching.

Here are the dueling web sites:

Time Warner’s www.rolloverorgettough.com
FOX: www.keepfoxon.com

Wristwatch prices for Space Aliens

Dear Space Alien, let me explain the price of wristwatches, a truly baffling topic, even for Earthlings.

For more on watches, a lot more, go here on your spaceship’s computer.

Let’s start with my own watch (the small one in the photo), a Sharp Opti-Glo that I bought eight years ago in Boston for $19.95. It is so named because when I find myself in the dark (as I often am), I push on its crown and its face lights up.

It is modest with its round, off-white face and large numerals. It has a brown stitched band, which has seen better days. Its face also signifies in small letters that it is waterproof to 100 feet. I’ve never put it to the test, although I have worn it eight, damp Oregon years without its losing a second.

Sure, it’s had a new band and two battery replacements along the way. I installed a new battery as recently as August. The upkeep has probably cost me as much as the original price of the watch.

So it was with some consternation that I noticed a couple of weeks ago that the watch was losing about five minutes a day.

Well, I said to myself, (Earthlings have this habit of talking to themselves), “That’s not bad for $19.95 plus two batteries and a band over eight years.”

And with that I was thrown into a “new watch” frame of mind.

When it comes to wristwatches, we Earthlings do have our options. A lot of options.

Here’s where things get weird, Dear Alien.

Macy’s has been running a full page of women’s wristwatches that range from $45 to $95. Some have “peace sign dials.” The peace symbol is very much in fashion these days. That in itself is worth a modest price bump.

Also in fashion, alas, is war. On this subject I direct any Alien questions to our Leader, who has done serious thinking and deciding about war of late. Be sure to ask him whether "just war" is relative — depending which side you are on and whether you survive.

Back to the watches in the Macy’s ad.

Some are “multi-functioned,” which means they have alarms, show dates and days of the week and such. Time, like a diamond, is multi-faceted here on Earth. We waste it, we shorten (and lengthen) it, we lose it, and we conquer it.

By the way, one distinct option is to buy a watch encrusted with diamonds. For some, the diamonds are more important than the watch.

Macy’s also advertises an Emporio Armi for $295. This one is definitely for us guys. Note “Emporio.” We will meet macho “master” watches in a moment.

Also note the term “chronograph” creeps into the ad’s copy.

At some point, watches merit being called “chronographs” or "chronometers." (Among some wealthy Earthlings, the term “watch” may be just too plebeian. With “chronograph” they get what they pay for — name wise. Technically a chronograph must include a stop-watch function, but who cares?)

Expensive watches also take on exotic French names. When aristocratic-sounding names appear prominently on watch faces, prices take off.

Take for example the Ballon Bleu De Cartier, which is in a “Collection starting at $3,950.” The tag line on the ad says “Time for Elegance.” The ad would have us believe that anything costing less measures inelegant, even shabby, time. I certainly wouldn’t call time measured by my Sharp Opti-Glo the “Time of Elegance.”

Somehow I manage.

And speaking of taking off, Rolex offers “The Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master II," which a New Yorker ad calls “The Pilot’s Watch." “The GMT-Master II is recognized as invaluable to professionals and serious travelers around the world.” This watch (pictured in the above photo) is so invaluable, apparently, that the ad doesn’t mention its price. (No wonder; they sell on Amazon for $8,895.)

Similarly, there is no price attached to the Movado “Master Automatic,” (note the “master” for both the Movado and the Rolex), the TAG Heuer Grand Carrera, or the Vacheron Constantin (very old and very Swiss, according to its ad).

For reasons known only to Madison Avenue's wizards of persuasion, a New York Times ad for the Jaeger-LeCoultre “Master Grande Ultra Thin” displays the watch’s price: $7250. And, though "master"-ful, because it has no stop-watch function, it doesn’t even qualify as a chronograph.

At $7250, you can take it or leave it.

So, dear Alien, if you are still with me, you may be wondering what I'll pay to replace my Sharp Opti-Glo.

Sadly, Sharp not only has stopped making Opti-Glos but has ceased making wristwatches.

That little conundrum led to a small watch-purchasing blunder. I went on-line and, with a click of a key, bought a $25.98 Timex with a rectangular face and a brown band. That includes, shipping.

Because the Timex wouldn’t arrive for 10 days, the interval gave me time to ponder my Sharp as it fell farther and farther behind the other watches and clocks in the world.

On a chance, I took it to Rite-Aid, where I buy my batteries and where I happen to know they have a battery tester and friendly clerks with time on their hands and minuscule screwdrivers. I pried open the Sharp's back, and the eager young clerk and I probed the battery with the tester’s prongs. The needle barely budged.

Weak, very weak.

Then we noticed two other batteries buried away in the Opti-Glo. Could one be for the Opti-glo light? Never mind. They too were weak. For $10 (including a $5 mail-in rebate) I bought three batteries.

After four days, I can declare that the Sharp is back on time. So I’m into two working watches for $35.98, which is less than one percent what I would pay for a Cartier Ballon Bleu De Cartier. For the price of the Rolex I could supply 342 people in some remote, timeless hamlet with Timexes — assuming that they would want them.

I realize, Dear Alien, that I have utterly failed to explain why two watches would cost a small fraction of what one with a fancy-sounding name would. The fact is that watches do the same thing (keep time) — but differently (solar powered, Quartz, mechanical) and with different names and associations (peace, pilots, elegance etc.)— and at exceedingly different prices.

All of this is shockingly irrational, but very, very human. You wouldn’t understand.

With time, I may be able to explain why an Earthling needs more than one watch.

Editor backs anti-junk food campaign

Marie Sherlock, the editor of Portland’s Metro-Parent magazine, understands the importance of teaching kids media literacy.

She has posted an astute entry on the magazine’s blog HERE.

It congratulates the Nutrition Council of Oregon for a recent campaign fighting junk food and the associated health hazards it poses to our children.

Here is one of the Council’s ads:


I was moved to respond to Marie’s post with this.

Great post.

My first thought is that children shouldn't be confronted with ads for junk food in the first place. Most of them are on children's TV programing. Others are in grocery stores in the form of "feel good" packaging. The products are often "tied-in" to TV programing and advertising.

The "help" we can give our children is to get rid of the TV. In the store, introduce children to nutrition labels and the false impression left by packaging and its commercial labels.

The only choices a child should have about food should come from responsible parents.

Blocking ads for better journalism

I’ve done something recently to make a small contribution to the future of thriving, responsible journalism.

I’ve installed Adblock Plus on my Mac. The program strips virtually all ads from my regular news sites.

If everyone installed the ad blocker program, we would wipe out a traditional revenue source available to the news business as it moves on line.

Of course the industry is struggling to come up with feasible economic models that work on the web. Unless news organizations can maneuver around ad blockers, they won’t be able to count on advertising as part of their plans.

That’s just fine with me.

I don’t feel guilty about blocking ads, including those that dance onto the screen and obscure the news.

Adblocker and I are just doing our bit to take journalism off the profit-driven treadmill that has so undercut journalism recently.

I’ve always hoped that journalism would be seen as a quasi-public utility. To serve the public interest, it should not be subject to the incentives of the commercial marketplace and the stock market.

I side with those who are looking to foundations to pay for independent, quality journalism. Among the foundations should be those that raise tax-deductible money from readers hungry for in-depth, unbiased reporting.

In this FOX News age, we need to be reminded that the goal of the news media should be to report and inform, not to harangue and create celebrity blowhards. For that reason, foundation boards should consist of journalists, not politicians, investors or others with vested interests.

If you want to help journalism, check out Adblock. And to see one way journalism could go with foundation support, visit Pro Publica.

Disclosure: My own neighborhood news site, The Hillsdale News, has sponsors that Adblock can’t touch (at least so far). The pittance I ask from local businesses pays solely for web hosting and support, about $600 a year. I volunteer my work as reporter and editor. If I were to make a non-volunteer, non-profit of The Hillsdale News, I’d switch to reader contributions and seek foundation support.

"Ageless" is Shameless

The Oregonian tells us that we "honorary citizens" now have perfume to solve a problem we never knew we had.

According to a story in Saturday's edition, we reek of something more than wisdom. The purveyors of a smelly concoction called "Ageless” want us to believe we emit a senior stench.

To the creators of “Ageless” and their fear-mongering marketing managers, here’s a scent for you. It’s called "Shameless."

Its bottle is the shape of an accusatory finger.

“Ageless” sells for $120 a bottle. Such a deal.

The product and its advertising and PR campaigns are all examples of the common marketing ploy of making us afraid of ourselves (Too fat? Too thin? Too frizzy? Too old? Too uptight?) and then offering us overpriced products (prices inflated by PR/advertising) to allay the fake fears.

P.S. Shameful is The Oregonian story about “Ageless."

Headline: “Ah, the sweet smell of youth” Subhead: “Getting older stinks — literally. So here comes Ageless, a perfume that, olfactorily speaking, knocks a few years off”

Something smells all right, but it isn’t seniors. The story stinks. It perspires mightily trying to tie the perfume "solution" and some aging smell “problem” to science.

It’s a weak thread, as you will see if you read the story.

Schools and scoreboards that don't know the score

Modern sports reporting prides itself on tying athletics to the real world, but today’s Oregonian was living in la-la land with a gushy story about glitzy video scoreboards at high schools. The new high-tech boards — billboards really — are showcases for junk food and junk beverages.

Oh, they do show the score, buried somewhere in the 7-Up and Dr. Pepper ads.

The Oregonian’s sports editors might want to check out today’s Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times. He addresses the menace posed to kids by soft drinks, aka “liquid candy bars.” In New York state, Gov. Paterson has proposed slapping a hefty 18 percent sales tax on soft drinks in order to discourage their consumption. Tax revenue could be used to support our schools.

Meanwhile high school athletics departments, to tap into advertising revenues and to hype sports, are welcoming beverage advertisers to sell dangerous, diabetes-causing junk drinks to kids via score boards.

In the Oregonian story, an athletic coach in Dallas, Oregon, added a scary but true observation. The article quoted him as saying that sports is another classroom for kids. In other words, sports teaches lessons — in this case, dangerous ones.

As the coach put it, “I really think so goes athletics, so goes your school.” And so goes education.

So what’s the score? Health — 0; Diabetes, obesity and other sugar-related health problems — 200 plus (in pounds).

And the people who run the schools are getting more stupid, and dangerous to our kids, by the minute.

Your car as "most favorite" room

Marketing people like to “reframe” products so that they appear to be more than what they are.

A skin lotion is an anti-age elixir. A diamond is a timeless message. An expensive watch symbolizes a successful career.

So it was that Robert L. Nardelli, the new head of Chrysler (formerly, and significantly, CEO of Home Depot) described today’s car as the “most favorite (sic) room under your roof.”

Then he told his audience, a group of magazine publishers, “It’s incidental that it gets you from Point A to B, right?”

To which I say, wrong. If it doesn’t get me from Point A to B, I don’t care what room it is, I’m not entering it.

Chrysler apparently isn’t any better at picking its executives that the rest of the oil-fixated American automobile industry. (Yesterday, Chrysler announced that it was laying off 13,000 workers. Since 2006 the automaker, counting the announced layoffs, will have cut 80,000 employees, a 30 percent reduction.)

But Nardelli did get me to thinking about all the other things cars have become other than, well, cars and “most favorite” rooms.

Here is a partial list:

Phone booths.

Real-world video racing games. (Weave at high speed in and out of lanes, then crash, likely die and kill or maim others.)

Love nests.

Powerhouses.

Bars or detox cells.

Escape modules. From whatever — the mundane, your 9 to 5, rush hour traffic).

Flashy clothing.

Self-rewards.

Sex surrogates.

Weapons of mass destruction (think car bombs).

Ego gratifiers.

Global warmers.

Oh, and incidentally, they get you from point A to B.

Right?

We can hope.

Boys of October flumaxed by Flomax, Play Station

More troubling and strange (but less embarrassing) than all the flubbed pop-up flies in game seven of the American League Playoff Series, were the ads.

I don’t watch much TV, but the last game between the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox reeled me in — at least until Boston ran off with it.

Another enticement was the new HD TV we got on Saturday. We finally retired the 17-year-old pre-digital, low-definition boulder hulking in our sitting room.

If the new 32-incher isn’t exactly a revelation, at least I now know the score — literally. I can actually make out the little numbers along the top of the screen. Talk about high definition.

So what was it about the ads that perplexed me?

Think: Flomax and Play Station. (How far we’ve come from Budweiser and Gillette!)

Consider what the two products have in common.

Like audience.

Hmmmm. Gamers who have trouble peeing? Unlikely, unless they are even more addicted than I imagined.

There’s no question that the generation that cut its teeth on Gameboys is getting on. But are they so far along that they have — and here I quote from the Flomax web page — “difficulty urinating (hesitation, dribbling, weak stream, and incomplete bladder emptying), painful urination, and urinary frequency and urgency”?

Just out of curiosity I Googled “Prostate” (the main culprit here, particularly an enlarged one) and “video games” and found only a remote, but curious, connection.

(Did someone say, “Get a life.” Bear with me. Trenchant point ahead!)

Turns out that surgeons who do laparoscopic surgery do better after playing video games. (See, I told you so.)

Or to quote:
“Hand–eye coordination: video games and laparoscopic surgery
A new study has demonstrated that some of the skills needed to perform laparoscopic surgery are similar to those used when playing video games.”

Score one for video games. (Personal historic note: My dad was a urologist and did his share of laparoscopic surgery. He was damned good at it. That said, the closest he came to playing video games was shooting pool, which he did badly. As a kid of 10, I routinely cleaned his clock.)

Moving right along….

Turns out that cancers, including prostate cancer, are less common among males older than 65 when they exercise regularly (that is to say they are NOT playing sedentary video games...and yes I realize that some games now involve physical exercise, but most don’t.)

Again, to quote: “The results showed that men older than 65 years of age who engaged in three hours or more of vigorous physical activity a week had a marked reduction—of nearly 70 percent—in their risk of developing high-grade, advanced or fatal prostate cancer.”

Score one against video games. Okay, okay, score one for exercise.

But the study found no correlation between exercise and prostate cancer among the young. The young rarely get prostate cancer in any case. Count that as a draw.

Fascinating, huh?

No?

Well, let’s see what the World Series brings.

I don’t know about the Flomax and Play Station ads, but I’d like to see better communication between infielders and outfielders on pop-ups. Less hesitation and dribbling.

I’m not sure what can be done for weak streams, but a little Flomax might help.

Ad creep at The Oregonian

Today's Oregonian displayed further evidence of the decline of "Old Media."

Ceding more ground to advertisers to an effort to reverse declining ad revenues, editors are being told to let ads actually intrude visually into stories.

I wrote a friend, who is a senior editor at the Oregonian, to complain about a Dodge ad on page A5.

Here, in part, is what I wrote my friend:

"I know the barriers between editorial and advertising have been under siege for years, but this is blatant visual evidence of it.

"Ads and stories, in my view, should be visually separate.

"The line is literally breached with this ad. To me the layout suggests that editorial content is being encroached upon by advertising.

"Those Dodges are 'running over' the news —and journalism is the victim. The page makes a visual statement of troubling priorities."

He wrote me back a one-liner: "Thanks, Rick ... the world is changing ... not always in ways we like."

The response is more depressing than ad-dominated page layout.

Arguments with advertising

My Sunday Oregonian arrived on the driveway this morning stuffed in an Ikea wrappper ad that read in big letters, “Home is the most important place in the world.”

Call me a crazy, but to me the most important place in the world is … the world. Without it we would not have our homes. And if we continue to fill up our homes with junk — even elegantly designed Swedish junk — we won’t have the world.

***

Consider this quote from a Friday New York Times article carrying the headline “Product Packages Now Shout To Grab Your Fickle Attention.” The quote is from a chief executive of a “brand agency” in Cincinnati who thinks off-beat packaging is a hot advertising medium.

“The media is fragmented, and we can’t find people — we can’t get them to sit down and listen to our argument on a television spot.”

Argument on a television spot?

Since when do television spots present arguments. The whole appeal of television as an advertising medium is that it short-circuits reason and goes for gut emotion.

If you look at the new glitzy packaging — Kleenex in oval boxes, Mountain Dew in graffiti-inspired bottles — none has anything remotely to do with making an argument.

***

Last spring the University of Oklahoma agreed to sell the naming rights to one of its premier campus schools. Voila! Conoco-Phillips School of Geology and Geophysics, the university is only the most recent institution to sell a respected name for corporate money. In this case, for $6 million.

Could it be that one day, public institutions will be so financially starved that this city, this state, and even this nation will sell their names to corporations? I once thought I would be spared such travesty in my lifetime, but now I’m not so sure.

Here’s an idea. Let’s name our major environmental disasters after corporations. Hurricane Exxon Mobil? Chevron Global Warming?

And why not name our wars after those for whom they are being fought? Isn’t the Iraq War really Big Oil War?

Credit where credit is due.

***

Finally there’s the Oregonian front page story this morning about the explosion of billboards in the state since the passage of Measure 37. The story quotes folks who are rightfully offended by the blight caused by the new signs.

When I ran The Connection newspaper, I launched an editorial campaign to fight a huge sign that went up at the corner of Shattuck and Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, right across from Albertson’s.

My approach was simple and I wish it had been mentioned in the Oregonian story (I’ll write a letter to the editor tomorrow, which may or may not get printed). The solution: Get readers to call the companies advertising on the billboard and tell them that their ads are counterproductive. As in, we don't do business with outfits that blight our community.

As an editorial service over several months I provided readers with CEO names and phone numbers.

After a few dozen calls, the advertisers got the message. The billboard company (now Clear Channel) literally couldn’t give away the space. They tried. When the Oregon Zoo was offered free space and took it, we complained to Metro, which runs the zoo.

The Zoo ads came down and then the sign came down.

The bottom-line message is this: Businesses should be judged by the ways they advertise.

If ads are intrusive (Portland Trolley voice sponsorship ads for instance), if they offend (ever see a sexist ad?), if they blight the Commons (billboards or illegal signs on public roads, for example), if they slap their names on public institutions (buying naming rights — PGE Park and the Conoco-Phillips School of Geology and Geophysics), then we, the public, should openly and repeatedly vow to take our business elsewhere.

Media trifecta: sponsored columns, advertising banter and mega names

Normally I don’t hit a media-watch trifecta, but yesterday The New York Times served up one. One score was on the sports page; two were in the business section (of course).

The crumbling wall

First we have further erosion of the once purported impervious barrier between advertising and editorial content in newspapers. Now the Philadelphia Inquirer, under new management, is selling off “sponsored columns,” assuring its readers that the editorial integrity of said columns will be maintained.

Never mind the appearance of conflict of interest.

What’s to say that every newspaper reliant on advertising (and they all are) hadn’t sold out in its integrity long before this? Well the theory was that if you spread out the revenue source widely, no single part of the paper would suffer the loss of its independence.

Under the new game, advertisers can pick off individual columnists one by one.

I suppose there’s a model for this in broadcasting. If networks can sell whole programs to single sponsors, why can’t newspapers sell columnists to advertisers?

I fear that a newspaper industry spiraling to its demise just steepened its descent.

Shilling for dollars

Then there’s the curious situation in Dallas where our old friends at Clear Channel (they own most of Portland’s billboards and KPOJ) have dropped commercials — sort of — at its radio station, KZPS.

Instead of running real commercials, the announcers will weave plugs into their banter. “Excuse me a second while I take a gulp of my refreshing, delicious Coke” or “I sure do love the smell of my armpits today using this new Gillette roll-on” or “The traffic is bad out there this morning but I hope all you commuters are using Shell. You know I find it runs so much cleaner.”

A rose by any other name would be sponsored

Finally I'm ready to bestow my "how-many-sponsors-can-we-sell-a single-event-name-to?" award.

It goes to “the Subway Fresh Fit 500 Nextel Cup Race.”

That’s the Nascar race they ran in Arizona last Saturday.

The Times dutifully reported the entire bastardized moniker on its sports page, thereby helping lend value to the whole naming rights travesty.

But do race car fans actually call this motorized marathon between very sleek billboards on wheels "The Subway Fresh Fit 500 Nextel Cup Race"?

I don’t think so.

They leave that to the willing, laughable media.

By the way, I think I know the Subway and Nextel parts—but don’t try eating one while talking over the other.

But excuse me for a moment while I google what a “Fresh Fit 500 cup” is. I'm thinking some kind of jock strap or bra....

Well, who would have thought?

The race is 500 miles long and the “Fresh Fit” bit is actually a variety of Subway sandwich touting a lot fewer calories than Big Macs and Whoppers. Of course just about anything west of a New York cheese cake has fewer calories than the two bun burgers.

Oh, the name's unsold "Cup" part is still a container — I hope....

Business gets the best of the news

Last Thursday, both The New York Times and The Oregonian ran a story about a Kaiser Family Foundation study showing how TV targets kids with junk food ads that contribute to the alarming rise in childhood obesity.

Gosh, parents might want to know about the study. It serves as further incentive to get a handle on kids' TV and junk food consumption. (Hint: TV Turnoff Week is coming up April 23-29)

So where might they expect to find the story in the newspaper? In the Times' health section? In The Oregonian's "Living" section?

Fat chance.

Both papers put it in the business section. The Oregonian simply ran an AP story devoid of local reporting, although childhood nutrition is a hot issue in the state legislature and plenty of health experts here would happily comment on the Kaiser study.

The Times business-section story's headline fell under the "advertising" label. The story consisted of a back and forth between a Kaiser Family Foundation official and food and advertising industry "spokespeople." The industry mouthpieces dismissed the 2005 study as being "dated" and insisted that the food industry has been cleaning up its act. Kaiser countered that the study would serve as a "base-line" to measure any alleged industry reform.

If you want to see how "dated" the study is and whether there has been a change, check out the ads on the Saturday morning cartoon fare. (By the way, in Scandinavian countries, ALL TV advertising to children is prohibited. My own view is that ads aimed at kids are nothing less than predatory.)

At the very least, newspapers should put stories about TV stuffing harmful ads down the throats of our kids where the stories belong—in front of parents.

I learned a long time ago that much of the best "intelligence" on what is going on in this country is the exclusive domain of the business press. Pick up The Wall Street Journal or read trade publications and you'll see what I mean.

So Calvin Coolidge's adage, "The business of America is business," has a corollary: the real news of America is business news.

Fuel/Cast busters: Oregon and TV-B-Gone?

Yesterday's post about the spread of public screen advertising to gas stations needs an update.

Steve Brannon, an internet buddy, fellow typewriter collector and occasional Red Electric reader, writes from Richmond, Virginia, to alert me to a handy, miniature TV remote, TV-B-Gone. It has one function: OFF.

And it works anywhere...at the airport, in the bar, at the gas station, in the men's room (yes, there are now screens over urinals).

I'd heard of this TV-B-Gone gizmo before, but the web site, and particularly the testimonials, are great. Here's mine: A TV-B-Gone is exactly what you need to blacken screens and take back your life. Emerson and, in particular, Thoreau would have loved this device. It's like Walden Pond in your pocket.

If that's a stretch, it does have a whiff of civil disobedience about it. I'm ordering one to "de-screen" the local mall as well as the video-plagued check-out line at our local Albertson's.

Look for my "road test" in a future post.

The other thought related to yesterday's post is that Oregon really is different. We had a slogan that said precisely that a few years back. It seemed dumb at the time, but now I'm beginning to wonder....

We are one of two or three states that require gas to be pumped by attendants. That means we never need to soil our rain-softened hands, or despoil our organic minds by watching ads on gasoline pumps.

When I wrote from here (Hillsdale to be exact) yesterday I imagined that the Fuel/Cast (Get it? Fuel pump + broadcast = Fuel/Cast) screen installers would put video panels right next to the driver's window. No, they wanted to break the agonizing boredom of customers forced to pump gas in all those un-different states.

So we Oregonians may been spared—at least for now. The big question is whether we are different enough. And if not, do we dare utter weirdness?

I'd bet on it.

Finally, one of the great things about the web is that you can see how industries like public screen advertising make their pitch to customers, in this case, gas station owners trying to squeeze an extra buck out of you and me by luring us inside their over-priced convenience stores.

So take a look at Fuel/Cast to see exactly what they are thinking about screen-addicted, purchase-prone you.

A few things to do while filling your tank....

My friend and loyal Red Electric reader Mike Ponder sends this story about the latest screen intrusion into our lives—this time coming to your neighborhood gasoline pump.

Mike's alert came to me as I have been studying the Transcendentalists, who would certainly wonder about one question raised by the San Francisco Chronicle article about FuelCast Media Network and its ilk.

FuelCast, a Los Angeles (of course) firm is forcing hundreds of thousands of motorists to watch TV ads beamed right from gas pumps equipped with in-your-face monitors.

Gary LePon, executive vice president of FuelCast, is hardly a modern-day Emerson or Thoreau but his words prompt larger, deeper questions: "There's not much else to do while you're filling your tank. This gives you something to do while you're waiting."

Something to do while you're waiting....

I don't know about you, but I've never had trouble finding something to do while at the gas pump.

I usually have a book or newspaper handy. There's the radio to be listened to. You can always talk to a person next to you, if one is handy.

My interior (my own and my car's) can always use tidying up.

Thinking is an option, as Thoreau and Emerson remind us.

If that's not possible, a tree is usually available for contemplation...and inspiration. Birds, particularly sparrows, often frequent gas stations. I even remember times when I have struck up conversations with service attendants. We still have those here in Oregon.

It's a good thing too, especially if Mr. LePon and his hucksters have their way, as I am certain they will. We can politely tell the attendants to shut off FuelCast's bleating TV monitors.

And if they don't, or, as is more likely, can't ("I just work here.")?

Well, look at the bright side. They and the LePons of the world could be doing everyone a favor without knowing it.

Maybe video muggings at the gas pump will persuade us to do what we should be doing anyway—driving less, and a lot sooner.

Politics worthy of TV profiteering, but not TV reporting

In yesterday's Oregonian, readers got a glimpse of the local TV industry's cynicism and disdain for the public and politics.

The paper reported on the meager amount of time local stations devoted to Oregon political races in the month before the 2004 election.

Defending the one percent of TV news time given to state and local political coverage, Bill Johnstone, president of the Oregon Association of Broadcasters, was reported as saying the journalistic pittance gave TV viewers "more than their fill....Very few politicians can tell the truth."

A Portland coalition called the "Money in Politics Research Action Project" (MIPRAP) is asking the Federal Communications Commission not to renew the licenses of the stations because of their failure to "serve the public interest" as required by law.

But Johnstone told The Oregonian that asking TV stations to air more campaign stories would simply provide politicians more time for mudslinging.

Wait just a minute, Bill. Don't the broadcasters collect millions in revenues from these very slime-ball ads? If they are so disgusting, why do the stations run them? Moreover, if broadcast managers are so concerned about the mudslinging, why don't they devote journalistic air time to expose the sliming for what it is?

Or are the media managers simply giving the advertising greater "value" by ignoring the issue? Commercial TV broadcasters have hardly been out front in criticizing other kinds of polluters and hucksters who advertise.

It's this sort of hypocritical, lucrative collusion that has led critics to compare FCC-granted broadcast licenses to "licenses to print money"...the public be damned.

Sadly, the Oregonian story omits the irony of Johnstone's attacking the political class whose money his industry is all too happy to take.

And important sidebar is that The Oregonian itself is part of the vast Newhouse media empire that includes 12 television stations. In fairness, none of them are located here or are part of the complaint. But how well do they serve the public in their markets?

I hope MIPRAP is monitoring how, and if, the local TV stations cover the story of its FCC challenge. Or do local TV managers believe the challenge is just more lying and mudslinging and hence unworthy of coverage?

In my view, we haven't begun to get our fill of this story.