Pardon My Interruption: Craig's Thoughts About This And That
Is it just me, or have others noted the irony of trying to “ELIMINATE AIDS IN AFRICA” by using sexually seductive models/images to sell merchandise?
I’ll not link to the advertising campaign, but I will tell you that the GAP is using sex to raise money for themselves and to eliminate aids in Africa. And that’s just stupid. That’s like throwing water on a person who is drowning, or gasoline on a person trapped in a burning building.
The Gap clothing company has begun a new marketing campaign that they suggest can “help eliminate aids in Africa.” This new effort is being marketed as (Product) Red and it offers their customers a unique opportunity to “make a difference in Africa.”
According to their web page, The Gap will be “contributing half the profits from Gap (Product) Red products to the Global Fund, to help women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa.”
The (Product) Red campaign was brought to my attention by Michael Medved who was offering his critique of this apparently noble effort on his radio program. One particular caller who objected to Medved’s critique (should we say cynicism?) really captured my attention. Part of Medved’s critique of this campaign was concerning the lack of effort to call upon people to assume personal responsibility and modify their behavior. Medved was specifically suggesting that abstinence is the best weapon against HIV/AIDS and a caller phoned in to object.
The caller suggested that the “abstinence crowd” was both naïve and foolish. “You can’t expect that teenagers aren’t going to have sex” he insisted. Understand his position: Even though the practice is killing people by the millions every year, it is foolish to think that suggesting abstinence, unquestionably the very best HIV/AIDS prevention tool, is a reasonable practice.
Contrast that position with the way abstinence from spinach is currently being practiced in the United States. According the CDC’s last intended web update for the latest E. coli outbreak, “As of 1 PM (ET) October 6, 2006, Friday, 199 persons infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7 have been reported to CDC from 26 states.” Among those 199 cases, 3 have resulted in death.
Under the heading “CDC Advice for Consumers” notice the first point of advice: “Consumers should not eat, retailers should not sell, and restaurants should not serve spinach implicated in the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. Products implicated in the outbreak include fresh spinach and spinach-containing products from brands processed by Natural Selection Foods.”
The CDC is preaching abstinence when it comes to spinach consumption. And, as we have been traveling (more than 8,000 miles in the car) over the last 6 weeks, I have discovered that restaurants are responding to the CDC’s abstinence message. In fact, it has become a bit of a game for me to ask the server if there is any spinach in the salad that will be served. In the course of our travels, we have eaten out a lot and not once has spinach been available.
To be sure, 3 people dying from bad spinach is terrible, but that doesn’t compare to the death toll of HIV/AIDS. Yet, abstinence is generally accepted as a reasonable method of prevention only in the former, the much less deadly situation. I wonder why.
Only the most hardened heart cannot find some level of sympathy for the family members of the coal miners who were found dead in Tallmansville, West Virginia. After the initial news of miners being trapped inside the mine, family members gathered at the Sago Baptist Church near the mine.
After some 41 hours of waiting for news regarding the status of their loved ones, word finally came that one body had been found and the status of the other 12 was yet undetermined. Obviously, emotions were all over the map as families prayed and hoped for positive news. About 3 hours after the news of the first discovery, news surfaced from the depths of the mine that the 12 remaining miners were alive. As one might imagine, euphoria broke out inside and outside the church and the good news spread rapidly. Unfortunately, somewhere between the location of the miners and the location of their families, the message of the miners’ status was garbled or misunderstood or misspoken: 11 of the remaining 12 were, in fact, dead.
In the midst of all the excitement and confusion, the mistake was realized and needed to be corrected. The company, in an effort to verify the miners’ status, waited another 3 hours before notifying the families who were still celebrating and waiting for their men to finally return alive from the depths of the earth. Jubilation was suddenly turned to disbelief, outrage, bewilderment, and brokenness when the correction was delivered.
In Israel this type of miscommunication is commonly referred to as a “broken telephone.” Many people are familiar with the children’s game where the first person whispers something into the ear of the second child. The second child whispers the message to the third and so on. The “fun” part of the game is to see how much the message has changed by the time it gets to the end. Of course, the change isn’t intentional it simply demonstrates the tenuous nature of point to point to point communication. Clearly, in the case of the coalmine, the message of the “broken telephone” was not a game, neither was it intentional nor fun.
As usual, the 24-hour news channels are offering all types of speculations on who is to blame for this miscommunication. Additionally, they are offering video blurbs of the angry, grieving families lashing out at the mining company management, which is probably unfair to the families because they are being tempted to say all sorts of things, primarily venting their anger. International television is not a good venue for that type of thing so close to the time of the tragedy. While the raw emotions are real, they are raw emotions, which generally need some time to be put into perspective. This being the case, I have committed myself to be very generous in my reaction toward these grieving people as they vent their anger and speculation on who is to blame, though it is too early to know what happened.
I am, however, going to be less generous toward the news outlets and the lawyers who invade this community in an effort to encourage these families to sue someone because of a “broken telephone.” People make mistakes, and this was just that, a mistake. Unfortunately, I just saw on the news a woman declaring her intentions to sue because she had been told her daddy was alive before she was told he was dead. It’s a tragedy to be put on an emotional roller coaster like these families were, no doubt. Nevertheless, in my opinion, it doesn’t merit financial compensation. Suing in this case, would suggest that the motivation is greed not justice.
And the Winner is…
Hamshahri, the Iranian daily newspaper who co-sponsored the contest, suggested the motivation behind the event was to test the West’s tolerance of the cartoon depictions of the Nazi efforts to eliminate the Jewish people, eventually killing some 6 million Jews and others.
While many (perhaps, most) in the West will find these cartoons despicable or worse, I’m certain that there will be VERY few, if any, violent responses. In fact, if there are any violent responses, they will be the exceptions and NOT the norm.
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