Thanks, Washington!

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Recent comments on the economy have shown just how much confidence we can place in our representatives. There are lots of companies out there that are failing or in debt because of irresponsible spending. Now that those companies are being supported by the taxpayers, President Obama and his pals are setting strict regulations – for instance, the people who caused this mess aren’t allowed to give themselves raises. And they’ve come out strongly against those fancy “retreats” that are really just subsidized vacations.

It’s good to see that folks with business sense are making decisions on the economic recovery.

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Post-partisanship means never

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The morning news was abuzz with video of President Obama’s reactions to accusations that his “stimulus bill” is just a pork spending bill: “What do you think a stimulus is? That’s the whole point.”

That’s refreshing honesty, and it would have been nice to hear the same candor last year when he promised to work with Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Though there have been attempts by moderate Senators from both parties to reach across the aisle, Obama’s team of die-hards see no reason to engage in such niceties.

This may be a departure from campaign rhetoric, but it is consistent with Obama’s “I won, you lost, I make the rules” brand of “cooperation”over the last two weeks. Despite the misgivings of fiscally responsible Democrats, he has a big enough cadre of his own team behind him and eager to push out a bill. “Has bipartisanship been a failure? So far it isn’t working,” claimed Chuck Schumer. The left has enough votes that they don’t need moderates and conservatives.

Obama remarked last night that the American people didn’t vote for “petty politics.” It sounds like we’re getting that anyway.

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Settling up campaign debts

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The AP is suing Shepherd Fairey for illegally using one of their images for his now-famous “Hope” illustration of Barack Obama. As my favorite journalism professor at UMass used to say, you can’t spell “cheap” without AP. The Associated Press wants compensation for the use of their photo.

The compensation claim is difficult. Fairey has clearly benefited from the exposure gained through his portrait, but received little if any compensation from the image itself – since Fairey’s goal was to elect Barack Obama, he allowed the image to be used freely. The biggest benefactor of the image was Barack Obama.

If there’s any cash left in his $750 million campaign coffers, it might be nice to use some to help Fairey out – especially since the image was the basis for the official inauguration poster and buttons designed by the Obama transition team.

Of course, they might wonder – as I do – why the AP is bringing up the controversy now when the image saw its heaviest use months and months ago during the campaign.

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Garth, do you smell bacon?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

In order to beg for a piece of the stimulus pie, the U.S. Conference of Mayors released their list of “shovel ready projects” that they feel are good candidates for pork spending with funds from the stimulus package.

StimulusWatch.org is a great way to look at what America’s mayors think is a good idea to spend other people’s tax dollars on. More than a simple listing of projects in the Conference of Mayors report, Stimulus Watch is a wiki that allows citizen involvement – you can vote whether a project is necessary or not, list points for and against it, and make comments.

It seems to be working. Users are leaving comments and actually discussing the reasons for and against many of the projects. And while there are a few proposals which are drawing positive support, most are getting voted down. Citizens are also giving a bit of valuable: in response to a $3.5 million plan to refurbish the sidewalks in Old Town Alexandria, Va., one resident reveals that the city already makes regular repairs.

As Ars Technica notes, by opening the process up with a wiki-style interface, Stimulus Watch is light years ahead of the Obama Administration’s definition of “transparency.”

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Waking up about Wal-Mart

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Bruce Springsteen’s Super Bowl halftime appearance came as he apologized for a promotional deal he signed with Wal-Mart to promote his greatest hits album. Springsteen feels Wal-Mart doesn’t treat its employees well.

First off, where does someone nicknamed “The Boss” get off talking about employee conditions? The boss never knows what’s really going on.

Second, there are some people Springsteen should talk to before chiding the working conditions at Wal-Mart. The first is Jason Furman, a key economic advisor to President Obama, who wrote a paper calling Wal-Mart “A Progressive Success Story” for providing low-income workers with affordable goods.

The other is Charles Platt, a blogger who gave an insider’s account of life behind the smiley face as an actual Wal-Mart employee. I think it’s been a while since Springsteen found himself inside a Wal-Mart, so I’ll take Platt’s word on what the working conditions are like.

Most of the criticisms about Wal-Mart come from unions – who would love to siphon off union dues from the paychecks of Wal-Mart’s millions of employees. The bad news for them is that Wal-Mart and its employees have a good thing going – even if the Boss doesn’t know it.

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I watch the internet for the Super Bowl ads

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Super Bowl ads are as big a tradition as the game itself, but this year the ads that aren’t going to be ad seem to be making an even bigger splash.

PETA has famously had an advocacy ad banned because it was deemed too racy. NBC bounced a pro-life ad because they apparently don’t allow advocacy ads. And Miller’s one-second beer ads will last a second but appear only on local NBC affiliates – not on the national broadcast. Each of these gimmicky ads might have been overlooked with simpler standard commercials; each’s unique reason for not being part of the big game broadcast is newsworthy enough to draw attention from internet users. I’d bet their cost-per-viewer is much cheaper now, too.

NBC’s Super Bowl ads are going for $3 million for 30 seconds, but as of Wednesday they had not sold all the advertising space available. The idea of a Super Bowl ad means so much more than 30 seconds of highly viewed TV time now though, that even an end-run around the actual game can have viral value for a smart, budget-conscious marketer.

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Culture shock

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Culture11 – a site dedicated to conservative-leaning cultural commentary – abruptly laid off its entire staff this week. While the site’s backers maintain that this isn’t the end, the future looks bleak without an influx of money.

Joshua Trevino chronicles a few key flaws of Culture11. The site sprang up not from a grassroots groundswell, but from a few key investors who apparently did not see a return on their investment quickly enough to justify further expenditures. Trevino argues that other popular blogs started much smaller and were allowed to “grow into” their ultimate size and influence.

There’s another problem with a site like Culture11, which seemed to be intended as a conservative alternative to The Huffington Post. Overt and admitted conservatism turns off a certain audience – usually who would claim to be simply uninterested in politics but extremely interested in entertainment. That’s why the overt-but-unadmitted liberalism of mainstream media outlets has such an impact.

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