The Phillies may be down 2-3 in the World Series count, but Macy’s is apparently feeling optimistic. An ad congratulating the Phillies on back-to-back World Series wins ran in today’s Tegucigalpa Daily News (per the Macy’s Marketing Director) and, closer to home and perhaps of more interest to the locals, in the Philly Inquirer.
While Yanks fans derisively laugh at the baseball version of “Dewey Defeats Truman,” the question being asked by Philly Phans is why the ad is such a laughable concept. Sure, it ran early – but Philly residents will tell you that the Yanks don’t have this nailed down yet.
What do peace, love, math, Pilates and coffee have in common?
Apparently all are on the Reese Witherspoon Like List, as the actress was seen leaving Pilates class with the custom SIGG bottle (seen here at left) in her bag, a coffee cup in hand. It’s always good to rehydrate after a workout, after all.
Her choice of bottle raises some interesting questions, and so we shall present them here in a quiz so that you, the readers, might lead us to the best answer:
The Mojave Memorial Cross has stood proudly as a tribute to fallen soldiers since 1934, when WWI veterans erected the cross to honor their fallen brothers. At the moment, however, the cross is boarded up (at left) courtesy of the ACLU, which wants to tear it down due to it being religious iconography on public lands.
The cross sits in the 1.6 million acre Mojave National Preserve and has been the subject of numerous court challenges since a National Park Services employee and the ACLU filed a 2001 lawsuit, claiming that the monument violates the Establishment Clause.
Both the District Court and the 9th Circuit of Appeals court have determined the cross to be unconstitutional. The cross has staunch supporters, though – the nonprofit Liberty Legal Institute has taken up the cause, and the matter has been escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is due to hear the case come fall. Liberty Legal also set up a website for its supporters; Don’tTearMeDown.com has up-to-date information, background history, petitions and – of course – an online shop.
Liberty Legal was kind enough to send us some photos of some soldier supporters in Iraq, before and after their shop was set up. See if you can spot the difference…
Before
After
These army men return from the front lines soon, and – armed with 6 other soldiers and an armful of T-shirts, stickers and buttons – they plan to make their way across the United States to the memorial to raise awareness and support for the cause. They will be accompanied by American Legion and Freedom Riders, and when they arrive at the memorial they plan to hang a wreath on it (perhaps everyone can agree that this is less of an eyesore than a plywood box) and read the name of their fallen comrades.
The underlying concern behind the fight for the Mojave Memorial Cross to remain standing isn’t just for this particular monument, but rather for all military monuments containing religious iconography. Arlington National Cemetery has more crosses than any other, begging the question as to how it, too, might be affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling.
I’m going on vacation as of… now! But don’t worry: Diamond D will take care of your blog fix. Talk to you soon.
Just when you thought that “Wipeout” was the epitome of Crazy Summer Human Tricks, the running of the bulls in Pamplona has reminded us that other parts of the world don’t use artificial sets and padding to undertake potentially lethal activities in the name of entertainment and tradition.
One major point of contention with animal rights folks is that the “fighting bulls” are killed in the bullfighting ring after the run. To protest this Pamplona tradition and that of bullfighting overall, PETA has an annual “running of the nudes” to raise awareness. (We’d tie a PETA T-shirt in here, but given the activity it seems that PETA merch is superfluous… maybe a trucker hat would be a useful accessory, to help prevent sunburn…)
Despite this year’s human death and the usual hundreds of injury, Pamplona’s most famous extreme sport is not likely to fade away in the short term. Like rodeos in America, bullfighting is deeply entrenched in Spanish culture.
A public memorial service for Michael Jackson is taking place at the Staples Center today. The service is open to 11,000 fans, who registered online for a ticket lottery.
The site received 500,000,000 hits within its first hour of being launched, and over 1.5 million people registered for tickets. Los Angeles authorities are asking that anyone who didn’t receive tickets please refrain from heading to the Staples Center, as the city is fearing that anywhere between 250,000 to 750,000 people might show up. As it is, there have been hordes of fans and reporters and helicopters descending on his Holmby Hills rental house and the Neverland Ranch property since his death.
Reports are estimating that more people will watch this funeral than those of Princess Diana or Elvis.
The services will be aired on television and online, so anyone wishing to pay respects to Michael Jackson may do so without traveling to a city already famous for its incredible traffic jams.
The violence and everyman suppression of post-election Iran was crystallized to the world when student Neda Agha-Soltan was shot in the chest and killed by one of Ayatollah Khameini’s Basij paramilitary officers. Neda was on her way to a protest march.
Despite Iran’s best efforts to keep news of the ongoing protests contained, this incident has proven that the Internet’s facilitation of citizen journalism is more powerful than the constraints of traditional press. Which is to say that you can boot all the foreign journalists from your country, but amateur video combined with the broadcast and sharing power of the Internet can lead to worldwide awareness of whatever you’ve been trying so hard to keep on the down-low. And the more you try, the bigger the backlash.
Video of the killing (and it’s very graphic, so be prepared if you seek it out) circulated quickly. Commentary and reaction began spreading virally via Twitter, Facebook, blogs, websites, e-mail and – as we’ve come to expect when people have something important to say – CafePress, where those touched and angered by the assassination began in earnest to design protest T-shirts to share their message of outrage. This is one of those events wherein the merchandise is primarily a symbolic creative outlet for its designer, rather than a “this is a funny headline” somewhat entrepreneurial T-shirt event.
Neda has become a symbol of all that the protestors are rallying against in Iran – and the more the Iranian government seeks to silence the voice of the people, the more they’re empowered to use alternate forms of communication as a broadcast system. This is not a new phenomenon in cultures where neither press nor elective process are free from government intervention; having lived in South America in the mid-90’s, one of the things that immediately struck me was the graffiti. And it wasn’t the amount of graffiti that caught my attention – that’s nothing new to anyone who’s lived in big urban cities – but rather the content. The graffiti in Quito wasn’t, as most American graffitti is, vanity tagging. By and large these were hard-hitting political statements, brought to the streets by an oppressed people looking to find the most accessible public of places to make their voices heard.
And so it is with Neda. No longer is this kind of government-chafing message necessarily constrained by the locality of a public wall. No longer is there as much personal risk when you can trade in your can of spray paint for an Internet connection. Getting online from half a world away can get the word out, and get it out fast. You can tell your story. You can influence people. You can use the almighty T-shirt to get it off your mind and onto your chest, and you can empower an army of grassroots participation. You can even get a message to the foreign journalists denied access to a first-person vantage point, and they’ll write your story anyway.
Or, as President Obama put it: “No iron fist is strong enough to shut off the world from bearing witness.”
And so, while the Iranian government prohibits Neda’s family and friends from having memorials in her honor and tries to locally silence the voices mourning her, the world is talking. And from our end, a T-shirt is worth 1,000 words.
Photoshop master Scott Kelby’s second annual Worldwide Photo Walk is on July 18th this year, and it may certainly be coming to a location near you. Over 1,000 walks are already scheduled – and if you’re a photography professional who lives somewhere devoid of an already-scheduled walk, you can apply to start your own next time around.
For those of you not familiar with photo walks, the organizer sent us a nice explanation:
A Photo Walk is a fun, social event where photographers gather together at a specific place to walk around and take pictures. Afterwards, they hold a “chimping” session. This is where they all sit down in a café or restaurant, look at the photos in each others digital cameras, point and say, “Ooooo! Oooo!” a lot (hence the name).
Affectionately dubbed “A Day in the World,” July 18, 2009 is actually Scott Kelby’s Second Annual Worldwide Photo Walk. Last year, NAPP had over 250 official walks take place in 236 cities of 47 countries around the world. Over 8,000 photographers participated and it is safe to say that nearly 1 million photographs were taken that day. This year, we already have over 1000 walks registered and we are aiming for participation (representation) from every country in the world. With the event still over a month away, we are confident that we have created the world’s largest social photography event in the history of… well, in the history of photography itself!
If thousands of photographers taking a gozillion different pictures in global synchronization wasn’t cool enough, this year the walk has a charity component: the official Worldwide Photo Walk T-shirts, the sale of which will generate $5.00 to the Springs of Hope orphanage in Kenya. The orphanage was started and built by readers of Scott Kelby’s blog, proving that photographers are just as capable of contributing to the world in 3-D as they are in 2-D.
So dust off that camera and put on your walkin’ shoes.
The Court did not, however, invalidate the 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place in the window that occurred between the day that the Court overturned the gay marriage ban and the day that the voter-added ballot measure passed. So if you got married during that time period, no worries: you can keep your gifts and your spouse.
The Court’s ruling was specifically about whether or not California voters had a right to add Prop 8 to the November ballot in the first place. Prop 8 opponents argued that the ballot measure was a fundamental revision to the constitution. A constitutional revision, unlike an amendment, requires a 2/3 legislative vote and cannot be decided by popular vote.
On our end, the T-shirts swing heavily in favor of equal rights/gay marriage, and against Proposition 8. This has always been the trend, and usually the T-shirts are a good crystal ball when it comes to things like votes and popularity contests. However, because gay marriage is a touchy issue that has involved both politics and religion, it’s not a surprise that the T-shirt design collection swings heavily toward those activists who feel a sense of unjustness and outrage.
Which is to say that a ballot box is much more private than a T-shirt, and it’s to be expected that those in favor of Prop 8 might not want to advertise their position so publicly as those against it.
With Maine following closely in Iowa’s footsteps with a recent gay marriage provision, there are now 5 states and 7 countries (including Canada) in which same-sex couples can legally wed. Other states have ballot initiatives being debated and various protections already in place; New York governor David Patterson, for example, has called for the legal recognition of same-sex marriages that have occurred elsewhere.
As the gay marriage debate continues in California and elsewhere, we’ll expect to see some new and interesting T-shirts crop up. So remember: if you have something to say, don’t be afraid to say it with a T-shirt. And if you prefer a more private form of self-expression, hey – there’s always the thong.
Today we’re giving you a heads-up that Operation Gratitude has kicked of a massive drive to try to reach the goal of 100,000 care packages to be sent to overseas troops this year.
This weekend, a couple ‘Press folks headed down to Van Nuys to help with the care packaging drive. The founder of Operation Gratitude was on-hand to welcome several hundred volunteers, and give a nice chat with the media about their efforts:
While Operation Gratitude is located in Southern California, the website lists multiple ways that you can help with the cause.
While world media worked tirelessly to bring us 24-7 news of the swine flu, a new global threat was developing on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.
The Taliban has been gaining ground in Pakistan, and although Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari insists that Pakistani nuclear arsenals are “perfectly safe,” his U.S. visits with Barack Obama and his various requests for military help would indicate that you can never be too safe when you’re dealing with Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces within proximity to nuclear weapons.
Thus far, the U.S. government and the media are giving conflicting information as to whether or how safe Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals are. Some reports note that General Petraeus feels confident in the security of the nuclear sites; others report that U.S. Central Command is worried about Pakistan’s “very existence;” and last month Obama noted his concerns that the Pakistani government is “very fragile.”
This concern has been discussed publicly before, but with capital city Islamabad under imminent threat the conversations are leading to action. Zardari visited President Obama in Washington to ask for help from the U.S., who in turn is asking the world to pitch in to fight the Islamic terrorists.
While both the CDC and the Obama camp used Twitter for real-time swine flu updates, the President’s Twitter account is devoid of any updates on the Pakistan situation. Whether the American people will soon be graced with real-time micro updates is TBD.
The Phillies may be down 2-3 in the World Series count, but Macy’s is apparently feeling optimistic. An ad congratulating the Phillies on back-to-back World Series wins ran in today’s Tegucigalpa Daily News (per the Macy’s Marketing Director) and, closer to home and perhaps of more interest to the locals, in the Philly Inquirer.
Photoshop master 
