Comments on: Airmiles

By: ChrisPer

ChrisPer — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 09:04:08 +0000

Actually, it’s a balltearer of an idea. Essay competitions worked GREAT for indoctrinating American POWs in the Chinese gulag. They are a very useful tool for crystallising people’s ideas, helping them get the confidence of what they believe and move them to the ideas of the framer. Details (such as the putative pony) can make or break of course. But the sneerers comments above obviously haven’t seen how teachers work to inculcate anti-smoking morals in today’s schoolkids.

By: jet

jet — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 22:17:14 +0000

I read anna in cario’s blog when it was sponored on blogspots list of blogs of the day. Fascinating virtually running into her again. Great blog btw.

By: Anna in Cairo

Anna in Cairo — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 14:26:40 +0000

Hi, The person who thinks that this stupid US government sponsored essay contest with such loaded qustions as Tom Friedman listed, is “such an expression of free speech” that would get one “jailed” in Middle Eastern countries really, really needs to get out more. The essay question is saying, “Give us this idea that we just gave to you, with padding.” That’s not free speech. What if the student took the contrary view as a devil’s advocate? Would he/she get an all expenses paid education in the US just to prove him/her wrong? I thought not. So spare me with the “free speech” jazz.

By: Ajax Bucky

Ajax Bucky — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:57:51 +0000

jet- Oh we are in deep trouble, we are. “Hollywood” is raising its third-and-a-halfth generation of American children. The young adults of its second-and-a-halfth are in Iraq playing video games with human lives. – There may be nothing wrong with “Hollywood” promoting “Democracy” in the abstract, but in the concrete real it reminds me of the mass brainwash that’s been used to make tobacco a pariah commodity in middle-class America. That was accomplished, most successfully, using the same techniques that were applied to the viewing public to get them hooked to begin with. Celebrity endorsements, product placement, and image saturation – spun through the mirror and turned into negative reinforcement exercises. The bizarre and patently false message being that individual repsonsibility was all that was in play. At the same time subliminal coercion was battering at the entrenched acceptability of smoking. Effectively. Individual responsibility plus the sleep-tape hypnotics of moral brainwashing being the key there. My somewhat clearer and much shorter point being – no message comes unattended. Every public service message, even the most benign, is a commercial for public service messages generally, and for the media and style used to produce it, and for the social context of its makers. “Hollywood” is a commercial for itself, first of all.

By: jet

jet — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:27:29 +0000

Nabakov, Actually I’m changing my mind and admitting to a hasty conclusion. There is nothing wrong with Hollywood being on the forefront of promoting Democracy.

By: mg

mg — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:09:16 +0000

In keeping with the spirit of the author of this post, let me suggest that each essay contest winner, in addition to being awarded and all-expenses-paid American college education, also gets a pony.

Well, it's not unheard of for people to get an all-expenses-paid American college education(also ponies, but you get the point). The more obvious pony joke, I thought, was

Tom Friedman: I sort of like the idea of bin Laden sitting in a dark cave somewhere, composing his latest nutty video message, and suddenly learning that all the reward money we were devoting to killing him will go instead to killing his ideas...

...and also, everybody's getting a pony.

By: nick

nick — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:43:23 +0000

Let me guess: Friedman got this idea from a cab driver, didn’t he? But it was a cab driver who, curiously enough, has a turn of phrase just like ol’ Airmiles hisself.

By: MQ

MQ — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:29:08 +0000

Jesus, what country does “Jet” live in? In the USA, where I live, the rich are worshipped like gods. Turn on the “Apprentice” to see dozens of people bow and scrape to the stunningly uncharismatic Donald Trump, a lousy businessman who has gone bankrupt multiple times but kept his fortune by being “too rich to fail”.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 18:38:52 +0000

In keeping with the spirit of the author of this post, let me suggest that each essay contest winner, in addition to being awarded and all-expenses-paid American college education, also gets a pony. Sorry, Belle, that was just too easy.

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:12:15 +0000

“If Hollywood is at the forefront of promoting Western values, then we are in deep trouble.” Well Hollywood gave us Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, Arnold Swhatznegger (whatever), Shane, John Rambo, etc, et al. Any problems with them, jet?

By: todd.

todd. — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 16:42:54 +0000

Belle, have you seen the handy-dandy Times link generator?

By: Elliott Oti

Elliott Oti — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:43:22 +0000

But the reality is that most cultures don’t ascribed so much moral inferiority to their wealthiest members as does the West. We all want to be rich, but the rich are a bunch of underserving pigs, right? Really? I’d say personally that the exact opposite is the case. The idea that a wealthy person was not necessarily always a corrupt, kleptocratic, morally inferior, undeserving pig was one I first encountered here in the West.

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:37:18 +0000

There is the minor problem that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt, at a minimum, wouldn’t take too kindly to such an expression of free thought, and certainly wouldn’t take too kindly to them being broadcast all over the place in Arabic. $75m isn’t much good if you’re in prison.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:29:06 +0000

Let me guess: Friedman got this idea from a cab driver, didn’t he? What a yutz.

By: Elliott Oti

Elliott Oti — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:21:15 +0000

Are you agreeing that Hollywood’s interpretation is an extreme oversimplification to the point where it isn’t really representative of reality? No, I’m saying that insofar as a mass consensus of such a thing as “Western values” exists, Hollywood gives the most honest depiction of that consensus. It may be at odds with reality, but then, ideals and values often are. Those who sell the “American Dream” are honest enough to call it a dream. Hollywood sells it better than anyone else.