Archive for March, 2007

Get the Glass

Posted by: Ion | March 31st, 2007 · 10:02 PM

Here’s an enormously inventive piece of “Got Milk?” interactive marketing, by the California Milk Processor Board. A cross between a tabletop and computer adventure game, the lush visual design is simply outstanding. 3D modeled, but in such a way that it looks like a physical, miniature diorama made out of HO scale model train accessory kits, the “playing surface” is just beautiful to look at.

Play the game>>>

A little more information about the campaign can be found in this CMPB press release.

The game was developed by the CMPB agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. The purpose, is to shake the impression that milk is a readily available commodity:

“We’ve created a place with only one glass of milk, metaphorically speaking,” says California Milk Processor Board (CMPB) Executive Director Steve James. “We want people to imagine what it would be like if milk really was that scarce and how that would change the way we think about it.”
(Game Industry News)

In that respect it’s rather insincere you’d have to say. But it is effective at communicating the campaign idea…and fun.

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A Done Deal

Posted by: Ion | · 9:06 PM

(Cagle via DraftFredThompson)

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The Dependent

Posted by: Ion | · 8:01 PM

It’s rather sad when The Independent’s opinion conforms so closely with Iranian propaganda, that IRNA merely reproduces their editorial without much need for editing:

“Because of the catastrophe in Iraq, the UK has no real diplomatic leverage in the region,” the Independent said in its editorial on the week-long crisis.

“Blair calls the Iranian action illegal in international law and cites the United Nations mandate for the presence of British forces in Iraq. But the US and Britain invaded Iraq ignoring the will of the UN,” it said.
(The Indie via IRNA)

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The Transgression of Words

Posted by: Ion | · 2:30 PM

A savage event, all too common on the bloody religious battlefront of East Africa:

An Ethiopian evangelist was beaten and killed by Wahabbi Muslim extremists while evangelizing on the streets earlier this week, reported a Christian persecution watchdog group.

The Christian man, identified as Tedase, was on the streets with two young females evangelizing Monday afternoon on Merkato Street in Jimma, southern Ethiopia, when he was attacked by Muslim militants, according to International Christian Concern’s sources in Jimma.
(Christian Post via PomoTheo)

The purpose of the murder was evidently to dissuade through terror, the Christian community’s evangelism in the area. That the Wahabbi has no response to a peaceful Christian message short of violent coercion, is demonstrative of the enormous fundamental weakness of the ideology. Terror may quiet the street, but it persuades no adherents.

Thus Tedase becomes a modern martyr…and unlike the antipathetic Wahabbi notion of martyrdom, he died for the transgression of merely speaking openly about his faith.

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Ségolène’s Angles of Beauty

Posted by: Ion | · 1:22 PM

French Élection 2007 has a copy of Ségolène Royal’s official Parti Socialiste campaign poster. They also list some French reaction from le Monde. Opinion seems rather negative, with people suggesting Mme Royal looks gothic, or even cadaverous.

I don’t know that I agree with that. Although she is a little pallid given the grayscale, I believe they caught one of Ségolène’s good angles. Like the old Seinfeld episode of the two-faced date, Royal is a woman who from one angle can look quite prepossessing, but on a second-take from another, most unappealing.

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Nationalism & Crisis

Posted by: Ion | · 12:36 PM

There’s a new twist in the French presidential election. Seeming to echo Sarkozy’s warning last week that nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen remained in contention, the National Front leader has gained support at the expense of Françios Bayrou and Ségolène Royal in the wake of the Gare du Nord riot.

Sarkozy: 26%
Royal: 24.5%
Bayrou: 19.5%
Le Pen: 15%

(le Parisien via faute de pire)

That Le Pen could draw support from the Socialist Party and the Center-Right candidacy of Bayrou, is a troubling recurrence of something we began to see in 2002. As historian Roger Eatwell once observed, fascism originally succeeded in societies where it could achieve a “syncretic legitimation.” That is, societies where it could be legitimated by national traditions under crisis to achieve the otherwise impossible unification of left and right, which is its definitive political signature.

So long as fascist impulses remain exclusively on either left or right, they are largely irrelevant. They only become material threats to a society when they manage to achieve the unification of the divide, as they did in the 1920s and 1930s. Crises such as Gare du Nord, or the larger 2005 Muslim riots in Paris, are good examples of requisite events to accomplish that.

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The Occlusion of Mitt Romney

Posted by: Ion | March 30th, 2007 · 11:40 PM

The situation is looking increasingly grim for Amigo Mitt. Red State Impressions recounts the deleterious effect the entrance of Fred Thompson has had on his already meager support:

[T]he really surprising result of the poll is that Mitt Romney sank to 3%. As far as I’m concerned “Multiple Choice” Mitt should just take down his tents and declare his candidacy over. Romney has never done that well in the polls and peaked at only 8%. But the fallback to 3% is most likely deadly. Romney has rolled out his campaign, gotten some interested press, and scored with Ann Coulter at the CPAC meeting.

But the media boomlet never translated into support from Republican voters and Romney will never have a chance to introduce himself again. It’s over.
(Red State Impressions)

At his best moment, Romney was merely a vessel for temporary conservative respite. Widely perceived –even among his own supporters– as an opportunist, he could only occupy the role of lone electable rightist, so long as his only competition was from the far more liberal McCain and Rudy. In this respect, his support was strictly a transitional phenomenon at best. Now Mitt’s reached a point where he’s in imminent jeopardy of abusing the wealth of his small circle of devoted believers; burning good money toward no decent end. Red State Impressions is quite right, it’s time to disengage.

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In Plymouth, Britons Have Had Enough of Iran

Posted by: Ion | · 9:43 PM

In the home port of HMS Cornwall, where the Iranian hostage crisis strikes very close to home, national resolve is running high and people are ready for war:

“What Iran is doing is immoral,” said John Alexander, 63, a retired scallop fisherman. “If I were in charge, the special forces would have been there already, and I would have been the first one in.”
(Washpost)

Here, here. Also:

“It’s been seven days, and nothing seems to have happened,” [retired Royal Navy chief petty officer Brian] Pullen said. “If there were 15 Americans in there, I’m sure something would have happened by now.”
(Washpost)

We would hope so, but I’m afraid it isn’t likely true.

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Shadamania Grips Iraq

Posted by: Ion | · 9:29 PM

The Washington Post focuses an interesting piece on the promising phenomenon of Shada Hassoun, a young Iraqi contestant on Arab Star Academy:

The chestnut-maned object of their obsession was Shada Hassoun, Iraq’s contestant on the fourth season of the Lebanese talent show “Star Academy,” the “American Idol” of the Arab world. She had made Friday’s finals, and a public vote, sent via cellphone, would decide her fate. And so Iraqis everywhere were in a Shada frenzy this week — causing many to observe that, win or lose, Hassoun, a 26-year-old who professes to love jet-skiing and Antonio Banderas, had managed to engender a sense of national cohesion that has eluded Iraq for years.

“Sunnis and Shiites will unite with your victory!” read one text message, sent by a viewer, that scrolled across the screen Friday during a pre-show on Iraq’s al-Sharqiya satellite channel. “You are the one who unites all of Iraq, from North to South, from the Tigris to the Euphrates!”
(WashPost)

Full Story>>>

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Crescent Against A Shy Cross

Posted by: Ion | · 8:46 PM

As you read this, the Saudi government is building mosques in the United Kingdom. How many Christian churches is the United Kingdom building in Saudi Arabia? The answer is obvious enough to inspire a smirk. Yet what are the costs for a nation in denying a religious war exists and choosing instead to wage it exclusively on secular political grounds (if at all)? Well, the costs are mosques are built in London and no churches are built in Riyadh. This will have consequences whether we acknowledge them or not.

Consider the political power of inverting this argument for a moment too. The Saudi government prohibits the importation of the Holy Bible into its country, it would react with fury should someone propose the construction of a large Christian church in its capital, despite that it spreads its own religion everywhere in the world. But it would be furious above all not in the name of Allah, but because you would be suddenly and finally fighting it on its own terms. That is, instead of conceding it the spiritual battlefield wholesale and declaring you’re fighting its political institutions alone (a meaningless distinction in a theocratic monarchy), you’d be striking at the heart of its political dream for the world.

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