So this 10yo boy is lying in hospital, and suddenly a “flock” of US sailors descends and does “good works”. Sorry, are they doctors? Relatives? Are they that other category of essential hospital visitors, B-grade TV celebrities? From the language of the news story, are they perhaps archangels? Or can anyone just wander into a hospital and cruise the kiddies these days?
The aim of PR
There’s two kinds o’people. Those who pay to be in the media, and those who are paid to be in the media. The aim of PR is to get you into the second group.
Paris Hilton, branding expert (apparently)
OK, I know that at one level I’m being sucked in by the very cult of celebrity I despise by even mentioning this, but… Paris Hilton has been offered a million dollars to teach a one-hour class on “How to Build Your Brand.”
Bill Zanker, president of The Learning Annex, previously paid Donald Trump $1.5M to lecture his students, so he must reckon Paris is roughly 67% as good:
“She’s a brilliant entrepreneur. I believe she can offer her knowledge and give back to other entrepreneurs. She’s obviously brilliant, and my students would love her.”
Bill, I’ll give you the Paris lessons for free:
- Start off rich. If you’re rich, you’ll automatically be invited to parties where paparazzi swarm. And without having to work for a living, you’ll have time for all the parties.
- Start off stupid. If people see that you’re rich and stupid, they’ll reckon it’ll be easy to separate the fool from her money. You’ll get a lot of attention. Just ask Rob Mills.
- Slut around like there’s no tomorrow. There’ll be plenty of Names at those parties. Pick a few and pork away! It’s all a numbers game anyway, so you’re aiming for quantity, not quality.
Et voila! An instantly-recognisable global brand!
Thanks (well, I guess it’s thanks) to Zern Liew for emailing me this vital information privately.
Murdoch snaffles Wall Street Journal
Apparently Rupert Murdoch has succeeded in his bid for Dow Jones, owners of the Wall Street Journal. Well well well…
Greens senator asks last century’s question
I like The Greens. They’re funny. They make me laugh. Haw. Haw. Haw. Snort.
There’s a bloody great aircraft carrier in Sydney Harbour. The whole city’s stopping to gawk at it. One of the most potent, visible symbols of Australia’s alliance with the US — and, by extension, our involvement in the War on Foreign Men with Beards and, you know, that Iraq thing — is sitting right there in front of us. So how does Senator Kerry Nettle use this opportunity?
Senator Kerry Nettle reacts to the Big Bad N-word with all the predictability of a cuckoo clock. Senator Kerry Nettle reckons us Sydneysiders have “a right to know” whether USS Kitty Hawk is carrying nuclear weapons. If it is, Senator Kerry Nettle reckons any accident on the ship could be a “catastrophe”.
No shit, Sherlock! It’s a goddam warship! It’s chock full’o jet fuel, ammunition, lubricants, rocket fuel, missile warheads and a thousand other things that are either as toxic as all get-up or go boom. Got that? Warship. So a couple of nukes buried down in some well-protected hidey-hole is the least of our worries.
And besides, Senator Kerry Nettle, what do you reckon? A US aircraft carrier, based out of Yokosuka, Japan, near that place, oh… what is it again? Yeah, North Korea. And with the job of…? Oh yeah, act as the core of an independent task force in the event of global war, whether conventional or nuclear.
Uhuh.
So, Senator Kerry Nettle, do you reckon the Kitty Hawk might be carrying perhaps just one or two nuclear weapons? Maybe just little ones? Yeah, me too. I reckon there just might be a couple’o nukes here.
While we don’t have a “right to be told” — hey, this is America we’re talking about, they’re answerable only to God — we do have a right to use our brains and figure it out for ourselves.
Or, come to think of it, see if that other Greens guy, Andrew Wilkie, has something more contemporary to say. Apparently he knows about stuff.
Terrorist Special Olympics in the UK
I’ve unsubtly hinted at this before, but the mainstream media doesn’t seem to run this angle: The “terrorist” “bombings” in the UK just now were completely half-arsed and simply don’t deserve the attention they’re getting — unless it’s about having a really good belly-laugh.
Bruce Schneier, ever the clear-thinker about these issues, says it in his headline:
Terrorist Special Olympics in the UK
First London and then Glasgow. Who are these idiots? Is there a Special Olympics for terrorists going on in the UK this week?
Two points about Glasgow:
One, airport security worked. And two, putting a propane tank into a car and driving into a building at high speed is the sort of thing that only works in old episodes of The A Team. On television, you get a massive, extensive explosion. In real life, you only get a small localized fire.
I am particularly pleased with the reaction from the Scots, which is measured and reasonable. No one was hurt; no need to panic. Life goes on.
But don’t let this reality disturb the paranoid Fox News uberreality in which we live. Lo! There is grainy vision of a burning car. Lo! There are foreign men with funny names and dark skin. Lo! We raid their homes and find “religious literature”…
Hang on! Did I miss the day “religious literature” became suspicious?
Bruce Schneier’s essay on that laughable plan to blow up JFK (the airport, not the dead president) makes an important point about that:
Terrorism is a real threat, and one that needs to be addressed by appropriate means. But allowing ourselves to be terrorized by wannabe terrorists and unrealistic plots — and worse, allowing our essential freedoms to be lost by using them as an excuse — is wrong.
Indeed.
And let’s repeat the point. You’re far more likely to be killed by lightning or by drowning in your own bathtub than being killed by a terrorist.