Collateral Damage

When (fill in the blank) is outlawed, only outlaws will (fill in the blank)

• Playing board games: In South Carolina, it is illegal to pass Go or collect $200 - even if it is just Monopoly money. The same state law that has forced a local radio station to cancel its charity poker tournament scheduled for next week also makes it illegal for anyone in South Carolina to play a game - any game - that uses cards or dice.
• Having plastic genitalia on your car: Maryland Delegate LeRoy E. Myers Jr. has introduced a bill that would make it illegal to dangle outsized plastic testicles from the trailer hitches of pickup trucks. (FYI: The bill never made it out of committee.)
• Wearing tigger socks: Toni Kay Scott, a student at Napa Valley’s Redwood Middle School, was sent to an in-school suspension program (with the wonderfully Orwellian-name of Students With Attitude Problems). Her crime? Violating a dress code by wearing socks with Tigger on them, along with a denim skirt and a brown shirt with a pink border. A lawsuit ensued forcing the school district to pay $95K and drop any requirement for students to wear only solid-color clothing.
• Possesing cat urine: 38-year-old Cynthia Hunter of Florida was jailed for 50 days when police found a vial containing a yellow substance in her purse. She said it was cat urine for her son’s science experiment, but she was locked up for 50 days until the lab results confirmed that the substance was indeed cat urine.
• Swearing at your toilet: Dawn Herb of West Scranton, PA, faced a disorderly conduct charge after she started swearing at her backed-up toilet near an open window. The charge was later dismissed.
• Hugging: OAK PARK, IL — Percy Julian Middle School Principal Victoria Sharts banned hugging among the suburban Chicago school’s 860 students anywhere inside the building. She said students were forming “hug lines” that made them late for classes and crowded the hallways.
• Wearing Crocs: The wildly popular Crocs — the funky, clog-like resin shoe derided by the fashion conscious — have been deemed unsafe by administrators at Pittsburgh’s Mercy Hospital. BTW, Collateral Damage was the first — and only– place to predict that the “Crocs will kill you meme” would be picked up nationally by the press.
• Wearing baggy pants: Baggy pants that show boxer shorts or thongs would be illegal under a proposed amendment to Atlanta’s indecency laws.
• Drawing pictures of guns in school: An East Valley (Arizona) eighth-grader was suspended this week after he turned in homework with a sketch that school officials said resembled a gun and posed a threat to his classmates.
• Making faces at dogs: Jayna Hutchinson, 33, of Lebanon, N.H., was charged with cruelty to a police animal and resisting arrest after a July 31 incident in West Fairlee, VT. The arresting officer said that Hutchinson then approached his cruiser, where his dog Max was waiting … Putting her face within inches of the window and “staring at him in a taunting/harassing manner,” Protzman wrote in an affidavit. “While the defendant taunted my canine, Max was focused on the defendant and the perceived threat she presented to him,” the affidavit said. “He was no longer focused on me and the other officers at the scene.”
• Cheering at graduation: Indianapolis School Superintendent Eugene White sent letters to putative graduates informing them of a policy forbidding cheering during the reading of the graduates’ names. “The goal is to restore decorum to the ceremonies and make certain that every name can be heard. White’s letter reminds students that attending a graduation ceremony is a privilege, not a right.” Thirty school police officers were to be on hand to enforce the rules.
• Protecting dog barking with the first amendment: The North Dakota Supreme Court has rejected a claim that an anti-barking ordinance is unconstitutional.

A year in headlines of the day:

January 7: GM Vows to Defend Title Against Toyota How’s that working out?

January 25: Gnome, gnome on derange SYDNEY, Jan 25 (Reuters Life!) - It’s being called the “Gnomesville Massacre” and emergency workers in Western Australia are offering a reward for the capture of vandals who smashed their way through a local tourist attraction.

January 31: French health minister seeks nap study

March 8: Borat seen as human rights victim by U.S. government A State Dept. report cited Borat’s loss of his Kazakh webpage www.borat.kz in late 2005 alongside court cases and limits on free speech faced by the few domestic media critical of Kazakhstan’s long-serving President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

March 20: “Hundreds Line Up For Sheep Testicles” In Scotland they call it speed dating

April 16: 5000 rabbits block traffic on major highway in Hungary Were they hungry Hungarian rabbits?

April 18: Seattle Man Charged In Bizarre Duck Case Yeah, like there’s a chance in hell you’re not going to read the rest of that story. The lead, however, is even better:

“EVERETT, Wash. A Seattle man has been charged with a slew of crimes that involved an alleged shoplifting, assaults and a pet duck named Mr. Peepers.”

I think Mr. Peepers is a canard or at least a red herring.

The terror alert level has been set at duck l’orange.

April 27: San Anselmo teen wearing prom dress, combat boots chases down thieves in S.F. “Erin Schrode, a 16-year-old sophomore at Marin Academy, was decked out in prom gear and boots when she jumped into pursuit of three youths who swiped a friend’s purse and a laptop computer at an afternoon protest rally.”

June 12: Wild new flavours spice up German sausages German butchers have introduced a new line of exotic-tasting sausages with flavours ranging from kiwi, maraschino cherry, lemon and even aloe vera.

June 25: Giant penguins may have roamed Peru

July 8: Rushmore from Cheese “Get ready for Mount Rushmore to roll into your town this summer! Instead of granite from the Black Hills of South Dakota, the profiles of presidents Washington, Jefferson, T. Roosevelt, and Lincoln will be carved out of real cheese as part of the Cheez-It(R) Big Cheese Tour. The 700 pound portable cheddar cheese version of our nation’s first grand fromages, created by veteran cheese carver, Troy Landwehr, will help raise awareness of products made with 100 percent real cheese.”

October 1 Tropical activity possible in Gulf of Mexico Glad we cleared that up.

October 24: Fire affects TV shows, celebrities CNN on the California wildfires.

October 25: SpongeBob Squarepants Digital Camera Is Neither Square-Shaped Nor Made Of Sponges

October 31: Man Gets Probation in Pickle Assault Includes the quote of the year: “The fact that it’s silly doesn’t mean that it’s not serious.”– Berrien, MI, Trial Court Judge Scott Schofield sentencing Bobby Bolen to time served and 1 year of probation for assaulting two people.

November 3: Maker of Lipitor Digs In to Fight Generic Rival

November 8: How Google Can Take the High Road on Privacy Mr. Orwell! Mr. Orwell! Call for Mr. Orwell!

November 12: How to Teach Marketers to Be Authentic

December 5: News Corp May Have Found God, But Not LinkedIn

December 14: Demand softens for ant aphrodisiac

Surprisingly, I am not the only one to chronicle the year’s dumbest business moments. The folks at an obscure little publication called Fortune have also put out a list and it’s one I must quibble with. By and large it’s pretty good… Eli Lily marketing Prozac for dogs, Merrill Lynch giving CEO Stanley O’Neal $161M for retiring after overseeing some of the worst losses in company history, the Cartoon Network fiasco … but nestled in at #9 is one that is just flat out wrong:

Ooh-la-la, gross! The French daily Le Monde calls Ratatouille, Pixar’s movie about a rat in a kitchen, “one of the greatest gastronomic films in the history of cinema.”

Ummm, guys and gals, DID YOU SEE THE MOVIE? Ratatouille (best movie I saw this year) was indeed one of the greatest movies ever made about the love of food and cooking. The only things that come close to it IMHO are Tampopo and maybe Eating Raoul. Sheesh. What’s a rat got to do to get a little respect around here?

(BTW, Thanks to AdFreak and SoundBite Back for mentioning CD along side the Fortune list.)

1. You do what? BAAGZ, from the French Web and enterprise search company Exalead , is a new search and collaboration system, still in beta, that applies Web 2.0 features to social networking. While the idea of using search topics and vetted results as nodes around which dynamic topical networks could form is interesting, the current early beta implementation gives just a hint of what may be possible.
2. Most baffling attempt to cash in on a tragedy: With all the bad news about contaminated pet food, there’s actually some good news in the pet industry! Not only is going environmentally green a hot topic in real estate right now, but the 38-BILLION DOLLAR pet industry is also seeing a surge in companies going green too. (Italics added)
3. Reads like it was translated from another language by Babelfish: Who is the first one to come running full speed ahead when you get home from work ˆ well if you are a blessed pet owner ˆ you know the feeling! With both hearts racing with happiness ˆ gone are your workday worries and now it’s time to relax at home sweet home and put together a masterpiece! Art Casso Pet Painting Kits are a great reward to allow you both to creatively express through art and don’t forget to get inspired from the lovely Pet Art By Kate that’s already hanging on the wall. PAWSitive Expressions for you and your Pet to Enjoy with Pup-Casso & Kitty-Casso painting kits or Pet Art By Kate! Give the gift of Pup-Casso & Kitty-Casso and you’ll be known as the “cat’s meow.” World’s first no mess ˆ non toxic, paint kit for pets just awarded 2nd Place at the Global Pet Expo! Is your pet the next “Mutt-isse” or “Leonardo DaKitty”? You and your pet will create a masterpiece you will cherish forever! Transform your artwork into professionally made gifts you and your pet can share & wear. They’re fun, creative, and stimulating. (All typos are from the original.)
4. Headline least likely to make me keep reading: PQ Media Expects Political Spending Splurge in 2008
5. Next time let’s leave Jesus out of this: Has Jesus returned as a phone? Landor brand expert available to comment on Apple’s iPhone The iPhone has risen! One of the most anticipated products of 2007, the Apple iPhone - sometimes referred to by bloggers as the Jesus phone for its “savior status” - will hit store shelves on June 29th.

And a bonus — Most Indecipherable Mission Statement:

• Zimbra is the leader in open source, next-generation collaboration and messaging software. We provide innovative experiences to end-users and their administrators because we see existing tools are fundamentally broken. We also believe in compatibility with existing infrastructure and applications (both open source and proprietary). Apparently writing jargon doesn’t hurt the bottom line: In September Yahoo! paid $350M for Zimbra.

1. Take Two software features OJ Simpson in its new All Pro Football game. In the game Simpson plays on a team called The Assassins. The mascot is a hooded figure who makes stabbing motions with a large knife in the end zone when the Assassins score.
2. Tie: Several companies don’t realize that references to Nazis are offensive.
   1. A Mumbai-based home furnishing company releases “The Nazi Collection” of bedspreads that feature swastikas. Although the swastika is a symbol of luck in India that goes back thousands of years, the company’s explanation for the name of the collection – it allegedly was an acronym for “New Arrival Zone for India” – put the lie to that.
   2. Zara, a UK retail chain, pulls bags that are found to have swastikas on them.
   3. Bell Canada has to pull ads that show a young woman wearing a button that says “Belsen Was A Gas” – a reference to a song by the Sex Pistols.
   4. Italian winery releases Der Fuerher branded wine. Labels feature Nazi leaders, etc. Italian police not amused and seize wine. Wonder what happened to the evidence?
3. Cartoon Network fails to notify authorities that it will be placing odd electronic devices on bridges. In Boston, hilarity ensues. Nine other cities in the US scratch their heads. Parent company Turner Broadcasting coughs up $2 million for Boston’s freak out. Nine other cities in the US wish they’d freaked out, too.
4. Tie: car companies can’t figure out that suicide isn’t funny:
   1. GM runs Super Bowl ad that shows robot getting laid off from job at GM plant and killing itself.
   2. VW ad shows man coaxed back from jumping off ledge by news that VW has cars priced less than $17K.
5. Hershey begins selling Ice Breakers Pacs – small, clear-plastic envelopes of white powder. Police have problem with this. Hershey fails to capitalize. Does not claim that snorting breath mint is healthier than snorting cocaine or heroin.
6. Johnson & Johnson sues the Red Cross over the use of… wait for it … the red cross.
7. German campaign to raise funds for UNICEF features blonde kid in black face. Quoting AdFreak: This campaign was meant to raise support for schools in Africa, but even that part of the message is mangled by lines that sound like they’re condemning an entire continent: “In Africa, kids don’t come to school late, but not at all.” The campaign’s apparently been pulled after international criticism, although UNICEF notes that there was no “negative reaction from the German public after publication.”
8. Spirit Airlines two-fer:
   1. Doesn’t realize that its “Many Islands, Low Fares” promotion will result in a very unfortunate acronym.
   2. CEO Ben Baldanzasends email berating customers asking for a refund to said customers. Head of corp. communications adds fuel to the fire with following quotes:
      “No, we really don’t believe we have anything to apologize for regarding Ben’s e-mail.”
      “I can tell you that Ben cares enormously about our customers and our customer service. Ben said what is exactly true: that we don’t owe the customer anything. People can and do post whatever they would like on the Internet. But it cannot alter your adherence to your company policy or your procedures.”
9. Virginia tourism agency runs ads showing people flashing a hand signal used by the Gangster Disciples
10. Apple manages to generate ill will during most successful product release of the year. Shortly after the release of the Jesus Phone, Apple cut the price of the iPhone by $200, thereby pissing off early buyers and giving the press a reason to take a break from gushing over the gadget. This would have ranked higher but it had no impact on sales whatsoever. Great product will survive.

2008 Nominations now open…

Coming soon the famous Collateral Damage list of the year’s worst press releases.

Two new gadgets provide the perfect mashup for the upcoming uber-brand, Hello Homer:

1. The Simpson’s Doughnut Maker. The Doughnut maker prepares six sumptuous donuts in minutes in its non-stick coated interiors. Hence the donuts don’t have a chance to stick to the maker and allows easy clean up. The Donut maker is small enough so it doesn’t even take much space to pack up inside the cupboard and its ease of usage makes it a great delicacy-maker for kids. $18. BUT WAIT! I hear you cry. WHAT ABOUT THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC IN KIDS? Fear not, little one, for we also have the
2. Hello Kitty Multi Functional Scale. For a mere $130, the scale tells you your water level (?? I haven’t been able to find out what the hell that means??), calorie and whether you are overweight or underweight. You can set your gender, age first and this Multi-functional Health Scale will show you how healthy you are and you can improve from there on. And this being an HK product one of the other multi functions is, of course, cute. The combined donut maker and scale would tell you how many donuts you can have and whether you’re cute enough.

All hail our new brand overlord! Or is it our brand new overlord?

A robot called Cube-Kun debuted earlier this month at the TEPIA exhibition in Tokyo. His sole purpose? To solve Rubix Cubes within seconds. He has a giant flat screen for a face. When you give him a Cube, he quickly registers what the six sides look like, displays that on his screen, and then figures out a solution in approximately one second. Then his hands get to work.

And that’s all his hands get to work on.

Loyal readers will doubtless remember last spring’s post When Tigger socks are outlawed, only outlaws will wear cheerful Disney branded cloth on their feet. In it

Toni Kay Scott, a student at Napa Valley’s Redwood Middle School, was sent to an in-school suspension program (with the wonderfully Orwellian-name of Students With Attitude Problems). Her crime? Violating a dress code by wearing socks with Tigger on them, along with a denim skirt and a brown shirt with a pink border.

To no one’s surprise a lawsuit ensued. Said suit has now been settled. The school district has had to cough up$95K in lawyers’ fees and “may no longer require students to wear only solid-color clothing.“

Moral of the story: Don’t mess with The T.

A Chinese company that raked in billions of yuan raising ants to make an aphrodisiac tonic has filed for bankruptcy, an official Web site said. Thousands of angry investors took to the streets of Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, last month to demand help getting their money back from Yilishen Tianxi Group, besieging government offices and disrupting traffic.

No more comment needed.

Shades of Jerry Ford and Whip Inflation Now…

Italy’s government has decided to appoint a special commissioner to try to curb price rises after inflation hit a three-and-a-half year peak in November … The ombudsman, dubbed “Mr Prices” by Italian media, will inform the industry minister of any “anomalous” or unjustified price increases and can also make proposals for legislation.

What exactly is an “unjustified” price increase? Isn’t that basically at the heart of the theory of capitalism? I set a price and either the market meets it or it doesn’t. If I can sell bananas at $500 each then shouldn’t I? I’m not saying this is a good thing but it is how we’ve designed the system.

This brings us back to the debate over “price gouging” by oil companies last year.

Just as no one can define terror, no one has any idea what price gouging is either. This fact is made plain in the GOP-sponsored House bill, which leaves it to the Federal Trade Commission “to develop a definition of price gouging.” You have to love a law that is so specific about the penalty and so vague about the crime. (and if I do say so myself the rest of that rant is pretty good … I suggest reading the whole darn thing.)

I expect Signor Prices will, in some form, be coming to the US soon.

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korean scientists have cloned cats by manipulating a fluorescent protein gene, a procedure which could help develop treatments for human genetic diseases, officials said Wednesday. In a side-effect, the cloned cats glow in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet beams.

Just the thing to take to your next rave.

UPDATE: Derek writes in to remind me that the glow in the dark cat is probably a follow up to an earlier innovation: The fearless mouse.

Japanese scientists say they’ve used genetic engineering to create mice that show no fear of felines, a development that may shed new light on mammal behavior and the nature of fear itself.

Another way to describe a mouse that isn’t afraid of cats: Dead.

Wow, way to go out on a limb. I never would have guessed that. This is just one of the insights available for $695 in the report PQ Media’s Political Media Buying 2008: Preliminary Forecast Analysis

PQ Media’s motto: “We stay ahead of the curve to keep you ahead of the curve”

Apparently you can have too much street cred.

Police in Harrisburg, PA, say Hershey’s Ice Breakers Pacs are identical to the small bags used to sell crack, heroin and cocaine. Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector William Blackburn told the Philadelphia Daily News that “It glorifies the drug trade. There’s really no reason that a product like this should be on the shelf.” A spokesman for the company said any resemblance was coincidental.

Note: There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Hershey is considering having people sell individual packets of Ice Breakers on street corners. Nor that the company is very excited about its new pricing scheme. No truth. None. That’s just the kind of rumor that gets people in trouble, so DON’T SPREAD IT! Nope. Don’t do it. This would just increase sales among bored white kids in the suburbs. So don’t do it. Unless you own Hershey stock.

Spirit Airlines forgot to do some basic acronym checking with its latest sales campaign. The Florida-based airline, which specializes in Caribbean trips, inadvertently started offering a “MILF” special. While this likely resulted in an increase in traffic to the airline’s web site, apparently it wasn’t the type of traffic Spirit wanted. The slogan was removed from the site on Tuesday.

Maybe they thought it stood for “Mom, I’d like to fly!”

Maybe it’s something in Florida that makes companies obtuse on this topic. Disney ran into a similar problem with its Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor attraction.

TechCrunch reports on reports that Murdoch is buying BeliefNet.

What I find amusing about BeliefNet is it is so non-denominational that I am always a little surprised when I find any mention of The Big Kahuna. The site’s motto is “Inspiration. Spirituality. Faith.” Kind of the reverse order that most religious types would put those in but perfect for today’s scripturally squeamish consumers. The most emailed article on the site today is Chocolate Is Not The Enemy. This is a selection that appears under the wonderful tag: Weight Loss and Diet Inspiration From The Best of Chicken Soup For The Soul. Does anyone else think that the more chicken soup you have in your diet the less weight loss and diet inspiration you might need?

Looking at BeliefNet it is easy to imagine even a Universalist Unitarian complain about the lack of doctrinal rigor.

This is in marked contrast to my current favorite site for mixing religion and the internet: Mecca.com. Although this site doesn’t mention The Big Kahuna either, it seems to me that this is because they believe it’s wrong to associate You Know Who with a commercial enterprise rather than a desire to appeal to everybody.

While I would like to say I like this site because it helps people connect and find out what they have in common in a nice Muslim context, that would be a lie. As their mission statement shows the is lie by me … not them.

“Mecca.com offers a point of solidarity for online Muslims worldwide. Our goal is to promote and reinforce an inspiring, positive image of the strong values that Muslims bring to their respective communities everywhere. At mecca.com, we help Muslims everywhere come closer to achieving their own personal dreams – whatever they may be. Together, anything is possible.”

No, my real reason for liking the site is that is has The. Best. Tagline. EVER: Come to Mecca.

BRILLIANT.

(Maybe there’s someone there who can help me understand The Qu’ran. I tried to read it on my own a few years ago and quickly realized this is not a text I could make sense of without an instructor. I suspect I would have had the same reaction to the Old and New Testaments had I not grown up in a culture so infused with them.)

BTW, if you’re looking for a “holiday” gift for your “spiritually” minded friends may I suggest that you Reserve A Spot In Heaven for them. A mere $12.79 (?) guarantees him or her

Heavenly issued certificate of reservation with a unique I.D. number registered in the Book of Light™

A First class ticket to Heaven. Why walk those stairs when you can fly?

The Official Heaven Identification Card so you can get around without getting hassled.

Heaven 101 mini informational guide. Don’t be a victim of culture shock. Get acquainted with the land.

BTW, group discounts are available.