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February 22, 2003

George & Tony: A love song
: Watch this brilliant little video snippet: George Bush and Tony Blair singing a love song. [via Buzz]

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The People's Blatt
: Matt Welch has a fine analysis of the snobbification of American media and the vast audience of the people lost to newspapers. Of course, it strikes near my heart, media populist that I am.
I'd say that advertisers are also at fault. When I was the Sunday editor of the New York Daily News, I was desperate to get Ikea as an advertiser (not that I was going to go on a sales call; it was just one of those often-ignorant editor's wishes) because I thought that Ikea's target was ours as well: New New Yorkers, we called them (immigrants, we used to call them).
But then I compared Ikea's advertising with its customer base and there was a huge disconnect. Ikea's advertising was all Yuppie aspirational: witty, wise, urban adults. But walk around the store and you hear more languages than you do on the Security Council (or better said, the New York cab drivers' union): Ikea was the store of immigrants (plus a few thrifty pieces of Wonder Bread like me). But immigrants are not a desirable demographic. So Ikea advertises to a "higher" plane.
Snobbification is a disease not just of news but also of commerce (not to mention entertainment, religion, and education).
Matt is right: Snobbification leaves out huge swaths of the population, which is bad for business.

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The price of life
: It probably is true that we need to corral jury awards for pain and suffering so we can also corral costs of health insurance and care. But how much is enough? How much is too much? Look at the tragic stupidity of the doctors who gave this girl the wrong transplant -- she is now brain dead -- and ask whether $250k -- the proposed limit -- is enough for this family's pain and suffering. Ask whether it is enough to compensate for killing a girl. Ask whether it is enough for the idiot doctors who did this to pay for their stupid and fatal carelessness. A limit, yes. But just $250k? Ha!

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Ready?
: The Ready.gov parody site.
And more here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.
Ah-ha: That was Tom's strategy after all -- to make us laugh so hard, we forget to be scared s'less.

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