Deadly Ameoba Anyone?

Sherman's Travel listed some fabulous vacation deals today on their ad on MSNBC. They had prime placement in the middle of the news article I was reading. You know the spot, the one that you have to scroll over in order to finish the story. Everyone is going to see your ad whether they want to or not as it hangs starkly in this coveted position. Sherman's showed four happy kids jumping off a dock into a beautiful lake. Cruises starting at $199! and 4 Nights in Hawaii for only $541!! Get your bathing suits kids, we're going swimming in paradise for less than we spend a month at Costco.

It's no secret that advertising companies study their markets. We aren't surprised to see ads for Pergo laminate flooring when we tune into Divine Design on HGTV. Nor do the Life Insurance ads or easy access bathtub commercials cause any pause for thought while we're tuned in to Jeopardy!. You target your audience. You sell to the right crowd. Depends don't go over well on MTV and you won't see power tools for sale while your watching the soaps. And you certainly don't need a marketing degree to understand why.

Sherman's Travel no doubt has a savvy sales team. Probably a whole office full of advertising gurus devoted to getting their deals out to you. They knew that MSNBC had a broad enough audience to include people who like to travel, people who like a good bargain. They paid the money for the spot in the middle of the page. They made those kids jump in that lake 700 times until they got the perfect shot. And despite their best efforts, today something went wrong.

On most any other page the ad would have been effective. Happy kids. Apparently warm and inviting water. Low prices to sweeten the deal. But now imagine seeing that ad as you have just completed 1/4 of a story on a brain eating amoeba that attack swimmers when they inhale water too far up their noses.

Water's not lookin' so inviting anymore.

Although rare, six people (all young men and boys) were killed this year in America by this little swimming terror. It's called Naegleria fowleri. You don't need to know how to pronounce it for it to start feeding on your frontal lobe. The amoeba likes warm water and can be stirred up when people walk across the bottom of a lake. Cannon ball into that lake at the wrong angle in the shallow side, accidentally snort lake water up your nose, and without ever knowing it this little guy could be hanging onto one of your olfactory nerves and starting the ascent to your brain. There is no known cure for humans yet, and in most cases the cause is determined only in the autopsy. Scarier yet, "Naegleria lives almost everywhere in lakes, hot springs, even dirty swimming pools".

No ad wizard could have foreseen this unfortunate pairing of events. And no number of extra demographic studies would have changed the placement. It's just one of those things. Maybe the Universe was making sure even advertisers had their share of bum luck. Surely unkind fate did not shine providentially on our product-pushing friends today. But don't lose hope! The decrease in demand may have sent vacation costs even further down. For such small sums to travel to such warm, watery places, what have you really got to lose?

"Are the Shades of Pemberly to be Thus Polluted!?"

People have been trying to define art since the first cave man painted his first buffalo. I've read articles, pontifications and rants. I ask the question to my students when I teach an Art History course. I discuss it with friends. I even reevaluate my own definition as I understand art in new ways. It is the most subjective of questions, inevitably tied up with emotion that adds unavoidable complication to the Aristotelian process of defining.

Yesterday however, MIT student Star Simpson polluted the name of art. In a feeble attempt to explain why she wore a sweatshirt with what looked like a bomb attached to her chest into the Boston airport, Simpson and her quick thinking attorney tried to minimize the event by saying she was wearing an art project.


An art project?... Perhaps Simpson, as an aspiring artist, should have thought about her viewers and presentation space and stayed at the career fair instead of displaying this more than misguided attempt at creativity at Logan Internationsl. One sure sign that your definition of art is off is when you, as an artist, are arrested at gun point (in an otherwise free and democratic nation) and taken out of your "gallery" before everyone has been able to fully appreciate your artistic debut.

“I’m shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport,” said State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the airport’s commanding officer. I echo his sentiments, and resent this slander on the name of art. To borrow a phrase from Lady Catherine De Bourgh, Is the definition of art to be thus polluted? Art can be ugly, dark and disturbing as easily as it can be uplifting and beautiful. But art should never be bandied about as a cover up for a frightningly stupid mistake.

All Over Again

I'm in bed, reading before I go to sleep. Trying to concentrate I can't help but hear the door opening and closing, loud knockings, girls laughing flirtatiously and boys flirting back. More laughing, more slamming and opening doors.

Eventually I hear, So who's your other roommate? The female voice, lowered, is harder to hear. The words "old," ..."upstairs" drift up through the stairway though.

The loud male voice resonates from the bottom of the stairs.
Shiloh, come down here.
Icy silence from upstairs.
C'mon, Shiloh, we want to meet you...
Nothing.
Shiloh. Giggles in the background spill out.
Please......

Suddenly I'm twelve years old again. The super shy girl in a new school. An easy target for the boys who cover their insecurity in arrogance and pick on the quiet and more insecure. I'm in the Upper School gym. Jake Silva has dropped his gum in my hair. I notice later and say nothing. I try to pull it out without anyone seeing, but it's too tangled by this time. I don't want them to see my reaction, I want to just sink invisibly into my seat on the bottom bleacher.
Hey Shiloh, someone whispers from above, you really should sit up here with us--it's way safer.
I hear whispering, even some suppressed giggles from the girls above me and I try not to cry. As soon as we're dismissed I find some scissors and cut the hair with the gum out. I know that peanut butter or oil would work better and salvage more hair. But I just want the gum gone. I don't even want my friends to know.

It's been 16 years. I've built up courage and a voice. And then, without warning, that same terrible feeling of sitting in the bottom bleacher with Jake's slobby gum in my hair comes back again.

I pray the boys won't come upstairs and confront me in my room. The memory of such vulnerability has left me feeling unable to deal with such an intrusion. The whispering and giggles continue for a time. Eventually, VH1 Celebrity Profiles become more interesting than teasing the anomaly upstairs. I take a breath, twist my finger through my hair, and go back to my book.

Bangladeshi Beef

Check your freezer. While once only beef from the UK was under suspicion, you now need to be cautious about buying meat from Bangladesh. While this is probably not likely unless you live in that particular region of South East Asia, you should be aware that your beef may have come from one of the 20-30,000 cows that are smuggled across the borders of India everyday. Protected in India, these unlucky cows are stolen and smuggled out by rogue Bangladeshi marauders to meet an unlucky fate. Talk about bad karma.

But the border security force has a new plan, not unlike the United States' new policy requiring passports for all persons wishing to cross into Mexico and Canada: Every cow will be issued an ID card. When raids are made on suspected cow-harboring border towns the ID cards will make identifying the cows much easier. Each cow will have a photo taken with its owner and any descriptive marks the cow possesses will be listed. I guess when you take your cow in, you just have to hope Bessie is having a good hair day, and that she won't lie about her weight.