Brand Obama–now with more awards!

Barack Obama's presidential campaign has again won a major advertising award. A month before winning the presidency, he won Advertising Age's annual "Marketer of the Year" for 2008. Now, his campaign manager, David Plouffe, has won Brandweek's "Marketer of the Year" for 2009. What better commentary on the state of contemporary American society could there be? Our president is a master marketer, or more precisely, employs a team of master marketers. In a society that is dedicated to worshiping at the altar of consumerism, perhaps it's unsurprising that this is the case, but it still is shocking to me. Once I began researching for this article, I really was surprised at the extent to which "Brand Obama" has penetrated our national consciousness. His logo and posters have become iconic. His slogan, "Yes we can" is everywhere-- it's also a marketer's dream. It's devoid of any clarity or substance, and yet it makes you feel good, possibly empowered. "Just do it", anyone? Actually, his campaign beat out the Nike campaign (and even Apple!) for top honors. You can go to mybarackobama.com and sign for immediate updates from Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Flickr, Twitter, and several other web 2.0 services. You can get Obama on your mobile phone by texting "hope" to 62262-- it's just as easy as voting for the next American Idol! The media is relentlessly focused on what Michelle Obama is wearing next, and there is at least one blog offering daily updates on her clothing choices ("Follow the fashion of Mrs. O.:What and Whom she's wearing"). For those who are tuned-in, you can even do Ecstasy tablets shaped like Obama. One wonders where does politics end and the cult of personality begin?

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Ideology Be Damned!

This is the reason we need healthcare reform in this country. Crystal Lee Sutton has died at age 68 because her insurance company diddled and dawdled over whether or not it would pay for the medicine necessary to save her life. Don't know who Crystal Lee Sutton was? She was the real-life inspiration for Norma Rae, Sally Fields' excellent portrayal of a small-town union organizer who went to bat for workers' rights. This kind of thing should not happen. When profit---or overhead, however you wish to consider the problem---is placed ahead of life, those arguing against reform should hang their heads in shame. They cling to an ideology about free markets and consumer choice as though such things are part of the Ten Commandments (which most of them don't follow either) and always at the expense of lives. Dammit, people, we're talking about a system which should operate for people's benefit, not for its own. A system is simply a method of approach, a way of doing something, and if it can be changed once, it can be changed again if the reforms are found insufficient! It is no argument to reject reforms on the basis that the reforms might cause harm, since the present system is already causing harm. It is a foulness to our present system that many people find that in order to vouchsafe their own health or the health of their loved ones they must fight for the very thing they were told they had purchased in the first place. This is in no way different from lending predators who lied to people in course of borrowing money to buy a home. The average person has neither the time or expertise to understanding every clause and addendum in a complex contract and must rely on what he or she is told. Either you have insurance coverage or you do not. It should not come as a surprise after you are already sick and discover that there are codicils which protect the insurance company from having to pay out what in principle they obligated themselves to do if not by the letter of the policy then by the spirit of agreement with a customer. Yet thousands, millions of consumers daily learn to their dismay that they don't actually have what they thought they had bought. This is not a game. If the private sector is more concerned over profit margins than providing service, then they should lose the privilege of offering said service.

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Snoring: The Upshot

Google "snoring" and you'll get a flood of how-to advice on how not to, and a lot of reasons to stop. Not surprisingly, the majority of links recalled were advertisements for devices, medications, surgical maneuvers, and their purveyors. In today's pharm-centered universe, the vibration caused by air traveling through our airways has been pathologized and vilified as the destroyer of otherwise sound relationships. Not only is it bad for your love life. Snoring is deadly! According to snoring alarmists, snorers who have the audacity to continue sleeping noisily can look forward to myriad cardiovascular disorders including heart attacks, atherosclerosis, and stroke, marital and erectile dysfunction (chicken-or-the-egg?), drowsiness, lack of focus and...Zzzzzzzzz. Admittedly, I'm no doctor, but let me suggest that there are some positive effects of snoring (besides the possibility that it keeps you healthy by means of temporary asphyxiation). It's a much cheaper and more effective method of subjecting those around you to intense jealousy ("Please, please, make him stop so I can lose consciousness ASAP") than, say, buying a pair of Jimmy Choos. Then again, I don't usually begrudge those masochists the pain of walking around... But I digress. If you would rather not invest in a medical solution, you could try banishing the banshee by learning a new instrument. You guessed it: the Didgideroo! Ah, it's time for bed. Maybe the lumbering Saint Bernard downstairs will give it a rest so I can, too.

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On Church and State and Stuff

In the USA today, there is a small but highly vocal (some would even say “strident”) movement dedicated to enshrining certain of their religious values in the laws and Constitution of their nation. Many of this movement proclaim that the Constitution and the laws of the United States are already this way; that the law of the land is based on Judeo-Christian principles and that separation of church and state is an illusion, never happened and even if it did happen was never intended by the founders of the nation and is some kind of liberal invention designed to make the US more vulnerable to suitcase bombs, atheist summer camps and movies about Charles Darwin which don't paint him as the eugenicist spiritual father of Hitler. This is, of course, in stark contrast to the reality of the situation: the Constitution makes no mention of God, Jesus or the Bible (except for a nameless “Creator”); the Constitution itself proclaims that “no religious test” shall ever be required for a citizen to hold public office and that Congress shall “make no law” either establishing a religion or restricting the right of a citizen to worship as they please (as atheists hadn’t been invented yet, noone thought to include “the right to not be religious”, but it’s assumed, probably safely, that freedom of religion means, or should mean, freedom from it as well). It is also well-recognised that the Founders were framing the establishment of the new nation to be a shiny, free, glorious example of the humanist, rational values of the Enlightenment, the new Age of Reason which was making its presence felt across Europe in the 18th century. Some scholars speculate (compellingly) that Constitution chief architect Thomas Jefferson and many of his ilk, far from being Christians of any flavour, were even deists – but I must point out that their religious beliefs are irrelevant to their democratic intent and rationalist stance, which I suspect was meant to be the whole point. Many dominionists in the US have argued against this alleged separation, pointing to the “One Nation under God” line in the Pledge of Obedience Allegiance. Leaving aside the odd ritual of swearing fealty to a flag, that little line used to read “One nation, indivisible,” until religious pressure forced the addition of the “under God” bit. How about “In God We Trust”, which appears on US currency? That was added in the 1950s during McCarthyist hysteria as a counter to alleged “godless” communism (a political hysteria peculiar to the US which persists no less strongly today, as evidenced by the bizarre behaviour of the tea-baggers, birthers, deathers and other assorted pithy signwriters who, in textbook Pavlovian manner, protest anything President Obama does, be it being black or making a harmlessly dull “kids, do your homework” speech on TV and who refuse to nail down exactly which particular political evil – fascism, socialism, communism, anarcho–syndicalism - Barry O allegedly wishes to impose on them by trying to make sure they can see a doctor without selling a kidney first, the heartless bastard).

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A big suburban shopping mall is dying, yet I’m not shedding any tears

Today I took my two daughters to a movie. The theater was located in a large suburban shopping mall in Southwest St. Louis County, "Crestwood Plaza." I had not been to this mall for several years, and I was shocked at what I saw. Approximately 40% of the stores have been shuttered and the entire place was like a ghost town. A lonely security guard told me that the stores have been rapidly failing over the past two years. That comports with my recollection. Two years ago, this mall was a packed and thriving shopping area located in a solidly middle-class community. Crestwood Plaza is not an isolated story; shopping malls are failing all across America. [I've posted a gallery of today's images many of these shuttered stores along with this post. If you don't see that gallery, click the title to this post to go to the permalink, where you will see those thumbnails.] I sometimes get snarkish when someone tells me they're going to a shopping mall. I sometimes ask the Intrepid shopper to do me a favor and buy something practical for me, "Could you please buy me a hammer." I usually get the same reaction, a puzzled look accompanied by a response "They don't sell practical things like hammers at shopping malls." Now I'm not denying that malls sell clothes or that we need clothes. Most mall clothes are for far more than staying warm or covering up. They are much more often than not, for impressing others. For that reason, I'm not shedding tears for the shattering of dozens of mall stores at Crestwood Plaza or anywhere else. The failure of most of the stores means that we won't be buying things we don't actually need. Because Hallmark no longer sells its commercial greeting cards, we might be "forced" to create and send our own personalized cards and letters to each other. Now that Libby Lu gone, our pre-teen daughters can get back to being children rather than obsessing about their sex appeal. In my mind, many of these store closings are mostly good things, although I am saddened by the thought that so many people have lost their jobs due to these shutdowns. See these terrific videos by Josh Golin of CCFC regarding the dangers of turning our children into rampant consumers. Another silver lining is that the mall owners have been forced to do something different with their space in order to survive (assuming they do survive). What they've done at Crestwood Plaza is to lease out many of the "store" spaces to art galleries, educational facilities, community theaters and other arts and crafts workshops for children and adults. In other words, it appears that the mall owners are opening up their malls for people who want to develop their minds and skill-sets rather than simply their pocketbooks.

Continue ReadingA big suburban shopping mall is dying, yet I’m not shedding any tears