yonmei

05:45 pm: Heinz writes back
( and makes things worse.... )


( My draft response )

Tags: ***** this fir a kerry oan, angry queer, food politics, i watch tv, writing complaining letters

10:39 pm: Kissing Is So Gay


(If by some remote chance you've missed this particular thing, you can ketchup here and here.)

Tags: ***** this fir a kerry oan, angry queer, food politics, i watch tv, writing complaining letters

02:19 pm: Travelling to the US: two news stories
Center for Constitutional Rights, 30th June 2008:

Today, the majority in a federal Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 against Center for Constitutional Rights client Maher Arar’s case against U.S. officials for their role in sending him to Syria to be tortured and interrogated for a year under the extraordinary rendition program.

The majority ruled that Mr. Arar’s constitutional claims that it was a violation of due process to lock him up for two weeks, obstruct his access to a lawyer and a court, and then to ship him to Syria for the purpose of having him interrogated under torture could not be heard in federal court for two reasons. It concluded that adjudicating the claims would interfere with sensitive matters of foreign policy and national security, and that Arar, as a foreigner who had not been formally admitted to the U.S., had no constitutional due process rights with respect to the government's interference with his access to a lawyer and the decision to send him to Syria to be tortured.

The majority also rejected Mr. Arar’s claim that U.S. officials are liable under the Torture Victim Protection Act, for conspiring with Syria to subject Mr. Arar to torture under color of foreign law. The TVPA creates liability for torture inflicted under color of foreign law, and courts have held that it applies not only to the torturer himself, but also to those who aid or abet in the torture. Arar alleged that U.S. officials aided and abetted in his torture at Syrian hands, but the majority ruled that the federal officials could not be held responsible for their conspiracy with the Syrians because they were federal officials exercising federal authority.

Financial Times, 2nd July 2008:

The US government will on Wednesday launch a tourism charm offensive in the UK, to persuade holidaymakers to take advantage of sterling’s strength against the dollar and make the US their next holiday destination.

Travel industry leaders, backed by Washington, will kick-start a tourism drive with DiscoverAmerica.com, the first dedicated national website selling the US to British and other international tourists.

( The letter I wrote )

Write to DiscoverAmerica

Tags: evil american politics, hitting something very hard, howls of rage, writing complaining letters

12:56 pm: Heinz homo haters
With reference to the news of last week: total signatures on the reinstate Heinz Mayo ad is now 11595.

"I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a tin of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now... Here's looking at you, kid."

Heinz is one of those homespun blue-collar brands that is a staple of our national diet. Its ketchup has just been voted by consumers as the brand with the most "equity", for goodness sake, after scoring highest against measures such as familiarity and quality. So how did Heinz get it so wrong with this ad?

Having been bold enough (or naive enough ... you choose) to sign-off a script in which two men's lips meet, Heinz was careful to make the whole gay thing a "joke": it's not as though either of the men in the ad is obviously meant to be gay, they both look so straight you could draw a line with them.

But adland knows full well that any suggestion of homosexuality in ads will hit some pressure points (reason enough, you might think, to challenge prejudices). Controversy will have been fully anticipated, and this ad will have been thought through thoroughly before the play button was pushed.

Which makes it all the more astounding, and disappointing, that Heinz was so easily cowed when the inevitable complaints tumbled in. The company wasted no time in sheepishly withdrawing the commercial. Which naturally sparked another row, this time with gay groups: Stonewall and the radio station Gaydar called for a global boycott of Heinz brands in protest.

Really, Heinz couldn't have stirred up more controversy if they'd tried – and a few cynics out there think maybe they did try, that the whole gay saga that dominated marketing headlines last week was a massive PR stunt. If it was, it backfired big time.

What's certainly true is that Heinz has proved itself to be too easily swayed, spineless even. Of course, for all its careful and sensitive self-regulation, sometimes adland gets it wrong and misjudges the nation's mood; advertising that causes genuine and understandable offence should be swiftly withdrawn.

But really, Heinz had an opportunity here to take an enlightened position, to defend the inoffensiveness of a (pretty dispassionate) kiss between two men. If we believe that advertising not only reflects society and its culture but helps shape it, then there are times when advertisers have to take responsibility for the influence they wield.

Heinz may argue that in responding to the complaints and withdrawing the ad it is doing exactly that. But it doesn't seem to have thought carefully enough about the wider message its actions might have sent out: that tacit endorsement of a gay relationship is something to be embarrassed about, to regret. And that's a very dangerous position for one of the nation's favourite brands to find itself in. Claire Beale

And:

. A global brand introduced a new television commercial in which two men were seen (briefly) to kiss on screen, owing to the transformational power of mayonnaise. See, the Book of Revelation just isn't specific enough on the seven signs of the Apocalypse. If only the four horsemen weren't so easily confused with fictional characters in condiments commercials then we wouldn't be in this mess. As it is, the religious right and heathen left are locked in an utterly futile and bombastic ideological row involving countless online petitions about whether Armageddon is signified by the fact of the ad or the pulling of the ad. Which was not banned and neither will it be, if the regulator ever bothers even to look at it.

It turns out that many of the complaints were organised by religious groups in the US, where the ad has never been broadcast. Offence is now apparently a global currency and officially a unit of measurement. I blame the internet. Given that, the BBC board should be rereading the key end-of-the-world signs just to double-check that there's no paragraph suggesting that if a head of marketing shall replace a longstanding head of radio, the bells shall ring and man shall be wiped out. Janine Gibson

I know, I know; it was just an ad. An ad which American news stories have mentioned "it wasn't to be broadcast to children" without specifying that this was because Heinz Mayo contains way too much fat and sugar, not because two men kissed.

But there was something about the way Heinz pulled it so fast, so apologetically, as if they should have realised that showing two men kiss is offensive to right-minded people.

Tell Heinz. Pass it on.

Tags: ***** this fir a kerry oan, angry queer, food politics, i watch tv, writing complaining letters

04:10 pm: Heinz means bigot
Nigel Dickie: "Heinz is a global company and we respect all universal rights. The advertisement was intended to be humorous, not designed to cause offence to anyone. Clearly it failed in its intent to amuse and that is why we took the decision to withdraw it."

You know what "respect all universal rights" means? It means not sexual orientation and not gender identity. Those aren't "universal" rights.

Last Monday, Heinz started running a new advertising campaign for Heinz Mayo. (A fat-filled, sugary product that it would take an ad this cute and funny to sell, truly.) The ad was supposed to run for five weeks.

The ad opens with a stereotype-family - a boy and a girl going to school, a father going to the office. The young boy and girl go to the kitchen to get their sandwiches, which are being prepared by a man with a New York accent, dressed in a deli serving outfit, who they refer to as "mum". When their father goes to get his sandwich he says to the man in the kitchen: "See you tonight love."

However, the man barks back "Hey, ain't you forgetting something?", at which point the two men share a kiss. The man then sends the father off with the words: "Love you. Straight home from work, sweet cheeks."

It isn't exactly a gay ad: it isn't exactly a straight ad. This isn't a same-sex couple bringing up kids together: it's a half-uneasy joke, "the concept behind the campaign is that the product tastes so good, 'It's as if you have your own New York deli man in your kitchen'."

But on Friday, Heinz pulled the ad. Apparently the advertising watchdog got over 200 "complaints" that the ad was offensive and that two men kissing were "inappropriate". (Bill O'Reilly apparently said on air on Friday "So why are they doing that? Why -- it was. It was obviously a gay thing. Now I don't know what the message is, other than gay people like mayonnaise. ... I'm confused. This whole gender blending thing. It's confusing to me. ... I just want mayonnaise. I don't want guys kissing.")

Nigel Dickie, Director of Corporate Affairs for Heinz UK, said the reason for pulling it was: “It is our policy to listen to consumers. We recognize that some consumers raised concerns over the content of the ad and this prompted our decision to withdraw it. The advertisement, part of a short-run campaign, was intended to be humorous and we apologize to anyone who felt offended.” Heinz.com

1. Sign the Re-instate the Heinz Deli Mayo TV ad.

2. Contact Nigel Dickie: 020 8848 2726, Nigel.Dickie@uk.hjheinz.com (from their press release) Tell Dickie you weren't offended. (You can view it here or here.)

3. Contact Heinz direct: www.heinz.com, click on the Contact Us link. Tell them you won't buy a Heinz product until the ad's being broadcast again.

4. If you normally buy Heinz, don't.

5. Pass it on!

I know, I know: it's just a TV ad. And however cute the ad, it's an appalling product. But Heinz's instant capitulation to homophobic bigots was so naked. Dress it up with a squirt of organic tomato ketchup and make your own baked beans.

Tags: ***** this fir a kerry oan, angry queer, food politics, i watch tv, writing complaining letters

06:11 pm: Letter to Boots
( letter to Boots, unedited version )

( letter to Boots, edited version )

Tags: not dieting just losing weight, venting, writing complaining letters