My response to a comment that my good friend Paul Sheldon made about my September 10 entry on GQ led me into some interesting waters, so I thought I would just make it today’s blog entry. Paul writes, “GQ is basically a fashion magazine and ‘read’ for the ads, not for the text. I always […]
Here is what I would have told Acorn if it had asked me to handle the crisis involving two employees who were videotaped advising a fake pimp and prostitute how to defraud the government: Fire the people and immediately announce you have fired them because they are rogue employees. Demonstrate that the company has ethics […]
A few more demonstrations took place at the G-20 conference in Pittsburgh after my post of September 25. Most significantly, there was a peaceful march from Oakland to downtown (where I saw it) and then to the Northside, organized by seven or so groups and drawing from 2,000 to 4,000 people. The contrast in coverage […]
The White House created a series of photo opportunities, each of which was meant to communicate a basic message of the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, a classic example of ideological subtext being as important as the explicit message in words. The use to which different media put these photo ops reflects each outlet’s view of […]
I think that we proved to the world today that Pittsburgh authorities know how to impose marshal law, at least when given four months notice. Law enforcement officers from as far away as Chicago and Phoenix have certainly locked down downtown Pittsburgh these last two days. Many streets are blockaded and groups of soldiers and […]
In a blog entry last week I anticipated the argument of someone opposed to gun control when I pointed out that stiffer gun control laws would most likely have prevented virtually all of the recent spate of mass murders. In doing so, I mistakenly used an old saw of the gun lobby that “when guns […]
Since the Obama administration first announced several months back that the G-20 was going to meet in Pittsburgh on September 24-25, the town has been in a frenzy of anxiety. City, state and federal government are intent on turning the downtown where the G-20 leaders will meet into a military zone and the specter of […]
Read More… from Pittsburgh G-20 Should be a Celebration of Freedom
If you read yesterday’s blog entry, you know that I’ve been investigating the facts behind the many reports of large numbers of people at the Taxpayer March of September 12 with the help of my assistant. Virtually all the news media that chose to count got a total of 75,000 or less at the event, […]
If I’m a little late in commenting on the vast differences in the reported head count at the so-called Taxpayer March on September 12 in Washington, it’s because I took the time to do some homework (with the help of my assistant Colette). I first noticed that reporters were including a wide range of numbers […]
From a September 17 story in the New York Times exploring why gourmet teas are thriving even as the global economy sags, Mark Daley, chief executive officer of Dean & Deluca says, “Demand for quality products has remained strong.” Now I ask Mr. Daley and the public relations staff that wrote this response if the […]