I’ve watched this trailer around five times now. Last night, this morning. Watching it again right now. And I believe. Yes, I do. I have no qualms about saying this:
In 2003, Uma Thurman will Kill Bill.
Population: One
This is what we call an excellent cause. You know what’s even better? The people he’s trying to help grow coffee. This matters; donate if you can.
We pause in our mobile blogging frenzy to present some biographical information regarding Jarvis A. Wood. They say you should find your niche and stick with it; possibly this is mine. Someone asked, by the by, if I knew who the businessman mentioned in regards to the Sherman Act in Special Delivery 2. I don’t know, but I’ll see what I can dig up.
The following excerpts are from The History of an Advertising Agency, Ralph M. Hower, Harvard University Press, 1949:
p. 79:
In 1888, Ayer took on his staff Jarvis A. Wood, a young man with a gift of ready words, who immediately began to devote much of his time to writing advertisements for Ayer customers.
p. 98-99:
In January, 1898, a step was taken that reduced the burden upon Ayer and McKinney, and promoted a more equable distribution of managerial duties. Two employes of the firm, Jarvis A. Wood and Albert G. Bradford, were advanced to partnership.
Wood had started to work for N. W. Ayer & Son in 1888 as assistant to F. W. Ayer. Genial, friendly, and gifted with a ready flow of words, he was expected to follow Mckinney as the agency’s leading business getter and producer of advertising ideas. His talents, however, lay in other directions. For a number of years he supervised the preparation of copy; his business associates believe that he was the first man to head an agency copy department. Later he was made manager of the large staff of employees and placed in charge of the general routine work of the Philadelphia organization. In that capacity his tact, his fatherly manner, and his complete loyalty enabled Wood to serve the agency well.
In addition to lightening the burden upon the two senior partners, the admission of Bradford and Wood represented the attempt to provide for a continuity of management. It is significant that these two had not been brought in from the outside. Both had been employed in the agency for more than ten years and knew every phase of the work. Like Wallace and Mckinney, neither of then contributed any new capital to the business; each paid for his share out of earnings received after admission to the partnership. Their promotion, like every promotion to top management in N. W. Ayer & Son before or since, was based not on financial interest but on their ability, promise, and experience within the firm, a fact which has given Ayer employees an incentive to put forth their best efforts.
After the admission of the new partners, the responsibilities of the business were divided as follows: McKinney was in charge, as before, of the business getting activities: Bradford handled the buying of space and other dealings with publishers; and Ayer, with Wood as his assistant, exercised a close supervision over operations as a whole.
p. 125:
It is worth noting that none of them could be regarded as a specialist in space buying, and that since the death of Jarvis Wood, there was no member of the firm whose specialty had been the preparation of copy.
It’s pretty much traditional among a certain class of geek bloggers to come up with a way to set up an email->blog gateway. I’ve sort of put this off for a while, but since I’m pretty sure I’m about to go out and indulge in a Sidekick, the day can be delayed no longer. Thus: this entry, which was in fact posted wholly from within my email client.
Which is mutt, and you can’t tell me that doesn’t make it worse.
This one opens with a picture of Jarvis Wood, along with Jarvis Wood, Jarvis Wood, Jarvis Wood, and Jarvis Wood. They’re gathered around a table working on this issue of Special Delivery. Apparently, photographic trickery is not a new thing. Multiple exposure? Something like that.
(Did you miss the first entry? Read this.)
“The entire editoral staff of the Special Delivery wishes the holder of this copy a Merry Christmas in the good year nineteen thirteen.
“Jarvis A. Wood (signed)
“The Wesley Inn
Wayne, Pennsylvania
Christmastide, nineteen thirteen”
Turn the page.
Steven Dan Beste misses the point in arguing that we can defend South Korea and invade Iraq simultaneously. I think he’s right. We could. Except that he’s not really arguing that the US can defend South Korea and invade Iraq. He’s arguing that the US could provide air cover (with help from Japan) while South Korea defends itself.
This is, by the by, multilateralism: the awareness that the US needs allies to successfully pursue its goals.
OK. So, but it’s also beside the point. The worry regarding North Korea is not that they’ll try to invade South Korea. The worry is that they’ll develop their nuclear program. The current US foreign policy calls for preemptive strikes to prevent this, particularly in the case of nations that are hostile. North Korea’s part of the axis of evil, which I assume means they qualify.
In the latter portion of the essay, he points out that “The one thing that the North Korean governing elite apparently wants is to remain in power.” This is a powerful argument, and one with much merit. Maybe North Korea is in fact not a danger to us, or even to our allies in Southeast Asia. The irony here is that this is the exact same argument used by many of those who object to war in Iraq. Hussein’s desire to stay in power is greater than his desire to rule the Arab world. He knows that if he uses any weapons of mass destruction he may have, he’s gonna get vaporized. Etc. Yes, Iraq has invaded neighboring countries. Wasn’t all that long ago that North Korea was at war, either. The leadership has not changed in either case.
Dan Beste also says that we can always remove the atomic threat as and when they’re turning out refined plutonium in quantity. He ought, perhaps, to read the statements by Colin Powell, to which he linked: “North Korea has had nuclear weapons for a couple of years in violation of its previous agreements, he [Powell] said.”
The policy that calls for invasion of Iraq also calls for proactive attempts to defuse the North Korean atomic program. If one is important, the other is also important. If we can’t do both at once, we ought to reexamine that policy and modify it to fit geopolitical realities.
That policy is explicitly designed to contain terrorism. It is directed at rogue nations who may possess only a few nuclear weapons. It’s not designed for Russia, it’s designed for new nuclear powers and terrorist organizations. North Korea fits the profile perfectly. If North Korea is not the kind of nuclear power that requires proactive action, what is?
I was thinking about doing my year’s best film list, so I wandered over to IMDB to look at their list of the top movies of 2002 by popular vote. It’s just weird.
I am not surprised that some movie fans decided to push their favorite flick to the top of the charts. Duh; it’s an online vote. That’s what happens. But from all appearances, we have a bunch of separate groups all pushing frantically without any hint of trying to pull down someone else. You’d think that the Nine Inch Nails fans might want to cement their number 1 position by voting against the obscure Polish flick, maybe. And where are all the people who hate Michael Moore? How did Bowling for Columbine rack up a 9.0 average over 4,986 votes?
Annnnnnd it’s more on the Confederate flag issue.
It’s an important article to read for two reasons. First, it describes how white supremacists have hijacked the Sons of Confederate Veterans. These days, the SCV is into talking about how much blacks enjoyed fighting for segregation. This is real. This is not a random accusation from the left wing. This is a major, important Southern organization being coopted by virulent racism.
Second, it also makes it clear that the Sons of Confederate Veterans weren’t all racists or rednecks. Those who formerly ran the SCV are outraged and are working to take back their organization — as they should. These are men who are proud of the Confederate flag, and who are also working against racism.
As pretty much everyone who cares knows by now, Sean Penn recently visited Iraq and was promptly used by Saddam Hussein for propaganda purposes. You have to hope he wasn’t surprised by this. I thought it might be interesting to see what he actually said, though, since it’s been somewhat under-reported. Quotes are from various sources; search Google (for the next 30 days or so, at least) for cites.
“I am a citizen of the United States of America. I believe in the Constitution of the United States, and the American people. Ours is a government designed to function
“In sports, the New England Patriots win the Super Bowl, thus using up all the sports luck that New England has been accumulating for decades, and thereby guaranteeing that the Red Sox will not win the World Series for another 150 years.”
Dave Barry’s year-end report is up.