the good old days

But, uh, seriously — it very well may cause that. I can’t guarantee it won’t. I hereby refuse to accept any liability if you’re reading this on an airplane and suddenly get eaten by Gorgo.

Go have some fun yourself at the Warning Sign Generator.

In the Middle Ages, people had visions. In modern times, it’s more common to have various holy apparitions appear in food (cheese sandwiches, tortillas, potatoes, etc.)… and now, deus in machina.

This past January, James Randi has received a letter from an applicant for the JREF million dollar prize, in which the author describes mysterious communications on his computer.

Guh…

A frequent user of any word processing software is probably familiar with the automatic word checks it will do for you. I’m willing to make a large bet that this guy is using Microsoft Word, which ships with the checkers turned on, and see those green/red squiggly underlines that are on his screen but not on the paper when it prints out… with no idea what the software is doing, he concludes divine intervention is the cause.

It’s more sad than anything else, really — I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell him his deep religious experience is just a spell check. (Bill Gates is so totally not the Messiah.) But at the same time, he’s trying to peddle this deep religious experience for money…

Or so Skyy seems to think.

If you haven’t heard about the recent “alternative” map in an Absolut Vodka advertisement, you obviously don’t read enough blogs. Try Strange Maps for a good, succinct description.

This (in part) was Absolut’s response to angry US residents:

We have a variety of executions running in countries worldwide, and each is germane to that country and that population. This particular ad, which ran in Mexico, was based upon historical perspectives and was created with a Mexican sensibility. In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues.

Apparently seeing a chance to continue the, uh, discussion, Skyy Vodka put out its own press release:

… Today, SKYY(R) Vodka… spoke out against suggestions by Absolut(R) Vodka to disregard [the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo], as well as the joining of Texas to the Union in 1845, as depicted in Absolut’s recent advertising.

“Like SKYY Vodka, the residents of states like California, Texas and Arizona are exceptionally proud of the fact that they are from the United States of America,” said Dave Karraker, SKYY Vodka. “To imply that they might be interested in changing their mailing addresses, as our competitor seems to be suggesting in their advertising, is a bit presumptuous….”

“Don’t get me started on the Gadsden Purchase,” continues Karraker….

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had a number of far-reaching implications beyond simply “changing the mailing addresses” of Mexican residents. It also meant:

• Native Americans living in that region, who had been Mexican citizens, would have to wait a while to be recognized as citizens of any country.
• The slavery debate would be heated up as both sides of the issue wrangled over whether it would be legal to own people in the new territories. (It is odd to see the Civil War portrayed as a consequence of many changed mailing addresses.)
• The formerly Mexican citizens allegedly became American citizens, but quickly found their citizenship (and their land claims) did not have as much weight as those of white Americans.

It seems Karraker hasn’t read much of the history behind the map, or the history of the States he cites; nor is he interested in any consequences beyond the positive ones for the winning side. He also doesn’t want any Mexicans to buy Skyy (which plays neatly into Absolut’s advertising strategy).

Manifest Destiny isn’t a principle that Americans should be incredibly proud of. The issues it stirred up at Guadalupe Hidalgo 160 years ago are still simmering today. It happened, and we live with the consequences. It’s not likely that half the country will be given back to Mexico to right old wrongs, so it is petty to suggest that an advertising campaign could cause that, and farcical to suggest that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo worked out well for everybody. I am proud of my country. But that doesn’t mean that my country has always been right.

So, my point in a nutshell: vodka PR reps are not historians, and definitely are not diplomats.

A few days late (stupid babies catching every stupid cold they can), but still worth posting about…

In the sixties, I Dream of Jeannie’s censors required Barbara Eden to hide her belly button under a blob of putty. The modern viewer chuckles at this example of prudish olde tyme logic — she’s a hot chick living in unmarried man’s house, but clearly it’s not a problem because she doesn’t have a navel… or something like that.

Today, graphic designers remove wrestlers’ nipples. (read the original article as well)

I haven’t had a good laugh at wrestling since they lost their right to call themselves WWF (can you really blame the World Wildlife Federation for that?) so this was a good day.

Get Rich Slowly, a blog about personal finance that “makes cents” (hehe!) recently posted some thoughts on Newsweek’s A Penny Saved Is a Penny Spent.

Conant’s article in Newsweek basically boils down to this:

As talk of recession and belt-tightening makes headlines, I wonder where and how I lost my grandfather’s sense of thrift. Like many young professionals (I’m 36), I embraced the lessons of my seniors about hard work. Yet my generation racks up debt the way our grandparents used to squirrel away pennies…. My generation grew up just as home-economics classes were being phased out and credit cards were being ushered in.

I’ve condensed it a lot, obviously. Please do go read the whole thing, it’s good stuff.

In his analysis, J. D. Roth points out that griping about the wastefulness of modern society is hardly new.

For decades — centuries, even — people have complained that younger generations haven’t inherited the financial wisdom of their elders. During the 1750s, Benjamin Franklin bemoaned the lack of money skills among the American colonists.

However, the current state of affairs does indeed go far beyond that. J. D. includes a scary graph to demonstrate that: between 1940 and today, consumer debt rose from around zero to OVER THREE TRILLION DOLLARS. That is trillion. With a “tr”. The one with twelve, yes, count ‘em, twelve zeros. 3,000,000,000,000.

The thrift of the good old days wins hands down over the spending glut of today. Seriously, people, THREE TRILLION? Do you REALLY need that much CRAP?

I’d also like to add, however, that advocacy of thrift should not translate to being a stingy bastard. Buy good quality — it will be less expensive in the long run, since you don’t have to replace the cheap crap that keeps breaking. Tip people — if you can afford to fly on a plane, you can afford a few bucks for the nice skycap who’s helped your wife and two small children struggle to check in with four suitcases (YES, Buzz, I’m talking to you). Thrift isn’t about only spending as little as possible, it’s also about spending your money wisely and well.

Please, people, spend wisely and well. Three trillion is just batshit insane.

The ever-interesting blog Modern Mechanix recently transcribed the 1932 article How Much Longer Will Our Big Cities Last?

One part I found amusing was the idea that cities would have lots of small planes flying its workers in and out every day. Instead of lots of commuter planes, America instead turned to even more plentiful (and probably more sensible!) commuter automobiles. Turned with quite a vengeance — the next time you’re on a ten-lane highway around a large (or even medium) city, stuck in a traffic jam during rush hour, do a little bit of math to try and guess just how many cars are in gridlock with you. Then, imagine they’re all airplanes. Then, picture “air rage.”

But the most interesting part of the Modern Mechanix article was the doom-filled predictions which completely failed to come true. There’s plenty of infrastructure problems which continue to plague cities. This morning I was listening to the woes of the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board as they struggle to maintain a century-old system which is regularly rusting and breaking (but manages to outperform FEMA’s expectations nonetheless). They’re apparently half a billion dollars in debt, and since they’re not selling as much water as they used to (less residents in the city), the number is not likely to get better soon. When I lived in Boston, tales of more than two hundred year old lead pipes and wood pipes was easily enough to make me buy a water filter (and pray a lot).

Every day the city dweller reads headlines of minor disasters resulting from defects in the complex supply system…. Gas mains explode, blotting out lives and sometimes asphyxiating hundreds. Water pipes burst and flood whole blocks, effecting a serious interruption of traffic….

However gloomy a picture these catastrophes may present, engineers believe that the scene will be far more dismal twenty or thirty years from now. The network of gas and water pipes, power supply and telephone lines, and the subway tunnels and vaults … are still comparatively young and substantial. When they begin to age and weaken from fatigue, however, disasters will be blazed across the headlines far more frequently than they are at present.

Sub-standard water infrastructure is just one example of cities crumbling around their residents. The recent I-35 bridge collapse is a far more serious one. But if all this didn’t make people emigrate from urban areas in 1930, why should it do so now? Cities have been around since just after the dawn of civilization, and they’ll be around until it ends. Stuart Chase (the author on whose theories the article is apparently based) was just yet another doom-sayer whose prophecies of widespread death and destruction never came to pass.

Poor mid-century America. They had to settle for Thorazine, when what they really wanted was:


Turns out the ads were for Ontario Colleges, emphasizing the choices they give to students.

Luckily, Obay isn’t real. Sure, you want what’s best for your kids, but when it comes to post-secondary education, pushing them to do what you want isn’t right. Explore all the options at ontariocolleges.ca

What I find funniest about the situation is the few people who thought Obay was a real product. Pretty clear there’s just too much drug advertising out there…