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Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

In what on the surface could only be described as an acute case of masochistic dementia, Philip Morris USA owner Altria Group Inc. is now protesting the promotion of its own brand.

In a May 20th letter to Paramount Pictures, Philips Morris Senior Vice President Howard Willard III urged studios to "voluntarily refrain from portraying or referring to cigarette brands or brand imagery in movies." [Paramount's recent film, Twisted, uses the company's Malboro cigarette as an innocuous prop.] In a similar move, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco recently castigated Sony Pictures for including Winston cigarettes in the film, Mona Lisa Smile. "You do not have permission to mention or depict our brand in your films," warned an R.J. Reynolds lawyer.

But it's not self-hatred that prompts tobacco companies to exhibit such suicidal tendencies: it's the government.

Fearful of legal action, tobacco companies now seem obsessed with publicly torturing themselves in every conceivable way in order to placate snarling bureaucrats like California deputy attorney general Michelle Fogliani.

"It isn't enough for a tobacco company to say, 'We had nothing to do with our brand of cigarettes being in that movie,'" comrade Fogliani threatens.

As bad as smoking may be for one's health, the second-hand effects of the politically vogue anti-tobacco posse are decidedly worse. Officials like Fogliani scurry to extinguish the smoldering remnants of American tobacco companies only by fanning the flame of a more devastating fire: the burning of the First Amendment.

This Orwellian landscape has forced notoriously anti-business (and anti-tobacco) Hollywood types into the curious position of defending the right to advertise cigarettes. "Movie producers properly respond, 'We have a First Amendment right to show these products,'" explains New York law firm Debevoise & Plimpton partner David H. Bernstein.

And indeed they do...for now. But moviemakers beware: sue-mongering bureaucrats may not be polite enough to grant you that famous "last cigarette" before they move in for the kill.

Slug posted by Carter Laren @ 22:58

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

Walmart: Qualified individuals need not apply

At a shareholder meeting last Friday, Walmart CEO Lee Scott announced a new strategy for revamping the vilified company's public image: institutionalize racism and sexism.

Under the Grand Dragon's plan, executive bonuses will be cut by up to 7.5% if Walmart's "diversity goals" are not met by the end of the year. By next year, cuts could go as deep at 15%.

Instead of ignoring factors irrelevant to a potential employee's ability to perform (such as gender), executives will be encouraged to apply corporate-wide bigotry standards during the hiring process. Interviewers may optionally wear white sheets during candidate evaluations.

"If 50 percent of the people applying for the job of store manager are women," Scott promised, "we will work to make sure that 50 percent of the people receiving those jobs are women."

Earlier rumors that Walmart is changing its company slogan to, "all races are equal, but some races are more equal than others," have not been confirmed.

Slug posted by Carter Laren @ 20:06

Sunday, June 06, 2004

Ignorant outrage still fashionable in San Francisco

On Saturday, a handful of angry leftists took to the streets of San Francisco to protest the war in Iraq. Danny Glover, with apparently nothing to do now that co-star Mel Gibson is making gloomy religious propaganda, addressed the crowd: "we're here to say there will be no empire in our name!" The actor did not have time to denounce empires in the name of Allah.

According to the Associated Press, "police declined to give a specific estimate of the crowd size, saying only that fewer than 2,000 people attended." Normally known for its dim-witted ideas, the San Francisco Chronicle took the opportunity to demonstrate its inability to count: it reported a crowd of between 8,000 and 10,000.

Perhaps the Chronicle is simply using Berkeley math:

Political agenda + intellectual dishonesty = blatant lies

Slug posted by Carter Laren @ 20:33

One for the Gipper

After a 10-year battle with Alzheimer's disease, former president Ronald Reagan passed away yesterday at the age of 93. Although more of a congenial conservative than a principled defender of capitalism, Reagan routinely portrayed Soviet communism as an inevitably failed evil rather than a valid alternative to free markets.

Naturally, this infuriated members of the "intellectual" Left, all of whom were busy preaching the "virtues" of Marx. And for that, perhaps Reagan's shortcomings should be overlooked for just a brief moment of fond remembrance.

Slug posted by Carter Laren @ 11:29