Collateral Damage

As noted earlier this week, Facebook and other social networking sites have been blamed for a wave of teen suicides in the UK. This was simply too good a story for the press to pass up — regardless of the facts in the matter.

Now comes word from Down Under that:

Psychologists in Australia have warned about the power of glamorising death through social networking sites in the wake of a spate of suicides in the UK

Translation: A reporter or editor saw the story and said “Localize it!” So someone called around to a bunch of local head shrinkers and asked for their opinions. To no one’s surprise the psychologists said this is a bad thing. No one seems to have told the mental health types the only fact contained in the entire story.

However, a police spokesman in Bridgend said there was no evidence to date of a suicide pact and that the theory did not come from police.

So the news  (a.k.a, the lead) is buried in the fourth paragraph and contradicts the basis for the rest of the article. Thus an accurate headline would read: Cops say suicide pact story is nonsense

What makes the article even better (better here meaning “an improved quality of stupidity) is the fact that the final paragraphs feature a medical person saying stories like this could exacerbate the problem.

Dr Jonathon Scourfield, a lecturer in social sciences, said cultural and social influences were influential in the decision to commit suicide.

“The more stories that appear about young people having killed themselves in your area, the more it might appear to you to be a reasonable response to a particular kind of crisis,” he said.

Sometimes it is difficult to remember that the only thing worse than having a free press is not having one.

What follows is a verbatim copy of an email I received — I’m guessing by accident — listing one company’s prices offered to corporations for Super Bowl entertainment. Simply put: Hospitality has a markup of at least $1K.

“Below you will find our listing of GameDay Hospitality and tickets.

Ticket Only Ticket w/Hospitality

UPPER LEVEL
End zones and Corners $3,490 $4,499
Endzones-20’s $3,845 $4,799
Between the 20’s $4,435 $5,199

LOWER LEVEL
Endzone $4,140 $5,699
Corners $4,635 $6,499
Endline-15 $5,420 $7,899
15-30 $7,235 $8,235
Between the 30 $8,315 $9,365

The GameDay Program includes NFL guaranteed Game Ticket, Exclusive In-Stadium Hospitality (pregame food stations, open bar and live entertainment), NFL Experience Ticket and Official NFL Super Bowl Gift Bag.”

The Ho-la Diner and the Jiashing restaurant opposite have run five or six rat eateries out of town over nearly six decades of business to become the top two ahead of the Year of the Rat, which begins on February 7. Both display hairless rat carcasses in their kitchen windows before chopping off the heads and throwing the pint-sized bodies and tails into pots with basil and sweet, black sauce.

Putting the rat back in ratatouille.

Someone call Remy, I sense an endorsement deal.

The UK government has given Ronald & Co. “the right to award credits toward a high school diploma to employees who complete on-the-job training programs.”

McDonald’s employees will initially be offered a “basic shift manager” course to train staff in everything they need to know to run a McDonald’s outlet — from hygiene to customer service.

No word on the report as to whether McD’s or railroad operator Network Rail and low-cost airline Flybe — which were also given the right to award credits — will be reimbursed by the government for this.

The plan has been dubbed McQualifications, by its foes. So now you be McQualified for your McJob.

And, before those of us on this side of the pond get too snooty about the Brits:

In the United States, McDonald’s offers courses in restaurant management that can be transferred for credit at traditional colleges and universities through its training facility, Hamburger University.

I want an athletic scholarship to HU.

Mrs. CollateralDamage reports that the latest DVD set of Law & Order: SVU (y’know, the L&O that focuses on sex crimes and/or crimes against children) includes a 4-minute Sesame Street sketch “Law and Order: Special Letters Unit” as a bonus feature.

Via MuppetNewsflash: Produced for Sesame Street’s 37th season, the sketch features an alphabet parody staring a group of Muppets. Detectives Meloni, Mariska, and Munch search for a missing letter “M.”

Well, one of these things is definitely not like the other.

Also on the Mrs. CollateralDamage front: She is becoming the queen of all Disney alt media. In addition to her Broke Hoedown blog, she has a weekly roll on the MouseGuestWeekly podcast, and a regular column at the site StudioCentrals. Well, in case that wasn’t enough she has also tossed her ears into the ring to become CMO for Disney. In this case that means Chief Magical Officer. It’s a job she is perfectly suited for as it involves two things she already does — spend too much time at Disney parks and make people happy. You can see her very funny video application for the spot here. It’s easily the best jargon-filled PowerPoint presentation ever.

Loyal readers will of course remember the national outcry that followed after I posted that about Hershey selling a white powdered form of breath mint in packaging identical to the small bags used to sell crack, heroin and cocaine. (And by “national outcry” I mean … ummmm … exactly not that.) Well, apparently terrified by the thought of further sarcasm from yours truly — or maybe it had something to do with the concerns of the police — Hershey is pulling the offending version of these breath mints.

That’s one solution. The other solution would have been to sell it to addicts and spin it as an attempt to help ween then from drugs. PR BONANZA!!!

The inimitable* Andrew Watson reminded me that yesterday would have been the 61st birthday of the late great Mr. Z.

Like a lot of people, my first exposure to Zevon was the album Excitable Boy. The title track was probably his biggest hit. It was a strange and bloody tribute/hommage to the great story songs written by Lieber & Stoller for The Coasters.

The album was narratively blood soaked — with Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner about a mercenary, Werewolves of London which is about exactly that, and Lawyers, Guns & Money. The last was further proof that in pop music no irony goes unpunished as it was later adopted by frat boys who screamed it as an anthem of privelege. In this it shared the same misunderstanding that dogged Randy Newman’s Short People and Springsteen’s Born In The USA, a vividly anti-war song adopted as an anthem by members of the armed services during the first Gulf War. (Stanley Clarke did an astoundingly great rap cover of “Born In …” As far as I can tell it was only ever released on vinyl and I have been looking for a digital copy of it for years )

Zevon didn’t just mock the portrayal of violence, he also had a deeply empathetic feeling for its victims, as on Veracruz

Someone called Maria’s name
I swear it was my father’s voice
Saying, “If you stay you’ll all be slain
You must leave now - you have no choice
Take the servants and ride west
Keep the child close to your chest
When the American troops withdraw
Let Zapata take the rest”

This is really the song that got me hooked on Z. Not only did we share an ironic/cynical sensibility and deep romanticism, but he knew from obscure historical incidents too! Find me another pop song about the US incursion into Mexico. OK, there’s Pancho & Lefty but that’s about it.

Here’s a some of my other favorite Zevons

• Mohammed’s Radio, a 1976 song about the militarism & Islam
• Desperados Under The Eaves, which mocks how easy it is to look tough
• Carmelita, which mocks the romantic view of drug addiction
• Frank & Jesse James (”They rode against the railroads/And they rode against the banks/And they rode against the governor/Never did they ask for a word of thanks”)
• Bill Lee, as in the baseball player
• My Shit’s Fucked Up, yeah I’ve had that day
• Dirty Little Religion, about the joys of love
• The Envoy, a tribute to a diplomat — how’s that!
• I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (”I’d rather feel bad than feel nothing at all”)
• I Was In The House When The House Burned Down
• For My Next Trick I’ll Need A Volunteer

A Rolling Stone article about Zevon in the mid-80s described his getting sober with the help of Ross McDonald, the great writer who created the detective Lew Archer. The article stuck in my head for years and later proved that there were other sensibilities that Zevon and I shared, for good and ill.

His last album, recorded as he was dying of cancer, was The Wind. I think it works best as the other half of the documentary of the same name made while Z was recording the album. I listened to it frequently last year as my aunt Cathleen and cousin Deirdre both died of cancer. The songs are filled with the fire of someone who doesn’t want to die and the questions of someone who knows he can’t avoid it.

The last song on the album hurts to hear, but I have found great consolation in it as well:

Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for a while
If I leave you it doesn’t mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for a while

When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for a while
There’s a train leaving nightly called when all is said and done
Keep me in your heart for a while

Sometimes when you’re doing simple things around the house
Maybe you’ll think of me and smile
You know I’m tied to you like the buttons on your blouse
Keep me in your heart for a while

Finally what I remember is Zevon’s humor and his refusal to take himself too seriously. Two quotes from his last appearance on David Letterman:

“I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for the last 20 years. It was one of those phobias that really didn’t pay off.”

On being asked if he now knows something about life that Letterman doesn’t: “Not unless I know how much you’re supposed to enjoy every sandwich.”

Miss you, dude.

(*Given how seldom I actually get to see him I’ve also started thinking of him as the invisible Andrew Watson.)

The death of actor Heath Ledger prompted the White House to postpone President Bush’s event on Wednesday promoting an ad campaign aimed at preventing prescription drug abuse.

Notable because it may be the only time in seven years the president passed on getting PR mileage from a tragedy.

It’s official: social networking and not the pursuit of money is now the source of all evil.

Previously Facebook et al., have been blamed for A) destroying the economy, B) supplying information to Cosa Nostra and C) ruining Christmas. (All those who think the state of the economy has something to do with absurd lending practices and oil flirting with the $100-a-barrel mark will be required to take a remedial class in sensational journalism.)

Now comes the latest word that a social networking site (that would be the et al. mentioned above) are driving teens to kill themselves.

The deaths of seven young people from the same town in South Wales could be linked to a suicide craze sweeping a social networking internet site.

According to reports detectives believe the goal of the suicides isn’t actually death but to have one’s friends set up an online cenotaph and thus gain some postmortem coolth.

“They may think it’s cool to have a memorial website,” one officer told The Times newspaper. “It may even be a way of achieving prestige among their peer group.”

Now I’ve heard more absurd theories — something about Iraq and WMDs comes to mind — but not many. All the reading I’ve done suggests that the key ingredient to suicide is mental illness not internet access.

Sadly this is not the first time I have encountered reports of teens making a fad of killing themselves. When I was in college there was a report of a wave of teens hanging themselves on Long Island. If memory serves experts offered theories ranging from the then-nascent MTV to the ever popular alienation. However further review of the evidence revealed that in fact these were all botched attempts at what the NY Times genteelly referred to as “auto-erotic asphyxiation.”

I could be wrong of course. Perhaps the world has changed even more radically than I realize since I was a teen. That was, after all, back when mastodons and manual typewriters roamed the earth. At the time I was as angst-y as they came — the amount of time I spent listening to Jackson Browne records and reading Yeats could be measured in years. But even I wouldn’t have considered killing myself to get my friends to say nice things about me when I was gone.

Paul Smith also takes a skeptical view of this on his blog here.

When erectile dysfunction strikes an entire nation…

A joint “task force cervelat” composed of scientists, bureaucrats and industry representatives has been convened to tackle the crisis caused by a shortfall in Brazilian cows’ intestines used to encase the nation’s favorite sausage, the Swiss meat association said.

That must be a great resume item.

And in a related story, a German company has unveiled a pill to “improve first-person shooter performance.”

FpsBrain is the only effective product with a 110% money-back guarantee. Clinical research and expert knowledge made it possible to develop an effective neural accelerator.

Yep, performance enhancing drugs have come to video gamers. Either that or the Germans are taking euphemism to a whole new level.

A health-care chain in the Midwest has purged its offices of all “the clipboards, clocks, mouse pads, stuffed animals and other items decorated with logos for such drugs as Nexium, Vytorin and Lipitor.“The SMDC Health System found 18,718 items when it scoured its four hospitals and 17 clinics. The items filled 20 shopping carts and will be sent to the west African nation of Cameroon. Perhaps the first time that a shipment of medical waste will be welcomed in a Third World country.

This should be operating procedure for anyone with an MD.

Sometimes it seemed like all she ever did was say, “Oh, Bob.” What was really impressive was all the laughs she got with so few lines. Bob Newhart is one of my all time comic heroes but without Pleshette his first great TV show would have been half as good. It’s actually easier to be the one with the punch lines, being the set-up takes more work. Don’t think so?  In vaudeville the funny guys like Lou Costello got the laughs but the straight men like Bud Abbot got the bigger pay check.

The French car company issued an apology to China because of an ad that ran in Spain featuring Chairman Mao making a face at a hatch-back.

Under the Biblical quotation “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” the text talked up Citroen’s position as a car sales leader in a bombastic tone. “It’s true, we are leaders, but at Citroen the revolution never stops,” the advertisement said.

The ad drew the ire of people at several Chinese web sites.

Oddly they didn’t object to using Mao’s image because it glorified the person directly responsible for murdering and starving tens of millions of their countrymen — (which is what Citroen should really be apologizing for). No, the quotes ran more to … “Chairman Mao is the symbol of China, and what Citroen did lacks basic respect to China.” Apparently they are just as bad at teaching history in China as they are here in the US.

In case the situation wasn’t ripe with enough irony, the image used in the ad closely resembled the ginormous Mao poster that waves in Tiananmen Square.

Jack Yan has a copy of the original ad at his blog here.

Virginia followed Maryland’s lead into the land of inane government restrictions yesterday when State Delegate Lionel Spruill introduced a bill to ban displaying replicas of human genitalia on vehicles, calling it a safety issue because it could distract other drivers.

Loyal readers will of course recall that it was nearly a year ago that a Maryland legislator introduced a similar measure. Surprisingly, it never got out of committee.

A key piece of information for Delegate Spruill: They are bull testicles, not human testicles which could make for an interesting defense in court.

“Your honor we ask that you dismiss the charges on the grounds that the testicles the defendant was displaying were clearly not those of a human.”

The folks at BumperNuts, YourNutz & BullsBalls and the other companies in the trailer hitch bull testicle industry must be ecstatic over the free PR. (YourNutz bills itself as “Your Source For The Original Car Nutz Bull Balls Truck Nuts on the Net!” Must make a great T-shirt. Not to be outdone, BullsBalls offers “testes-monials” from satisfied customers.)

Perhaps the best part of the story is where Spruill explains why he decided to tackle this issue. The idea came from a constituent who was embarrassed when his young daughter spotted said thing and asked him to explain it.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I said, ‘Sir, I’m going to be a laughingstock, but I’m going to do it,’” Spruill explained.

No doubt if the constituent had been embarrassed by trying to explain something like oh, homelessness or educational inequality, Delegate Spruill would have been just as fast to jump into action.

UPDATE: Got a great comment (below) from one Greg Phelps. This is someone who knows from decorating cars. See more pics of this car and its successor by clicking here.

… but they were willing to make one president?

(That’s my gratuitous Bush slam for today.)