Newly posted: photos from the Promenade Plantée.
Paid product placement
“Maybe Americans should be paid consumers.” Walter Kirn
Shouting scoopers
Perhaps this “singing scoopers” thing needs to be reevaluated: I headed to a local Ben & Jerry’s to get a cone, only faintly realizing something was amiss. Once inside, I shared the space with a very confused tourist family, a few panhandlers asking for ice cream, and… two dozen voices packed behind the counter — the cast of “The Lion King,” playing down the street — who broke into “The Circle of Life” at top volume, including clapping, and at very close range. One singer managed, somehow, to take my order, and I escaped largely unharmed.
Found objects
Found on the sidewalk outside: shards of glass, from a bottle of South Australian shiraz. I’m not sure whether this beats the Frappuccino bottle or the discarded Ann Taylor suit.
A nation divided
A national survey conducted by Hershey reveals a deep divide between “classy, sophisticated, elegant” dark-chocolate people and “sweet, friendly, playful” milk-chocolate people.
In other business news, May has abandoned its southern strategy for Lord & Taylor, shuttering all stores outside the Northeast Corridor, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis. Efforts to bridge the “red-blue” cultural divide are apparently failing.
In heat
Overheard, as maybe a dozen men left a packed elevator: “whew, that was hot in there.”
Warming prevents warming
From our irony department: “Global warming, which most climate experts blame mainly on large-scale burning of oil and other fossil fuels, is interfering with efforts in Alaska to discover yet more oil.”
Arianna for fun
Could Arianna as governor put the party back into increasingly one-party California?
HummerDinger
Finally, the Suburban Assault Vehicle that practically parodies itself has its own slick parody site: HummerDinger. (In a refreshing change, the site goes beyond the gas-glutton angle to laugh at the vicious avarice, pride, and anger of SUV drivers, as well as their lack of maneuverability and even cargo room.)
Diversity on TV
“Straight viewers… want to learn about people who are different from them. We can’t just have all white, middle class characters on television,” says Scott Seomin of GLAAD. Funny, then, that the article talks up NBC’s “Will & Grace” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” where all the characters are… white and middle class.
Chinese spy-who cares?
“Now we have an actual Chinese spy–charged, though not convicted–who by all indications was funneling money into U.S. campaigns… vital secrets were given to China, which Republicans were saying two years ago posed the greatest threat to the United States. And yet we’ve not had one hearing. Not one commission. There’s been very little coverage in the press, nor is anyone yakking about it on talk radio.” Josh Marshall
Contract patronage compared
“The Bush brothers would not be the first political family to turn government contracts into a source of political [patronage] power… Today, [Richard M.] Daley dominates Chicago politics almost as thoroughly as did his father.” Nicholas Confessore
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