ideas

City of Zion, IL

Saw in the news today the tragedy in Zion. Two little girls brutally murdered in the woods. I know this strange little town, represented them at the agency I worked at in Chicago.

I coached the smalltown school teacher come part-time mayor on presenting and Q&A. He is, of course, rising admirably to the occasion. I kind of knew he would. He’s one of those people you get a feeling about – a true believer whose resolve cannot be dampened, a smart man who really could make the big dream happen. Someone who could be as easily seen reading a children’s story as he could be giving a moving civic address.

What a town to try to rescue, though. The highly religious, working class community is something of a haven for trash. Home to a closed nuclear power plant (with plenty of live rods laying around just between two public beaches), at least two landfills and several trash processing plants of various types, the city literally stinks. Even the championship golf course is built on a landfill – and smells a bit like grazing pastures in the hot sun. Their downtown has been decimated by the same prevailing trends that decimated most small towns’ main streets. And, profoundly sick people flock to the cancer institute in their borders.

It is not a heartening place and yet it is impossible not to get caught up in the promise of it. Back in 2001 or so, we managed a kick-off event for the mayor’s new economic development campaign. Fascinating, right? A bunch of PowerPoints and developers show-boating.

Nearly 300 people attended, standing room only – and, there were a number of standing ovations during the mayor’s very moving speech (um, ok, that was self serving). From the campy (a Bee’s on parade exhibit downtown) to the truly successful (new downtown streetscapes, housing developments, businesses), the mayor and his city have honestly achieved economic development by little other than sheer force of will.

They talk about themselves as a city on the hill – a community different from their neighbors. And, really, turning off the highway, just past the XXX dancers and the XXX video, toward the nuclear power museum or the local landfill, you wouldn’t expect to find people so passionate about making the place they live, a place they’d love to live. When everyone else would move away, these people are digging in. Quite an interesting place.

on breasts

Surely there has been exhaustive argument on the role of breasts in our culture, health and self esteem. And, yet, otherwise rational people again and again act like manic teenagers when it comes to the size of a woman's chest.

Back in the 1980s when the first battle over the safety of implants heated up, the FDA described small breasts as a “defect and a deformity” (though somehow, I haven't quite been offered that handicapped license plate yet). Their revulsion with women who didn't quite look like an hour glass (or a stick with two bumps) propelled them to approve the implants.

Such intriguing behavior for a room full of medical geeks ravaged by age themselves.

Finally, the failure rates of the implants and associated chronic disease forced them to pull the silicon implants from the market. The decision was facilitated by the promise of the safety of saline implants.

Um, expect they don't feel like marshmallows. That's how one doctor described it - silicon feels like a marshmallow, like a real breast; saline ripples. (Marshmallow??)

So, here we are again. Safety risks aside, the advisory board has mixed opinions about re-introducing the "more realistic" implants to the market. This from the LA Times:

"Breast implants do NOT last a lifetime," says an FDA handbook for patients. "You should be prepared for long-term follow-up, re-operations to treat complications and personal financial costs."

Supporters of silicone implants have concluded that their risks are outweighed by the benefit….

Although initial-rupture rates for Inamed implants are in the low single digits, the agency estimated that 10-year rates for cosmetic surgery patients could range as high as 38%. For breast reconstruction patients, facing more complicated surgery, the FDA staff estimated 10-year rates as high as 93%.

Sure, a 93% failure rate seems completely reasonable to make you look hotter in a bikini.

And, the local story about two sets of parents taking their teenage daughters to a plastic surgeon for "birthday breasts" is only further proof of the tenuous relationship our society has with its health v appearance.

Like any woman, I've had a conflicted relationship with my body. But, I've seen what's out there and, frankly, I'll take not quite filling out a sweater any day over most of the options out there - from leaky silicon implants to big breasts that look more like they belong on the business side of a cow than in a v-neck sweater. Comparisons like that, though, are as much a part of the problem as anything else. At some point, we've got to stop looking to the television and the promenading beach girls to get our sense of what's ok. I don't know how we get there, but high risk breast implants certainly aren't the right direction. Why can't everyone be 30? It's the trauma of youth that makes us all this crazy...

Auf wiedersehen, german measles; hello virtual post-it notes and other news...

Excellent news: the United States has eradicated rubella (german measles). A public health accomplishment that puts us on par with the public health system in Cuba circa-1995. A curiosity, though – with so much international travel, does it make  sense to consider a disease “eradicated” in any one country, and thus increase the likelihood that immunizations will decrease, treatments will be less available, etc…

Interesting news: it’s a Vanilla Sky day. Siemens Corporate Technology’s research laboratory has developed virtual post-it notes. In the near future, cell phones users will be able to leave a message in at any geographical point – then as a compatible user comes within the defined radius, it will appear on her cell phone. They’ve dubbed it digital graffito. Obviously, this will be happily exploited by guerilla marketing gurus and advertising execs who in this post-Tivo world would jump at the chance to force a little advertising on you just as you step … right…there!

Irritating news: does is bother anyone that the same Congress (or alternately FL legislature) that routinely passes laws that reduce healthcare coverage for the neediest citizens, cut resources for welfare parents, and ignore the basic needs of the working poor, was all too happy to spend hundreds of thousands on an emergency session to pass a law that affected one woman – who, frankly, doesn’t need their help. Just me?

Other news: Dad has a retirement party coming up (June 23rd). I’ve scheduled an actual summer vacation. And, ginger green tea is actually pretty tasty.

The Great Ohio Desert

My snazzy new header graphic is inspired by (1) David Foster Wallace’s telling of the mysterious disappearance of Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman’s great-grandmother and others from a Shaker Heights nursing home in a Broom of the System short story that left Ms. Lenore emotionally stranded on the edge of the Great Ohio Desert and (2) those all-too-fabulous blow-up easter bunnies that celebrate Christ (?!?) this time of year.

Hours, Days, Weeks Passed and Then She Said...

It has become clear to me that NPR's National Native American News was created to punish people who work late. Clearly the lovely liberals who run the place have something against slaving away in glaring florescent places because the good people who flee at 5 are treated to All Things Considered. And, every time I skulk out a bit late, turning the key in the ignition results in a highway-noise-loud blaring of "welcome to National Native American news," the program with a mass audience of seven people full of shit no one else cares about, but we nonetheless subject you to in primetime.

In other news:
Boss drunk in front of clients
Guest room finally painted
Understanding the meaning of “track bike”
Gasoline is $2.19

Perhaps I won’t be such a stranger next time…

God hates the Kansas City Chiefs

Among the favorite routines that J and I enjoyed at the Second City in Old Town was a locker room interview with the winning Chicago Bears football team. The reporter asks, what do you attribute your victory to today, after such a slow start to the season?

The player replies, god was really with us today.

And, the reporter asks, “Why does god hate the Kansas City Chiefs?”

Why indeed?

I watched a few minutes of  ABCs “This Week” on Sunday and heard a similar oddity. My favorite social reformer and White House hopeful, John Edwards, was on talking about his latest project—UNC’s new Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity.

For some reason, George Stephanopoulos asked Edwards if he thought God was testing him? Referring, presumably to the 1996 death of his son and the election loss followed a day after by his wife’s breast cancer diagnosis.

How much has the country changed that even liberals conjure Job? Edwards answered no without missing a beat and added one of his usual optimistic clichés. But, still, that it was asked … a strange new world. 

Bledsoe, Cowboys and Friday Night Lights

If you think of football as a classic, dramatic battle of the good vs. evil in man – and, obviously I do, for its warrior-like athleticism, its tragic defeats and the strong dynamics of power and its corollary worship – there is no greater tragic hero than Drew Bledsoe.

Drew Bledsoe. Likely the only football player’s name that I will remember years from now when men-in-residence will be prattling on about the minute statistical accomplishments of long-fallen heroes.

Bledsoe is an all-American quarterback – handsome, athletic, a leader of the NE Patriots. In 2002, an injury benched him early in the season. He came back to play just as then-budding-star Tom Brady (aka: the bad guy) was injured himself.  Bledsoe took the team to the SuperBowl, handily winning playoff games and leading a strong team. But, Brady came off the bench for the big game. The young quarterback ended up delivering what was a thrilling victory in the last seconds of the game, but Bledsoe never threw a pass. The big game – the show – and the man that got them there didn’t play a second.

I am a fan of underdogs. As Tom T. Hall crones, “I love winners when they cry, losers when they try. Music when it's good and life.” I am absurdly moved by sports movies and was likely more than a little misty at everything from the Mighty Ducks to Miracle. If the good guys win in the end, no Hollywood ending is too over-the-top.

So, two items –

First, go Cowboys! Coach Parcells drafted my favorite QB today. With the new contract, Bledsoe was reunited with the coach who made him the first overall pick in the NFL draft 12 years ago. So, Bledsoe will lead America’s team and – with a little luck – have a happy ending. Sure, seems a little unlikely that a tragic hero would turn it all around, but I’ll be watching - with absurd enthusiasm – the entire 2005 Cowboy season.

Second, seems that some sports movies are a depressing rip-off. Some of them ignore our small-town dreams and their feel-good roots by delivering a big loser. Literally, a loser. In Friday Night Lights, the tragic underdogs; the weaker, smaller, poorer team loses. How is that a story? Most of the time, the team of skinny little white guys from the backwoods country school does lose to the team of huge, buff black guys from the absurdly well-funded city school. That is not a movie. This is a commercial for suicide hotlines. I want my money back.

Go Cowboys!

In Good Company

It's the day after the State of the Union address and I'm going to write a movie review. I have to, really. The truth is that if 51% of Americans really believe that god speaks through our president, and that if god chose to speak through a world leader, this would be his agenda, well ... words fail me.

So, J and I saw a movie-movie last weekend, skipping the more serious films despite the current interest in personal picks for last year’s best.  The movie of choice: In Good Company, a real popcorn-muncher of near main-stream-movie perfection. Emotionally engaging, but not overwhelming. Dosed with realism. Fabulously cast.

And, it directly dealt with the conflicts of conscience most people face at work. I’m paraphrasing myself when I say, work is the most undervalued, underrepresented theme in American books and movies. (And, I’m stealing Eric Stoltz’s line from Kicking and Screaming by even saying paraphrasing myself. Oh, Chet!) 

We spend most of our lives at our jobs, but – even for those professions that we’ve turned into cultural cautionary tales (law enforcement, modeling) or standards of success (doctors, lawyers) - stories tend to gloss over all the moral / emotional / interpersonal conflicts of work. This movie actually mixed the professional and personal - in a way that was as much like real life as movies get.

Most movies use the office as staging – it’s where your friends give you advice about dating or where you run out of on your way to the kids’ soccer game.  In Good Company looks at life as it really is – waking up while it’s still dark, catching an uncomfortable glimpse of the somewhat distant lives of your loved ones, having your professional life turned upside down by an unexpected takeover and suddenly having the career you’ve devoted your life to treated like a number on a page. Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) struggles equally with a suddenly unstable, radically-changing workforce and the drama of family. And, as uncontrollable as it all is, he maintains the trait that we would all hope for under even less daunting circumstances: respect, for himself and others.

Highly recommended, but how I do go on …

Sausage-bearers in sheep’s clothing

That title almost necessitates reading on, doesn’t it. Well, here’s the story – a recent edition of the NYT Magazine included a curious look at the commercialization of chitchat. Once a guerilla marketing tactic reserved for already-nontraditional in-bar alcohol marketing, one-on-one product testimonies may have ad space reserved at your next family barbeque:

Over the July 4 weekend last summer, at cookouts up and down the East Coast and into the Midwest, guests arrived with packages of Al Fresco chicken sausage for their hosts to throw on the grill. At a family gathering in Kingsley, Mich. At a small barbecue in Sag Harbor, N.Y. At a 60-guest picnic in Philadelphia.

We know that this happened, and we even know how various party guests reacted to their first exposure to Al Fresco, because the Great Sausage Fanout of 2004 did not happen by chance. The sausage-bearers were not official representatives of Al Fresco, showing up in uniforms to hand out samples. They were invited guests, friends or relatives of whoever organized the get-togethers, but they were also -- unknown to most all the other attendees -- ''agents,'' and they filed reports. ''People could not believe they weren't pork!'' one agent related. ''I told everyone that they were low in fat and so much better than pork sausages.'' Another wrote, ''I handed out discount coupons to several people and made sure they knew which grocery stores carried them.'' Another noted that ''my dad will most likely buy the garlic'' flavor, before closing, ''I'll keep you posted.''

The story goes on to detail the Main Street marketing escapades of an accountant, a stay-at-home mom and other recruits. The truly curious element is that by-and-large, these people are not paid for their time. They receive free sausage samples and coupons. They are trading their time and – some might say – credibility for processed meat.

As someone who works in marketing, I have to be careful not to lob too big of a stone, here. Afterall, the entire industry is fraught with decisions that leave room for what we tactfully call ambiguity. For example, did you know that marketing execs at pet food companies have to taste doggie chow as part of their employment? [It’s not as though your average Fido can participate in a focus group to cull those colorful adjectives that appear on your kibble bag.] Or, that the oil industry, shock manufacturers, etc., employ their marketing mavens to create demand by pushing car owners into maintenance routines that are largely unnecessary. The list is certainly endless.

Still, there is something intriguing about being a corporate secret agent. And, everyone has her price, I suppose. Or, maybe the sausages are just that good. Standing around the basin in the ladies room, I’ve more than once recommended my toothbrush of choice – Radius, fabulous you might know for reversing receding gums. And, in exchange for a lifetime of free product, I might be convinced to pepper dinner party conversation with acclaim for Dove chocolate truffles or Pria bars. Hell, I think I do that anyway.

Maybe my issue is just the reporting back. A survivor of high school gossip, I don’t like the idea of my would-be-private conversations ending up in a database. So many of our decisions are available for databasing and decoding – starting with every time you swipe that grocery store discount card. But, while I believe the most impactful votes are made with dollars, I’d like to know when I’m doing the voting. And, too, I don’t like the idea of advertising so directly entering my personal relationships. If I ever do have to have the porch swing conversation about a not-so-fresh feeling, I’d like to think I’m getting real advice from my confidant and not a carefully targeted sales pitch.

You, corporate agents, sausage-bearing market researchers, undercover advertisers, please add me to your no-pitch list… there’s gonna be one, right? No telemarketers during dinner, no spam after lunch, no undercover advertisers at the bbq…

Doesn't it seem strange that...

• Someone would find this picture hot?
• That the drive-up ATMs (at least around here) have voice commands and Braille keys?
• That no one really talked about that fact the Condoleezza Rice is a woman – even though the countries that we most need to improve relations with are institutionally, openly misogynistic? 
• That the Thai government’s innovative weapon for quieting insurgence was dropping an estimated one hundred million paper origami birds on the violent region?
• And that the idea strikes me as a good one?
• That perfectly good ProAm energies were invested in creating a searchable database of every Buffy character, episode, cast member, writer and director and every word of every show.
• That the special $10,000 inauguration package (which included a Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon reception, a chauffeured Rolls Royce and two actors posing as "faux" Secret Service agents, complete with black sunglasses and cufflink walkie-talkies) at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, D.C. actually seemed worth it to guests?