I’m boycotting organizations and endeavors whose vectors are not aligned with my interests and values.

• Starbuck’s, because they sponsor Morning Joe, a constellation of mediocrity posing as experts
• The Ivy Plus Society, because it uses a “.org” extension to pretend it’s not a money-making venture, and brings together people who are too lazy or too pretentious to meet people who didn’t attend a certain shortlist of schools.  It is superficial, artificial, and beneficial — to its founder, who is nothing more than a glorified promoter.

Want to get off my boycott list?

• Dear Starbucks: stop sponsoring Morning Joe.  Or, dear MSNBC: replace the nitwit hosts with people who can think more frequently than they can knee-jerk.
• Dear TIPS: instead of greedily padding your own bank account, why not use your events as a fundraising opportunities?  You could become an actual not-for-profit organization that acts as a fund of funds, in the model of Little Wings.
• Dear TIPS attendees:  why not ask yourself why it is that you’re attending an event like this?  What is it you’re looking to accomplish?  Is that the kind of person that you want to be?  Is getting drunk with other people who were accepted to “top” schools the kind of activity that your best self engages in?

Any other suggestions for boycotts?

Perhaps the government need not build a social network.  Perhaps the collective we are already on it!
Watch as this bonehead in Denver — still at large as far as I know — steals a tip jar.

Via Brizzly Bear

We must insist that our future does not belong to fear.

– Barack Obama, to UN, just now

This public health care “discussion” has raised my annoyance level with the lesser Libertarians that are on my radar.  This post is for them.

Now, look, you freedom-loving free marketeer.  I get you.  I understand you.  And you don’t fool me as well as the ruse of freedom seems to have fooled you.

But here’s the problem.  You like free markets in part because you think you’ll do well in them.  You’ve surveyed the population and you’re thinking, rationally, “I could beat these suckers.”  Good for you, kid.  Proud of you.  Now, winning in the free market isn’t going to rewind time and give you steady parental affection, now is it?  I mean, let’s be honest — you could start a few companies, run some half marathons, and otherwise contort yourself into an award-winning machine and you’re still unlikely to garner the kind of attention that you pine for from the people that brought you into this world.

(And I know that some of you might be thinking, “Dagnab, Anittah, this is just uncalled for, to put such personal information about me onto the interwebz.”  But rest assured, even though I bet you think this post is about you (don’t you?) — these are actually ridiculously consistent traits that the plurality of Libertarians that I personally know have in common.  So relax.  You.  Are not.  That special.)

But let’s go back to the “you kicking ass and taking names” notion that informs your motivation for wishing for a free market.

Look, I remember when you were a fat piece of shit.  Okay, maybe not an entire zip code rested itself into your pantalons.  But you’ve had your chubby phase.  And then, somehow — probably fueled by you trying to prove something to your parents and/or win their affections — you decided to get in shape.  You went on a strict eating regimen.  You started working out all the time.  You might have even entered an athletic competition for the first time in your life (pursuit of blue ribbons does not equal daddy’s love, in case you hadn’t yet figured it out, folks).

So you’re thinking, “Hey, if I can do it, everyone can!  And I don’t want to subsidize the fat pieces of shit who are too lazy and lack the self discipline that I was able to muster!”

Let’s explore this deeply mediocre point of view.

• What you call laziness may simply be a lack of self-hatred
• What you call self-discipline may simply be a desperate pursuit of external love
• What you have forgotten is that even in your new, sporty bod, I can still kick your ass

This last point is what particularly rankles me.  You say you love the free market?  Well, I know it’s because you think you’ll do well in it, and this is what I find laughable.  Even when you’re at the top of your game you’re still not as good as I am, let alone when you were unathletic Tubsy McTubserson!

So really, I should be annoyed at you other Libertarians who are bringing down the roster.  You are, on the whole, not as smart as I am.  You certainly aren’t nearly as athletic as I am (and your late-blooming competitions are just that — you missed out on the core of what it is to be a competitive athlete, and that is, to be a member of a team).  And you have the creativity of a potato.

So even if we were to compete in a free market, I’d STILL be able to garner an “idiot tax” out of your dumb ass without you even realizing it!

So what are we talking about?

Here’s what we’re talking about:  I’m no longer a Libertarian.  You selfish, “resources are scarce” bozos are teeming with the 80th percentile.  I can’t be bothered to associate myself any longer with people who

• assume that in the allocation of talent, everyone got fairly equal portions
• assume that their “discipline” and “lack of laziness” isn’t a function of neurosis
• refuse to realize that even on my worst day I can still beat them at their own atavistic game

You kids can fight amongst yourselves for the scraps of an adolescent ideology.  I’m done.

Do you or does someone you know have access to beverage distributors?  A nonprofit org in New York that seeks to end intergenerational poverty by empowering city youth with knowledge about their legal rights is hosting events this fall and winter that would be greatly enhanced by your brand’s presence.

i.e. Please donate a case of wine and/or a few bottles of liquor :)

A snip from the one-pager:

To support our work, RAP is hosting a series of events that celebrate the natural resilience of New York City, of New Yorkers, and of our youth. RAP is developing creative ideas that capitalize on the themes of personal and community resilience, inner-strength and endurance, and youth activism by drawing on its resources in the NYC artistic and activist communities for entertainment.

RAP is creating events that provide a fun space for intelligent, successful, passionate and committed young professionals to mingle, enjoy a night off from their taxing jobs, and support a good cause.

These high-end events will be held in galleries, lounges, and bars in communities throughout the city. They’ll feature performances and showcases from exciting up-and-coming artists, performers, and film-makers, all around the theme of resilience and youth.

You can download the one-pager by clicking here.  The document contains more details as well as contact information.

Thanks for helping spread the word!

A few years ago, I implored the woman at Random House in charge of All Things New Media to start a brand / imprint-thing called, simply, RANDOM.  It seemed appropriate given the psychographic of Kids These DAys.

Several weeks ago, purveyor of second tier electronics Radio Shack announced that they were shedding their Marconi-infused first name and evolving, simply, into THE SHACK.

And yesterday I saw a very large postcard direct mailer introducing THE FACTORY, a store within the Burlington Coat Factory store that’s positioning itself as the leader in

Cutting Edge Styles & Premium Brands

It’s where fashion happens.

Hot designers & the latest trends for men & women, it’s crave-worthy style meets get-real pricing.

Crave-worthy perhaps; cringe-inducing definitely (at least with respect to the grammar and flagrantly abusive ampersand use).

I can’t help but think that the ole’ Burlington Coat Factory is going to need more than a grammar-mangling postcard and an au courant moniker to get foot traffic into The Factory.  And I can’t help but think that Andy Warhol is gently raising an eyebrow ’bout all this, somewhere.

Though I must say: the appellation trumps anything else I can think of.  And it’s probably not a bad way for them to monetize their square footage by pushing edgier lines than normal.

Anyone been there?

Just ordered some Amtrak tickets.  The confirmation email:

Okay, well … maybe you could change your “from” email address to reservations @ amtrak.com … ?

Just, um, tossing out ideas.

There are some marketing campaigns that don’t lend themselves well to virality.  Let’s say you receive a marketing message that you might otherwise be inclined to forward.  What might stop you?

• Wait a second, if I tell my friends to enter this contest, then that will reduce my own chances to win!
• Wait now — my friends’ll wonder why I received this
• If I send this to a friend, they’re going to be insulted …

I just received an email forward that satisfies the latter two bullets.  Indeed, the sender even offered up a preemptive caveat

How she found me, I don’t know

followed by an explanation as to why he wasn’t really going to forward it outside a very small circle of peeps

I can’t be forwarding this around. It’s akin to calling someone a h@e!

What, praytell, might the product be?

You can see the product the email in question was hawking by clicking here (SFW).

It makes me squirm when I see a website that is not built for the long haul, and by long haul, I mean

• easy to find by them there robots
• easy to update by us here humans

If you are not fluent in g33k.com comme moi, you may look at a website and evaluate it solely on its looks.  You’ll ask yourself questions like

• Does it look good?
• Does it basically tell peeps what I do?
• Does it have my contact info?

When I look at and design a website, I ask

• Can I deeplink?
• Can an engine read it?
• Is it easy to update?
• How flexible are the page templates?

I ask these questions because

• You can only personally market your product and/or services for as much time in a day as your lips can move; if your website is search-spidey hostile then I hope you have motor mouth
• You shouldn’t have to pay someone boku ducats to tweak product pricing or other info on your website.  An intelligently built content management system allows for website operations and maintenance costs to approach zero.

But don’t take my word for it; Denver-based PR and communications consultant Bree Neely sez of her current site:

I can’t go in and add anything… without completely compromising the format

For those of you who are taking notes at home, this is not, in Bree’s mind, a positive thing.  So for her redesign, she’s taking into consideration the back end (which does not, as some marketers may wish to believe, take care of itself) as well as the engine readability of the site (this includes stuff like the title tags, site map, all that good stuff).

Websites should be more than pretty faces!  They should be hard-working pretty faces.  Think beauty contestants with, like, high IQ scores and stuff.  That are on your sales team.  Forever.

From Janet Bodnar’s editor’s letter in the October issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance:

Even though the U.S. health-care system has been described as “terminally ill,” there really is quite a healthy market for insurance in most states (except in places such as New York and New Jersey, where wrongheaded legislation keeps insurance costs high).

Never mind that the illness of the system has nothing to do with the health of the market.  My beef has to do with her unsupported generality regarding insurance costs in New York state.  My comment on her article which may never be approved by their editors:

It’s unfortunate that space constraints prevented Ms. Bodnar from supporting her inflammatory claim that in New York “wrongheaded legislation keeps insurance costs high.” My experience as a small business owner has been that New York state’s progressive private-public partnership, Healthy New York, lets entrepreneurs like myself offer health insurance at a very reasonable cost. How reasonable? I’m paying less than $270 a month per individual to insure my team through Atlantis Health. Legislation may still be “wrongheaded” in some regards, but in terms of empowering small business owners to offer health insurance to their people, New York state has hit this one outta the park.

It makes me crabby when people posing as experts expose themselves as thoughtless agenda-pushers.  And yes, I’m talking to you, Ms. Bodnar.