Wednesday, 08 July 2009

Tuesday, 07 July 2009

  • Bread and (media) circuses

    from Ed Wallace:

    Is the media failing for dumbing down America?

    "...We used to be able to prioritize our real needs, then address and resolve those issues. Now with information overload, it appears, we are incapable of properly governing our country.

    I don’t mean to slight Michael Jackson’s once-formidable talent, nor do I dismiss his troubled personal life. But have we become so frivolous as a nation that any entertainer’s tragic and untimely death warranted more news coverage — day after day after day — than the real issues that will confront each of us now and in the all-too-near future?

    Apparently so.

    Most of us know more about the last two days of Jackson’s life than we know about the negotiations in which Washington forced GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy. You certainly know more about Jackson’s death that the names on the list of the 25 individuals who destroyed the world’s financial system. Of course, none of the 25 has died; they still work at the same jobs."

     

    Currently
    Media Circus: The Trouble with America's Newspapers
    By Howard Kurtz
    see related

Wednesday, 01 July 2009

Tuesday, 30 June 2009

Friday, 26 June 2009

Thursday, 18 June 2009

Tuesday, 09 June 2009

  • The Onion shoots and scores once more!

     

    New Homely Doll To Improve Self-Image Of Young Girls

    060909PlainPamela  EL SEGUNDO, CA—Executives at Mattel Inc. held a press conference Monday to unveil the toy company's latest product, Plain Pamela, a homely doll designed to boost the confidence of girls ages 7 to 12.

    The pale, unsightly plaything, which has a plastic torso scaled to the proportions of a 5-foot-4, 179-pound woman in her mid-30s, is being touted as the first toy expressly intended to raise the sense of physical and emotional self-worth in preteen females.

    "While we still value our classic Barbie franchise, we understand the need for dolls that offer an alternative body image," Mattel CEO Robert Eckert said. "And that's why we've created Plain Pamela. She's drab, she's dumpy, she's nothing to write home about, and she's going to make the girls of America feel like beauty queens."

    Modestly priced at $7.99, each Plain Pamela doll comes prepackaged with a variety of unflattering and ill-fitting blouses to drape over her shapeless torso, as well as a packet of paste-on psoriasis spots to apply along her arms and back.

    Mattel designers have also included a button at the base of the doll's pudgy neck that randomly plays one of 24 preprogrammed phrases, including "I wish I was pretty like you," "That's okay, you go out and have fun without me," and "Ugh."

    If Plain Pamela catches on with kids, company officials said, she may soon be joined by an entire line of fun, psychologically reassuring friends. Already in the works for the fall are Lil'-Too-Drunk Linda, whose debilitating dependence on alcohol will make any girl feel better about her own unstable home life, and Plain Pamela's Sympathetic Gay Friend, Craig.

    Currently
    Nature: The Beauty of Ugly
    By F. Murray Abraham
    see related

Friday, 05 June 2009

  • Some day, when I have lots of time...

    .... I'm going to start doing all the great ideas I've had over the years (it's amazing how much time a full-time job takes from my career ambition of being a professional blogger making 6 figures annually.  Mrs Savant will be pleased to know that I'm still gainfully employed)

    One of the great ideas I had a few years ago was writing restaurant reviews.

    "Big deal," you might retort with flecks of spittle exiting your sneering pie-hole.  "Restaurant reviews are a dime a dozen."

    True.  But not FAST FOOD restaurant reviews.  I'd name it something like "Brutally Fast."

    That said, I would be ECSTATIC if I could write a fast food review as wonderful as the one written by Philadelphia Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan, who was recently forced to review KFC's "Kentucky Grilled Chicken." 

    It was poultry in motion.

    Currently
    Fast Food High
    By Nick Abraham, Curtis Morgan, Mark O'Brien, Natalie Roy, Joanna Douglas
    see related
  • It's stories like these that make having a blog to share them worthwhile.

    (via the oh-so-appropriately monikered legal humor website "Lowering the Bar")

     

    Reasonable Consumer Would Know "Crunchberries" Are Not Real, Judge Rules

    On May 21, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California dismissed a complaint filed by a woman who said she had purchased "Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries" because she believed "crunchberries" were real fruit.  The plaintiff, Janine Sugawara, alleged that she had only recently learned to her dismay that said "berries" were in fact simply brightly-colored cereal balls, and that although the product did contain some strawberry fruit concentrate, it was not otherwise redeemed by fruit.  She sued, on behalf of herself and all similarly situated consumers who also apparently believed that there are fields somewhere in our land thronged by crunchberry bushes.

    060509crunchberries According to the complaint, Sugawara and other consumers were misled not only by the use of the word "berries" in the name, but also by the front of the box, which features the product's namesake, Cap'n Crunch, aggressively "thrusting a spoonful of 'Crunchberries' at the prospective buyer."  Plaintiff claimed that this message was reinforced by other marketing representing the product as a "combination of Crunch biscuits and colorful red, purple, teal and green berries."  Yet in actuality, the product contained "no berries of any kind."  Plaintiff brought claims for fraud, breach of warranty, and our notorious and ever-popular California Unfair Competition Law and Consumer Legal Remedies Act.

    Under the UCL, courts have held that a plaintiff must show that a representation was "likely to deceive a reasonable consumer."  Actual fraud claims, and warranty claims, are harder to prove, so if Sugawara didn't win on the UCL claims, she would be leaving without even any lovely parting gifts.  And she did not:

    In this case . . . while the challenged packaging contains the word "berries" it does so only in conjunction with the descriptive term "crunch." This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a "crunchberry."

    Furthermore, the "Crunchberries" depicted on the [box] are round, crunchy, brightly-colored cereal balls, and the [box] clearly states both that the Product contains "sweetened corn & oat cereal" and that the cereal is "enlarged to show texture."

    Thus, a reasonable consumer would not be deceived into believing that the Product in the instant case contained a fruit that does not exist. . . .

    So far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world.

    Case dismissed.

    Currently
    The Macaroni Tree - A Medley of Fancies & Fairies from the Land of Make Believe
    By Dora AMSDEN
    see related

Monday, 01 June 2009

Monday, 25 May 2009

Friday, 22 May 2009

Thursday, 21 May 2009

nonchalantsavant

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