Less Blogging, More Tweeting

FYI, I haven't been happy with how a lot of my posts are turning out, as well as the frequency with which I'm posting. Since most of the time, I just want to share a link that has an interesting take on telling its story, I'm going to dust off my Twitter account to share those and only post here if I'm really inspired. To the twelve people who read this blog, thanks.

The City of Milwaukee launched this ad campaign this week (along with Serve Marketing, my new dream employer). My first reaction was that it was a striking and effective ad, but then I realized it was aimed at co-sleeping, not just putting babies to sleep on their backs. I know next to nothing about co-sleeping, but I have a feeling that there are healthy ways to co-sleep, and un-healthy ways to co-sleep. Putting a child in bed on their stomach would be one of those un-healthy ways, but so is putting them on their stomach in their cribs. I don't know that it's necessarily fair to confuse the two issues.

Plus, according to the City of Milwaukee's web page,

Between 2006 and 2009 there were 89 infant deaths related to SIDS, SUDI, or accidental suffocation.  Of these 46 (51.7%) infants were sleeping in an adult bed at the time of their death.  

Meaning that 48.3 percent (or 43 babies) were not co-sleeping, but presumably in their cribs. Although I loathe to say that three infant's lives are statistically insignificant, the difference is. Half of these SIDS deaths occurred in cribs--where is the campaign to eliminate cribs?

First off, this isn't a post about abortion. It's about how the personhood movement is dangerous even if you take abortion out of the debate. According to my friend Liz,

More than 55% of voters in Mississippi yesterday rejected the state’s ‘personhood’ initiative—a development that certainly bodes well for reproductive rights in this country, and gives me a little more hope about our collective sanity, as well.

What interested me about this issue (aside from the fact that I possess a uterus), was the way some of the groups fighting the Mississippi amendment were approaching the issue. The group Parents against MS 26 pointed out that the personhood movement, "has far-reaching effects on infertility treatment, contraception, and women's physical health."


Jessica Valenti cites several examples in her column in the Washington Post, including this one:

In 1996, when Laura Pemberton in Florida refused a recommended C-section because she did not want surgery, the sheriff and the state’s attorney went to her house while she was in labor and took her to a hospital, where a lawyer had been appointed for her fetus. (Pemberton was not given representation.) According to Pemberton and legal documents, she was subsequently forced to undergo the C-section against her will.

Sarah Brown from the National Campaign to prevent Teen and unplanned pregnancy posed a common question: "Isn’t it clear and obvious that contraception is preferable to abortion?" I think she's giving these people too much credit. Anyone who has read up on right wing religious extremists knows that they actually do think contraception is just as bad. 

Obligatory OWS Post

I'll try and expand on this later, but a few links looking at the protest from marketing and demographic standpoints:

OWS Demographics or, "Duh, it's not just unemployed college dropouts"

Protest, Music and #OWS Opportunism or, "Hey, this thing ain't going away. Can we market it?"

OWS Billboard? or, "Really, you think Clear Channel will put this up?"

and the Frameworks Institute analyzes the "We are the 99%" meme.

Dear Dr. Pepper

My postings have been a bit light (and yet a bit too heavy) lately, so it's time for some good old advertising sexism. Several blogs have gone over this campaign (highlights: a Facebook page that blocks female users, where guys are free to post shit like, "see its in the woman's cunty nature to btch and whine for no reason" so I won't go into too much detail about what looks like a truly lazy and cliched campaign (Bullets on the packaging? How manly and phallic!). So, in short:

Dear Dr. Pepper: I don't drink soda. No Pepsi, no Coke, no Dr. Pepper. So you probably don't care what I say. But here's the thing- maybe I'll start drinking soda next year, or five years from now, when my sweet tooth and need for caffeine finally gets the best of me. You may not have lost my business now, but you've definitely lost it then. And oh, in case you think you'll get my girly, soda-avoiding patronage with Snapple (yup, I know you own Snapple), think again.

Feministing pointed out that the company was probably taking the "any publicity is good publicity" route, and didn't want to give it any fodder (which is why I'm not linking to their post on 'Schmoctor Schmepper' directly, because I'm all experty now on SEO). It made me think twice about posting this. Maybe somewhere, some other bored media analyst will have to research and log this post for the company. I'm trying to imagine the metrics they'll be measuring it by, and I really can't think of anything good.


Update: A longer, better letter at Shakesville.
Sigh. Once I master SEO, I really have to bone up on my html formatting.

Anecdotally, I can confirm this...

So I'm a little behind on this, but there was an interesting piece in the New York Times on bullying. Back when I was being bullied around in elementary school, it wasn't called "drama"- it was "goofing around," "just messing with you," etc. Same idea, different words. None of the kids who bullied me would have ever admitted to bullying--why would anyone admit to being mean? For them, it wasn't A Serious Issue That Must Be Addressed, it was just everyday joking around. I asked the lead Mean Girl a few years later if she remembered teasing me, and her response was, "I did? I don't remember. Sorry about that." She obviously meant it, so I suppressed my first urge to yell, "You what?!?! You don't remember making my life a living hell for an entire year??? You ruined my life!" Instead, I think I responded with something like, "Huh, whatever."

Would you rather...

You're a woman in Liberia. You've just been raped. There's only a fifty-percent chance you can read. You don't know what to do. You see a sign for a "Sexual Gender-Based Violence Referral Pathway." Do you go?

Yeah. Didn't think so.

Found this at Social Media 4 Good, a blog I really need to start reading more often. Appealing to your audience is Marketing 101. Why is it so hard for NGOs to get this? Funders are not their only audience.

From the Frameworks Institute

Framing Budgets and Taxes: Elizabeth Warren Gets It Right

Yup.

Social Engineering and "Leftist Architects"

Haven shaken my fist at a fair number of right-wing billboards calling public transit and New Urbanism "social engineering" (but freeways and suburbs aren't?!?), I've got to wonder if former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist and current head of the Congress for the New Urbanism knew exactly what he was doing when he used the phrase "leftist architects" to describe architects

like Le Corbusier, who championed glass-encased, high-rise apartment buildings set apart from cities, and Oscar Niemeyer, who designed the city of Brasília with its high-rise, above grade roads. Norquist added that the only life and culture you will find in Brasília is outside the city limits in the slums.

As much as I like his other designs, I'd add Frank Lloyd Wright to that list, simply for Broadacre City. Ugh. Now, I know from a philosophical and artistic perspective, it's an accurate description of their work (ooh, Stalinists!). But in using it in opposition to New Urbanism, I'm wondering if it's a bit of a god whistle to conservative civic leaders. Trying to trigger a little bit of Tea Party logic: "If New Urbanism is against liberals, then it must be a good thing!" Hey, if it gets a few more people to read "Twelve Anti-Transit Myths: A Conservative Critique" (I swear you'll never seeing me favorably link to anything by Paul Weyrich again) then I'm all for it.

Biting the hand that feeds you/Feeding the mouth that bites you.

So I was part of a pretty spirited conversation at the Co-op the other day about Growing Power's acceptance of a $1 million grant from Wal-Mart. On one side, the sustainable businessman who referred to Wal-Mart either as the Devil or Satan, I forget, but who absolutely supported Will Allen's decision. I'm blanking on the other guy, who just stopped at Wal-Mart is the Devil, no compromises.

In the middle (literally and figuratively), was me. As in, "Thank God I wasn't asked to make that decision." My first thought on seeing that headline was, "Ooo, boy, that's gonna be controversial." Does anyone really think there wasn't some serious soul searching going on over there before they said yes? Which brings me to this post on Civil Eats this morning. For Andy Fisher of the Community Food Security Coalition, it comes down to this:

Wal-Mart’s and the “Good Food Revolution’s” interests may dovetail in bringing groceries into food deserts. However, the broader interests of these two parties are in direct opposition to each other. Wal-Mart’s operations cause larger problems to the food security of the communities in which they locate.

I had brought up many of the same points in our conversation, mainly that Wal-Mart has stated it is aiming to offer more local produce; which, as Fisher also points out, happens to fit quite closely with its PR efforts to get in to urban markets. I'm not arguing a chicken and egg situation here. I'm sure Wal-Mart's question was "How do we break into urban markets?" and local foods was one of the answers. Does that negate the benefits? Obviously, as Fisher shows, there's a strong argument to make there. Is Will Allen an idealist? Hells yes. The first tour I took of Growing Power lasted four hours, and we never even made it out of the main greenhouse, Will was so excited to show us everything. Surrounded as I am with farmer's markets and urban gardens and organic veggies for my Bi Bim Bop, it's easy to lose perspective. But I try hard to remember that a few miles away over on Silver Spring Road, most of Growing Power's target audience shops at Wal-Mart every day. Monsanto money? Easy. Refuse it. Wal-Mart money? I'd say the same...but what does that say to their audience? "Wal-Mart is bad, and I shop at Wal-Mart, so does that mean I'm bad?"

As usual, I have argued myself from one side of an argument to another and back again.

Hi, still here...

Food and Sex

Shorter George Will: everyone who is uptight about the first should really be uptight about the second instead. Oh, and people didn't have sex outside of marriage in the fifties.

I get paid to read this shit!

Oh, and also, I know it's a few weeks late, but PETA can kiss my vegetable-loving ass for this. For those looking for non-sexist food porn, I suggest Nigella Lawson.

This post may or may not signal a return to regular blogging.

My elevator speech

My objective, with this site, with my career, is to help advocacy organizations use communications as a strategy to leverage change.

Food is...

It will come as no surprise that my first post here in forever is about food. I ran across this at the Ethicurian. The Accidental Hedonist outlines her food beliefs, which match up pretty closely with my own:

1. Food is Life - This is pretty straightforward. You need to eat to live.
2. Food is Cultural - What you eat represents who you are as well as the environment in which you inhabit.
3. Food is Class - What you eat is defined by the allotment of resources available to you.
4. Food is Politics - The food choices you make within your resources give credibility to the producers and suppliers of said food.

I'd probably add "Food is Medicine" based on my own personal experiences recently, but this list pretty much saves me from having to think of my own. That and Michael Pollan's "Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants" make up my elevator speech on the topic.

"Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless." -Salman Rushdie

I'll show you my danelions if you show me your industry credentials

Okay, kids, we're going to talk about breast feeding versus bottle feeding again in framing class today, so no giggling (you know who you are).

I was looking over someone's shoulder on the Metro today and reading an article titled "HHS Toned Down Breast-Feeding Ads", which reads like a continuation of the administration's meddling in public health:

In an attempt to raise the nation's historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed. It featured striking photos of insulin syringes and asthma inhalers topped with rubber nipples.

-snip-

The ads ran instead with more friendly images of dandelions and cherry-topped ice cream scoops, to dramatize how breast-feeding could help avert respiratory problems and obesity.

According to the article, the formula industry didn't block the ads "but helped shape their content." Um, huh? Isn't there a slight conflict of interest here? I'd say that this would be like the candy industry giving input on diabetes prevention, but baby formula isn't harmful- it's just slightly less beneficial than the real thing. As for "shaping" the content:

But the campaign HHS used did not simply drop the disputed statistics in the draft ads. The initial idea was to startle women with images starkly warning that babies could become ill. Instead, the final ads cited how breast-feeding benefits babies -- an approach that the ad company hired by HHS had advised would be ineffective. The department also pulled back on several related promotional efforts.

I think it's obvious why this pissed me off. I was all ready to slam the ad changes themselves, from a framing standpoint, until I went back and looked at gain/loss framing theory, which basically says that loss-framed messages ("If you don't do this your child will get sick") work best for screening behaviors, but if you want people to take preventatives steps, gain messages work better ("If you do this, your child will stay healthy"). Breast feeding is a preventative measure, so positive messages make sense, and the new ads should have worked better, right? But apparently they were entirely ineffective: "The milder campaign HHS eventually used had no discernible impact on the nation's breast-feeding rate, which lags behind the rate in many European countries."

The more I look at the revised ad, the cleverer it gets. But it's so subtle, no wonder it didn't work. If I were paging through a magazine, even a parenting magazine, I would have glossed right over it, thinking it could be an ad for fabric softner or something.

I heart George Lakoff

With Elyzabethe over at YellowIsTheColor writing all about The Political Brain so much lately, I thought it might be a good time to blog about the Rockridge Institute, which I've recently re-discovered. Anyone who talks to me for more than two minutes about communications or policy knows my affection for George Lakoff. Rockridge is a think thank founded on his work on cognitive linguistics and progressive policy. It's goal is the same as Drew Westen's: reframe the public debate.

The Rockridge Fellows put out some great essays on all sorts of topics, but what really got me drooling was their interactive Rockridge Nation. Framing examples galore! What I especially liked, because it's an issue near and dear to my heart, is the ongoing dicussion about the fallacy of a left/right linear political spectrum, and why moving towards the "center" isn't a good political strategy:

In reality, there are basic progressive and conservative worldviews, and many people have both but apply them to different issue areas. The people "in the middle" actually have many different combinations of progressive and conservative thought. There is no ideology of the middle, no unified worldview that everyone in the "center" agrees on, and no linear ordering of the issues. Something much more interesting is going on.

Another post that might be of interest to those of you throwing around sterotypes about right wing nutjobs and leftist radicals is this one, Too Far Left to be Progressive?"

Who says liberals don't have a sense of humor?

How many global warming videos start with "In 1975, two boxes of wine were consumed, one condom broke, and nine months later, a legend was born..."



It's a short film (in five YouTube sized acts) calling for increased fuel efficiency standards. Unfortunately, it kind of falls flat on the call to action part--
I don't see why it needed to be a half hour. I think it works better as an inspirational video for environmentalists trying to get out their message across, since it basically just follows one guy trying to make what, in the end, is your typical celebrity-faces-the-camera-and-tells-us-to-call-congress PSA. I needed to get people's attention, so I...made a PSA? It started out so promising in Episode 1, with Ben Affleck running around in a corn suit and Joshua Jackson threatening to break a baby's arm if Congress doesn't listen...

I agree with this guy that all the celebrities are unnecessary. It would have been funny anyway, and it doesn't help combat the environmentalists-as-liberal-blue-state-Hollywood-elites frame. So I guess my point is, if you've got five minutes, watch the first clip. If you've got fifteen, watch this. I have gots to get myself to a TED conference someday. It makes the thought of going to work tomorrow insanely boring.

Busy signal...

Today I joined not one, but two social networking sites--Pownce and Ravelry. I'm geeking out, even though I'm on dial-up, and am probably going to end up spending the entire weekend adding my knitting projects to Ravelry. Oh, I didn't mention is was a knitting network? Yeah, I meant it when I said I was geeking out. But not before I finish Harry Potter...

I didn't want to read this...but I did.

Hillary Clinton's Tentative Dip Into New Neckline Territory

Okay, it was appropriately filed under "fashion" but is was on the front of the WaPo website. I cringed. Then I clicked on it:

There was cleavage on display Wednesday afternoon on C-SPAN2. It belonged to Sen. Hillary Clinton.

She was talking on the Senate floor about the burdensome cost of higher education. She was wearing a rose-colored blazer over a black top. The neckline sat low on her chest and had a subtle V-shape. The cleavage registered after only a quick glance. No scrunch-faced scrutiny was necessary. There wasn't an unseemly amount of cleavage showing, but there it was. Undeniable.

The article goes on to talk about how sartorially conservative and masculine the Hill is, and Hilary's uncomfortable relationship with fashion as the First Lady, and her adoption of the black pantsuit as her uniform. Until now, apparently. There was the requisite "really, this isn't just about women, we swear" observation:

It's tempting to say that the cleavage stirs the same kind of discomfort that might be churned up after spotting Rudy Giuliani with his shirt unbuttoned just a smidge too far. No one wants to see that. But really, it was more like catching a man with his fly unzipped. Just look away!

And the requisite "oh, America, we're so prudish" observation:

Not so long ago, Jacqui Smith, the new British home secretary, spoke before the House of Commons showing far more cleavage than Clinton. If Clinton's was a teasing display, then Smith's was a full-fledged come-on. But somehow it wasn't as unnerving. Perhaps that's because Smith's cleavage seemed to be presented so forthrightly. Smith's fitted jacket and her dramatic necklace combined to draw the eye directly to her bosom. There they were . . . all part of a bold, confident style package.

And then ends with:

With Clinton, there was the sense that you were catching a surreptitious glimpse at something private. You were intruding -- being a voyeur. Showing cleavage is a request to be engaged in a particular way. It doesn't necessarily mean that a woman is asking to be objectified, but it does suggest a certain confidence and physical ease. It means that a woman is content being perceived as a sexual person in addition to being seen as someone who is intelligent, authoritative, witty and whatever else might define her personality. It also means that she feels that all those other characteristics are so apparent and undeniable, that they will not be overshadowed.

To display cleavage in a setting that does not involve cocktails and hors d'oeuvres is a provocation. It requires that a woman be utterly at ease in her skin, coolly confident about her appearance, unflinching about her sense of style. Any hint of ambivalence makes everyone uncomfortable. And in matters of style, Clinton is as noncommittal as ever.

Huh? Cleavage equals confidence? Cleavage equal provocation? Confidence equals provocation? I don't really know what to take from this. I mean, I like the part about being confident that sexuality will not overshadow her intelligence, etc. We can bring up the Edwards $400 haircut here, but remember, Hillary had her own overpriced haircut scandal back when she was in the White House. And those articles focus on the price, not what Edward's haircut says about him. Obviously, Hillary shouldn't have to dress like a nun to be president. But this author seems to be setting up a damned-if-you-do, dammed-if-you-don't dichotomy for her: show too much cleavage, we're going to be uncomfortable; show too little cleavage, we're going to think she's not confident enough to lead.

Excuse me while I go Google "Margaret Thatcher" and "cleavage."

Mad Men

Any of you other comm geeks going to watch this? Hell, I'll watch it just for the costumes, but maybe we should start a drinking game--take a shot every time someone mentions Edward Bernays or Ivy Lee? No?

"If you use a frying pan to hit someone over the head, you don't call that cooking."

I don't know how this hasn't made the evening news. Then again, I had to hear about it from the Yarn Harlot, so maybe it has been. I'll let Stephanie explain:

Tory Bowen says that she was raped. Actually, Tory Bowen, was pre-law at college when she had a drink at a bar that was the last thing she remembers until she woke up in a strangers bed, with a stranger, who was doing something she hadn't consented to. (That would be the rape.) She went to the emergency room, was treated and had a rape kit done and called the police. The police charged her attacker with 1st degree sexual assault and a trial was set. That's where things got weird.

The judge decided that many words around this issue were too inflammatory. That they made the defendant sound guilty, and that they implied a crime...."Rape" is a legal conclusion- he thought. We cannot call it rape until a jury says it's rape. (Hear that women? You can't know something is rape until there's a vote. I suppose being there doesn't grant you any special insight.) So he banned some words. Nobody in his courtroom may use these words, when it comes to this trial:

Rape.
Sexual Assault.
Victim.
Attacker.
Assailant.
Forced.

No one can say that the hospital did a "Rape Kit" and they can't say that at the hospital she was treated by the "Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner." In fact, inside the courtroom no one can even say that the defendant is charged with 1st Degree Sexual Assault.

So what, if anything, was allowed?

Ms. Bowen is allowed to say that she and the defendant had "sex" or "intercourse", which she complains (and very rightly so) implies the exact opposite to a jury, that the acts were consensual and non-traumatic.

The whole thing got laid out from a legal perspective by Dahlia Lithwick in a June 20 article in Slate:

Nebraska law offers judges broad discretion to ban evidence or language that present the danger of "unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues or misleading the jury." And it's not unheard-of for judges to keep certain words out of a courtroom. Words like victim have been increasingly kept out of trials, since they tend to imply that a crime was committed. And as Safi's lawyer, Clarence Mock, explains, the word rape is just as loaded. "It's a legal conclusion for a witness to say, 'I was raped' or 'sexually assaulted.' … That's for a jury to decide." His concern is that the word rape so inflames jurors that they decide a case emotionally and not rationally.

The real question for Judge Cheuvront, then, is whether embedded in the word sex is another "legal conclusion"—that the intercourse was consensual. And it's hard to conclude otherwise. Go ahead, use the word sex in a sentence. Asking a complaining witness to scrub the word rape or assault from her testimony is one thing. Asking that she imply that she agreed to what her alleged assailant was doing to her is something else entirely. To put it another way: If the complaining witness in a rape trial has to describe herself as having had "intercourse" with the defendant, should the complaining witness in a mugging be forced to testify that he was merely giving his attacker a loan?

Since the jury wasn't told particular words words were banned, the first trial, unsurprisingly, ended in a mistrial. Stephanie again:

Can you imagine being a juror at a trial where a man is accused of not even sexual assault, but just sex? A trial where the victim (oh, crap. Forgot we can't call her that.) the "complainant" can't say she was forced? A trial where the victim never accuses her attacker of rape? If you were a juror, how seriously would you take a woman who testified about what happened to her for 13 hours without ever using a single word that implied that she thought what had happened to her was a crime?

Before the second trial, and to prove a point, Tory's lawyer tried to get "sex" and "intercourse" banned from the court as well. To which I say: heh. Dahlia did too:

The judge denied that motion, evidently on the theory that there would be no words left to describe the sex act at all. The result is that the defense and the prosecution are both left to use the same word—sex—to describe either forcible sexual assault, or benign consensual intercourse. As for the jurors, they'll just have to read the witnesses' eyebrows to sort out the difference.

Apparently, the second trial has been declared a mistrial by the judge, becaues he fears all the media attention will get in the way of jurors unbiased opinions. Seriously.

A reader of Stephanie's posts in the comments about a psychiatrist in Canda who studying how language events, especially those implying violence against women aren't just semantics, but create reality, a

"real-live reality where perpetrators don't go to jail for crimes they've committed because the language that's used has consent embedded in it. This is absolutely the most egregious example of this that I've heard...One of the examples Allan Wade gives is the problem in calling something 'sexual' that isn't 'sexual' at all. He says, 'If you use a frying pan to hit someone over the head, you don't call that cooking.'"

Okay, ladies of the blogosphere, let that be our rallying cry. Let's let out a collective "WTF??" loud enough for everyone to hear.

Markets are conversations and...

Okay, by now you know the Cluetrain Manifesto: Markets are conversations.

Today at work I stumbled across a great definition of marketing, courtesy of Seth Godin: "Marketing is an act that starts a conversation."

Real Food, Fake Entertainment, and Framing a Movement

The Ethicurean's Dairy Queen had a post today titled Truthiness and Real Food: Hellman's, get your paws off our framing! The title alone referenced, Steven Colbert, food and framing, so I had to read it. Turns out it touches on a lot more of the issues we've been covering this year in class. Hellman's Mayonnaise is starting a "real food" web campaign, and was trying to get bloggers to join in. I can't quite figure out what it all entailed, but apparently Unilever attempted to pitch an integrated marketing show (ie, "infotainment") to the Food Network, which turned them down, so they've now developed a "In Search of Real Food" website on Yahoo where people can share recipes and thoughts on "real", local, and fresh foods--and Hellman's mayonnaise.

What’s keeping me up so late with annoyance is the insidious way that Hellman’s/Best Foods is trying to co-opt the idea of real food by velcro-ing their manufactured "foodlike product" to it in this smarmy marketing campaign. It’s factory food: sterile, shelf-stable, and the "natural flavors" it mostly tastes like come from another factory, one that makes chemical compounds that mimic real food.

To emphasize her point, she posts the ingredients list for Hellman's. The fifth ingredient is high fructose corn syrup, and it gets worse from there. Now, I'm no snob. I think there's a place for Hellman's mayo, and I'm pretty sure one of those places is in my refrigerator. But "real" is never going to be an adjective I'm going to use to describe mayonnaise. Just like no one has ever described McDonald's and "good food." I've heard it described as many things--fast, convenient, addictive--but no one's ever going to confuse it with home cooking. It's a stand-in for when we're too tired/busy/poor for the real thing.

I refuse to link to the actual site, but I think it's worth a laugh to look at the original press release on PR Newswire.

You know you've made it when your frame is being co-oped by Unilever. I think "real food" is a good frame--the folks over at Farm Aid call it The Good Food Movement. Simple and effective. I've been struggling with framing this issue for a few months now-"organic" and "local" don't encompass it all; "slow food" is elitist. And although "sustainable" works as a concept, it's not a word that works with the public. I never even bothered with epicurean or agrarian...

And now for something completely different.

I'll admit the new Disney cartoon Ratatouille looked cute, but with the combination of being broke and still feeling well enough to look at food, I figured I'd pass on it for awhile. But according to Eating Liberally, I really should go see this movie. Its message?

Yes, even a lowly rodent can learn to cook, but just like the rest of us, his culinary endeavors will succeed or fail depending on the quality and freshness of his ingredients. Am I the only one who finds this message pretty radical
for an animated film supposedly aimed at kids? And it seems all the more astonishing when you contrast it to Pixar parent Disney’s Shrek the Third, with its endless tie-ins to processed foods that target toddlers’ taste buds.

Apparently the villain in the movie sells junk food. How awesome is that?

Now, I'm not naive enough to believe kids are going to trade in their popcorn for carrot sticks at the movie theater, especially after the Associated Press recently reviewed 57 programs aimed at encouraging kids to eat healthier, and found that all but four of them were complete failures. Apparently, one program flat-out bribed kids to eat healthy. To absolutely no one's suprise but the idiot who thought up that program, the kids stopped eating healthy when they stopped getting rewarded for it. I'd be willing to put money down that at least one of the four that didn't fail were grounded in some strong social marketing research.

I'm 28, for the record.

I had forgotten until today that I had posted my picture on The Age Project, in order to prove my suspicion that most people think I look younger than I am. Well, I was disproven. The average guess was 27, which is close enough. For those friends curious enough, the photo I posted is the same one I'm using for my Facebook profile.

Framing food

I came across two great posts this week that brought together food, feminism, and healthy choices. Freelance writer Jennifer Jeffrey wrote a pair of posts entitled The Feminist In My Kitchen. The question: is the sustainable food movement women-friendly?

I wonder if our little blogsphere sits here debating the provenance of our nectarines while the larger community of women – most of whom have no time for surfing blogs, let alone writing one – head out to work feeling more guilty than ever before, as the mountain of expectations and unattainable standards grows ever higher.

Can we call ourselves feminists (simply defined here as people who desire the equality of all women, everywhere) and still suggest that an ideal dinner consists of handmade ravioli and slow-simmered marinara from vine-ripened, hand-picked tomatoes and a salad composed of vegetables that (let’s be honest) are Not Available at Safeway?

By pointing out that convenience has been a friend to the working women, she could have easily turned this into one of the many 'local food is elitist' essays that seem to have sprung up lately. But she doesn't. In a second post:

The System is Broken. It’s not the fault of the farmer’s market that I feel overstressed. Rather, the game itself is rigged. The workforce rewards people who are willing to put in ridiculous hours and disregard personal health and long-term wellbeing. It does not reward self-nourishment or play or rest.

Over on the Cleaner Plate Club, a post titled "You Shouldn't Have to Be A Hero to Eat Well" picks up the conversation. Points out that personal health and diet matters are always framed as ones of individual responsibility, despite the fact that the prime factor in what people buy is what's available. She wonders why we force people to go to extraordinary lengths to eat healthy, why it isn't the default choice? Why isn't healthy convenient?

Think about what people say when someone’s lost weight: “how did you DO it???” Think about how people frame their relationships with food: like doing battle with the enemy. Think about how people talk about someone who’s actually able to be healthy in this world: “She’s my hero." (or worse: they say “I hate her,” because she’s accomplished the seemingly impossible).

It shouldn’t take heroic efforts to the things that every doctor recommends — to eat right, and move more. If it does take heroic efforts, then something is really, really f%$@ed."

She points out examples of people trying to make healthy convenient--starting a farmers market at a hospital campus, fighting to change the farm bill and changing school lunches:

Whenever people talk about trying to make people healthier, trying to create healthier environments, they get accused of taking away choices. Or lifting all of the responsibility from parents and individuals. They get accused of…I don’t know. A kind of negativity and blame that doesn’t fly with most Americans.

They’re not trying to remove people’s choices. Rather, they’re trying to increase people’s choices — by improving people’s access to nutrient-rich options, where they might otherwise be greeted by only a fast-food world. They’re actually creating a better, richer, more colorful world, while they’re at it.

Inspiration

So I ran across a tribute to Paul Simon by the Library of Congress on PBS tonight. Now, I've finally gotten over my theater-degree habit of dissecting theatrical production values, but I think my pr/marketing/communications training has taken over. Let me explain.

First off, the whole concert consisted of beautiful interpretations of Paul Simon's songs, illustrating exactly why he was recieving the Gershwin Award for Popular Song. Yes, there were big name artists performing (The Muppets doing Feelin’ Groovy? Awesome!), but many of them weren't so famous--like Allison Krause singing Graceland. So the show was really well curated. But then they handed it off to an event coordinator to run the show. I respect event coordinators, but they are not directors. It was obvious the show was produced in DC, not in LA. Instead of a host, there was a disembodied voice-over. Then Bob Costas (huh?) introducing a video that is obviously destined for a Library of Congress museum exhibit on the Library's archives narrated (badly) by Tom Brokaw. Artists were unceremoniously shuffled on and off stage with no transitions and the backstage crew swarming around (Seriously--they almost pushed Paul over once). There were no reaction shots of Paul, so I didn’t even know he was there until they introduced him. There was, of course, Ladysmith Black Mambazo. (Oh, and Art Garfunkel) (Good. I was starting to feel sorry for him.) (Though its pretty obvious why Paul’s the famous one.) (Yes, they sang Bridge over Troubled Water).

The whole thing couldn't help but remind me a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald that was on PBS a few weeks ago. Like the Paul Simon tribute, the music was spectacular. Unlike the Paul Simon tribute, the whole production was impressive, interspersing musical performances with videos of Ella, reminisces from people like Qunicey Jones. The first part was a kind of chronology of Ella's career, starting with Little Yellow Basket, of course. Then there was a section that seemed to cover all the different facets of Ella’s voice. It was a tribute to her that they needed so many people’s voices to cover her range- the young ingénue, scatting with a jazz band, show tunes, the grande dame of popular song, etc. Anyhoo, my point was it was a well-designed show, not just a well-sung one.

Maybe I’ve been lingering on the arts specials so much lately because working in an office has set it in such stark relief. I'm secretly wondering, if I'm ever going to get to be creative again? I’ve always felt an affinity with artists--artisans, really--the ones who work long hours and only rarely get famous. Whose job it is to be creative. Even though I’m no longer passionate about theater like I was when I was younger, one of my fondest memories is still the feeling of being backstage. Someday I want to do it again, amateur-style. I do, however, still want to Write the Great American Novel. It’s gonna happen one day- but not yet. If I tried to go off and Be A Writer, I would fail miserably, every time I’ve tried to Be A Writer. I want it to grow out of my work, out of my life. Which really, blogging is good for. Hmm.

This post was a whole long longer and more emotional an hour ago...

First off: It's sad that I get better wireless reception in my backyard than in my apartment, right?

Sigh. I normally try to stay out of the quagmire that is the abortion debate, but as usually, elyzabethe wrote something insightful about feminist issues that I had to comment on. Actually, I had to comment on the framing war that was going on in the comments section between elyzabethe and another friend. Then I ended up emailing back and forth with her for awhile. Then someone at work mentioned how the "choice" frame is starting to lose ground, even though advocates don't want to admit it. I started scribbling notes, sighed, and thought, "well, I'm gonna have to blog about this."

Elyzabeth rants often against anti-choice organizations and legislation, as is her wont as a libertarian feminist. She’s particularly good at teasing out how anti-choice (A, if you’re reading this, bear with me, I’m referring to ‘anti-choice’ as more than just the abortion issue) rhetoric consciously or unconsciously portrays women as too ignorant or too flippant to make their own informed decisions, which is what this particular post was about. A friend on the other side of the political spectrum called her out on disrespectfully using "anti-choice" instead of "pro-life," and numerous points were made:

1. She wasn't trying to be disrespectful of anti-abortion advocates, but of anti-abortion advocates that show disrespect for feminist choices in general.
2. Using "anti-choice" instead of "pro-life" is an attempt to re-frame the debate, however much an uphill battle that may be, and thus was not disrespectful, per se.
3. "Framing just a strategic form of name-calling." That deserves to be on a t-shirt.

This led to me ranting over email to elyzabethe about framing. Yeah, in a way framing IS just strategic name-calling. But not if it's done well. And there is no such thing as an issue not being framed: if it's an issue, it's being framed. It's a common mistake for advocates: their terminology is neutral, while anything else is clearly wrong/misguided/mean.

Then, about two hours later, it led to me ranting over email to elyzabethe about abortion. My big pet peeve? Pro-life advocates' impression that we pro-choice people want women to have abortions. THAT'S ABSURD. WHY would anyone WANT women to go through such a difficult thing? It reminds me of the whole GLBT joke, "just one more and I get a toaster." Planned Parenthood doesn't earn points for every abortion it performs.

The framing problem for pro-choice advocates is that "choice" instead of implying "more than one option" has been positioned by the opposition as synonym for "selfish or uninformed." We're partly to blame for that, but that's neither here nor there. The question is now, can we take back our definition of the frame? Or do we have to take on the hard task of re-framing the debate again?

Up until now, I haven’t really paid much attention to the (Red) campaign. I mean, I think it’s a great thing, but it just seemed a little close to charity/white man saving Africa. But this week I got a hold of the Vanity Fair issue on Africa (guest edited by Bono!), and I came across a (Red) ad that just said “Meaning is the New Luxury” in black on a background of, wait for it, red. For any student of advertising and PR, this was basically like saying “Hi, blog about me.”

Because it’s true: we don’t buy products and services anymore because they work, we buy them because it makes us feel good about ourselves, our lifestyle. See: Persuaders, The. We know this. I just had never seen it spelled out so blatantly. It was kind of refreshing--no, really refreshing--after an entire magazine of tastefully-designed celebrity-endorsed socially-responsible product ads, including Kimora Lee Simmons for her own jewelry line, Natalie Maines and Terrance Howard for Gap(Red), David Beckham for Motorola(Red), and Eve for Mac Cosmetics... Totally unrelated, how did Jennifer Anniston’s people let her non-charity-related ad for bottled water appear in a magazine filthy with pictures of Brad Pitt talking politics with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in full Deep, Concerned Celebrity mode? Awkward.

Anyhoo. The next page declared “Be a good-looking Samaritan.” The page after that featured the (Red) manifesto, which I was all ready to read by this point:
Maybe this caught my eye because I spent most of yesterday afternoon researching social entrepreneurs: “(Red) is not a charity. It is simply a business model.” And now it hits me: it all goes back to transparency. Will I buy their products? Depends. I don’t like being a walking billboard for anything, so no to the Gap t-shirts. I would have bought a (Red) cellphone, though, if they’d been around when I renewed my contract.

As for the magazine itself, I was all ready to be critical about it, but it’s actually a really well-edited issue. I’d write more, but I’ve read Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay How to Write About Africa and it was so damn funny I’ll just demand you go read that instead.