Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy
I have two—count them, TWO—entries in the works, and I haven’t felt like getting around to either one. (And neither’s political! Imagine that.)
Today has just been a really shitty day. And those of you with young tots can understand how I’m not speaking metaphorically.
Drove to the market today (Cosentino’s Vegetable Haven on Bascom) when I came across this charming poster:
A Clear Channel poster on a Clear Channel billboard. In case you’re wondering: this is propaganda. It is simultaneously political and commercial propaganda.
What does the sign say? Let’s see: “Working to give local heroes a voice, a stage and a victory.” What does that mean? Nothing, of course. How are they working? And what are they working to do? What are “local heroes”? I know what I’m supposed to think they are, but what specifically does Clear Channel mean?
I definitely like the rhythm of “a voice, a stage and a victory.” Again, totally meaningless, unless you start asking: a victory over what? (Actually, the “victory” thing is definitely the most disturbing tidbit on the poster.) And the first people who go to their local Clear Channel station insisting that they get to use their voice and their stage will be met by the radio engineer, whose sole job is to play whatever signal Clear Channel beams to their “local” broadcast.
The United States as the only landmass on a heart-shaped globe. How many ideas does this single image get across? The heart, indicating warm fuzzies and other soft emotions: check. The United States as sole inhabitant of planet: check.
“Clear Channel cares.” Now, anybody who believes Clear Channel cares about anything besides the bottom line is clearly delusional. But that puts the critic in the position of having to say, “No, Clear Channel is a big meanie corporation!”
I discovered Propaganda Critic, which had some relevant things to say on the subject of modern propaganda:
The information revolution has led to information overload, and people are confronted with hundreds of messages each day. Although few studies have looked at this topic, it seems fair to suggest that many people respond to this pressure by processing messages more quickly and, when possible, by taking mental short-cuts.
Propagandists love short-cuts — particularly those which short-circuit rational thought. They encourage this by agitating emotions, by exploiting insecurities, by capitalizing on the ambiguity of language, and by bending the rules of logic. As history shows, they can be quite successful.
If you peruse the articles on the site, you quickly see that this billboard fits Propaganda Critic’s definition of propaganda. Glittering generalities! Euphemisms! Plain folks!
Christ.
You know, I’ve never liked the taste of domestic Dasani. I assume they probably use the same formula as the British version, which means I’ll really never drink it again:
First, Coca-Cola’s new brand of “pure” bottled water, Dasani, was revealed earlier this month to be tap water taken from the mains. Then it emerged that what the firm described as its “highly sophisticated purification process”, based on Nasa spacecraft technology, was in fact reverse osmosis used in many modest domestic water purification units.
Yesterday, just when executives in charge of a �7m marketing push for the product must have felt it could get no worse, it did precisely that.
The entire UK supply of Dasani was pulled off the shelves because it has been contaminated with bromate, a cancer-causing chemical.
Oh good—a crap product that’s dangerous for you too!
I actually prefer drinking water to most other beverages. My Brita pitcher is in constant use. I also drink a great deal of Arrowhead (because I buy it by the case of bottles with the sport-tops, which I keep in the car) and Crystal Geyser. I don’t much care for Evian (or, as my sister put it: “We drink domestic! None of that imported stuff!”).