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Online purchases? Not very secure.

Wedding season has begun, and with it comes wedding registries, where one's own taste can be happily suspended in favor of buying something the happy couple has certified it wants. Carrie and I bought a gift for a friend from Williams-Sonoma and found this curious note in the shipping confirmation:

Jay Huber and Tanya Accone
625 Broadway, 12 floor
For privacy reasons, the city, state and zip code have been omitted.

So let me get this straight, Williams-Sonoma. You will tell me the street address and floor of the person receiving this gift, but not the city and state? Do you suppose I am sending wedding gifts to people whom I know so casually that I don't know what city they live in?

I didn't know their new address until I got the receipt. I almost feel like I have to stalk and kill my friends just to make a point.

Dutch pedophilia

No longer content to furtively masturbate to Saved by the Bell reruns, pedophiles in the Netherlands have announced that they are forming a political party to advocate for lowering the age of consent to 12.

Right now, their biggest problem is that it is illegal to shoot their campaign commercials without compromising artistic integrity. Or losing their erections.

You can go to prison for that?

Kudos to the headline writer that was able to sneak this one through.

Bigger kudos to Ken Lay if he planted the headline himself as a self-defense technique before getting sent to prison. You're on your own, Skilling.

Fat Dude Nation

For all the fuss that Big Cholesterol is making about the upcoming movie Fast Food Nation, in context the anti-FFN PR blitz is clearly the backup plan. The primary plan? Make the world so fat that they can't rouse themselves to protest.

In the wake of Super Size Me and Fast Food Nation, the fast food industry has introduced:

1)  Meatnormous Omelet Sandwich (Burger King, two slices of melted American Cheese, two eggs, three strips of bacon, two sausage patties and two slices of ham on a toasted bun, 740 calories)

2) Monster Thickburger (Hardee's, two 1/3-pound beef patties, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese and mayonnaise on a buttered sesame seed bun - 1420 calories)

3) Famous Bowls (KFC, bowl of mashed potatoes, corn, fried chicken strips, cheese and gravy - 690 calories)

...and now McDonald's is introducing a Bigger Mac (actual name TBD).

I understand that they are responding to what consumers want. All I ask is that they drop the pretense that they care about nutrition. They shouldn't even be able to have a "Nutrition" link on their websites - or if there is a link, all it should say is "Like you care, fatty. Just eat it."

"It's just easier"

There's a disturbing article in today's New York Times about how more parents are finding that it makes "more sense" (read: "is a lot less work") to plop their infants and toddlers in front of television sets to pacify them. The article cites a recent study finding that 61% of babies under one year old watch television or video every day. Parent Jennifer Beck-Wilson (an educational curriculum designer, no less) offers this half-assed justification:

"It helps with his vocabulary and with learning about morals," she said. "A part of me thinks I am being lazy, and I shouldn't be doing this, but it's just easier."

Oh, it's easier? It must be the right choice, then!

How NOT to start a revolution

Gothamist recently posted about activists who appeared to be protesting Wal-Mart but were slyly handing out Wal-Mart-sponsored flyers. Thing is, those apparently Wal-Mart-sponsored flyers were in fact sponsored by critics Wal-Mart Watch. Confused? Yes, and so, I imagine, were many people who got the flyers and mistook them for some kind of change of heart by Wal-Mart.

The flyers quote Sam Walton favorably and describe reforms critics WISH Wal-Mart would do without making clear that Wal-Mart hasn't actually done then.

“If you want people in the stores to take care of the customers, you have to make sure you are taking care of the people in the stores.” - Sam Walton
WAL-MART WILL AGGRESSIVELY WORK to ensure that employees are never mistreated through practices such as illegal firings, "off-the-clock" wage violations, intimidation, sexual harassment, violations of child labor laws, or discrimination of any sort. And Wal-Mart will justly compensate each associate with a family-sustaining wage that will enable the associate to raise a family without having to rely on public assistance.

So maybe Gothamist doesn't need to correct itself after all. The flyers weren't endorsed by Wal-Mart, true, but they work as feel-good advertising for Wal-Mart regardless. Someone, please, Wake Up Wal-Mart Watch and kick 'em a good swift kick in the head!

Nike: Just Coopt It

Not content to borrow the reflected glory of the punk scene, Nike has decided that they also need some covert prestige, UK-style.

The working-class London borough of Hackney is furious that Nike is selling t-shirts with the Hackney logo without asking for permission to use (much less license) the decades-old icon. In keeping with their act first, act later practice, Nike has agreed to discuss the issue with Hackney.

I suppose this means that I can start selling shoes with a swoosh. If Nike disagrees, we can discuss whether they should get a piece of the action whenever they notice. I'm sure that they will be reasonable.

(Via CMM News)

Erik Estrada, Esq.

Did you think Erik Estrada hit rock bottom when the only post-CHiPs acting work he could get relied on an ironic nostalgia for Ponch? Did you think it was when he started acting in a telenovela - based on ironic nostalgia for Ponch, repeating lines that came from an offstage Cyrano because he doesn't speak Spanish? Maybe you thought it was when he sold the ironic nostalgia for Ponch to shill for a real estate company. Wrong, three times over.

Erik Estrada hit rock bottom when he took ironic nostalgia for Ponch to become a pitchman for hire for law firms.

I'm Erik Estrada, and I've heard of the legal system. As a former television cop about whom you might have ironic nostalgia, I know that I would trust my case to Jewname, Jewname & Latino and you should too.

(Thanks to Beeeej, who let me tear the ad from his copy of Trial)

AAA's Oakland bus stop bench make over

The Anti-Advertising Agency has completed another campaign.  Working with Packard Jennings (you may know him from Stay Free's Illegal Art Exhibit), we surveyed neighborhoods within one block of Oakland bus stops.  The surveys polled residents about which advertising tactics they found most bothersome in that area.  Packard then created illustrations based on the survey results and the new content was placed in the respective neighborhood bus stop.  There's a set of photos on the AAA site showing several of the benches in their various locations as well as additional information on the project.

I'm Too Busy Underestimating Your Resolve to Set Back Our Relationship

If you like television, and who among us doesn't, you might be interested in the escalating stand-off between the Writers Guild of America and the networks over "product integration." The guild alleges that certain networks pressure writers to cram mentions of products into scripts. Not only does this practice blur the line between advertising and content, it creates revenue for the networks that isn't covered by the labor agreements between networks and the creative guilds (writers, actors and directors).

Here's a bit of integration in action, as reported by Variety's Michael Learmonth today:

Fox's MyNetworkTV is trying to differentiate itself on Madison Avenue by offering sponsors opportunities that would send network writers and producers fleeing to the picket lines.

Net, which will air primetime strip soaps over 13-week "seasons," is positioning itself as a one-stop shop for product placements, which can be written into its English translations of telenovelas like "Table for Three" and "Fashion House."

Twentieth TV sales exec VP Bob Sessa showed sample clips for how products can play within the shows. "Please pass the Evian," said one actress in a restaurant scene. "That's a beautiful Cartier watch," said another.

I'm not sure I'd mind the above examples if the actresses then turned to the camera and winked with a CHA-CHING sound effect.

This week, the networks' trade group, the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, ran an open letter to the WGA in Variety. The tone is very ominous. It's the kind of note you expect to see composed of torn-out letters from magazines. (I guess in this case BusinessWeek and the Robb Report.)

Both sides are acting aggressive now to bolster their position for labor negotiations in 2007, when their existing agreement expires. Writers last went on strike in 1988. A lot has changed since then. A lot has changed since January. Were a strike to happen again, can anyone really say if the tv-watching audience would bother coming back?

Fast Food Nation Attacked

What do you get when a best-selling critique of fast food gets turned into a Hollywood feature? Best Food Nation, an industry website (BestFoodNation.com) critquing the critique.

It is a tour-de-force of PR insanity. My two favorite sections on the site are "Ingredients" and "What Critics Say." Ingredients is actually only one ingredient: High Fructose Corn Syrup - a substance that makes everything it touches unhealthy. It's like an energy advocacy group including a link for "Waste dumped in rivers."

What Critics Say follows a by now familiar formula:

Critics say X
We say, "Nuh-uh!"

They don't even bother to address the charges. Fast Food Nation demonstrated that the meatpacking companies discouraged reporting injuries and falsified OSHA records. BFN claims ...  OSHA records show low injury rates! Fast Food Nation claims that the food industry is the subject of antitrust claims for illegal price fixing. BFN claims ... we don't fix prices; it would be illegal! Par for the course, of course. These are the same people who sued Oprah (to disastrous results) for daring to express fear of mad cow disease.

But perhaps we should just shut up and encourage you all to try making fast food yourself. It's actually kinda fun until you realize that this is why you already decided not to work for a major corporation in a suit or a paper hat.

What's REALLY wrong with the NSA

I know there's all kinds of ruckus about how the NSA has been keeping track of every phone call we've ever made, and, while this is a huge problem, the real problem is that the NSA has some kind of super-fetus program in place and has been using them, as in the case of Gen. Michael Hayden (pictured here) as their chief.

Now, this picture doesn't show it, but I believe behind the podium you could see his umbilical cord snaking out of his tiny trousers and down into a bucket of custard or Fruity Pebbles or something. And everything here is scaled down to fetus-sized. Look at those teeny (yet still seemingly too tight) glasses!

I mean, the real problem here is that this fucker is in charge of the NSA and yet he has no life experience-- hell, he's not even born! And I think we know why this administration's so against abortion: they want all the fetuses for themselves, to staff the NSA!

Plus, if all this isn't bad enough, there's nude pictures of this unborn fucker all over the internet. See?

Make Your Air Doubleplus Pure

It is conventional wisdom among people who weren't suckered into buying ionic air purifiers that the majority of them do nothing. Conventional wisdom was wrong. In fact, ionic air purifiers emit high levels of ozone - better known as smog. Perfect for those that want to bring the great outdoors home, if by "great outdoors" they mean "midtown Manhattan at rush hour."

So when someone finally invents an air filter that actually doesn't do anything, it can honestly claim that they are "new and Improved."

(Thanks, Steven Star!)

Can good design save lives?

Yes, in fact. Yes it can. But it's only thanks to skyrocketing malpractice costs that hospitals are bothering to notice. The Wall Street Journal reports on several health-care facilities pioneering architectural and other design changes: nonslip flooring, bathrooms located near beds to prevent falls, enclosed window blinds to reduce germs, improved air-conditioning.

I'm not sure anyone deserves any awards here, though - that'd be like thanking the pilot for not crashing the plane. Most of the new initiatives sound like nobrainers but one manages to sum up everything wrong with health care in America:

At SSM Health Care's new hospital in St Louis, Mo.... nurses will pass medicines to patients via a small sliding drawer from an adjoining alcove. This limits the number of times a nurse enters the room, thus lowering the infection risk for a patient.

In other words, nurses (and doctors, for that matter) are more inclined to make you sick than well. I guess it's easier to remove them from the picture than to get them to wash their hands. But if this solution is taken to its natural end, the only humans patients will ever see are the ones who come to collect the check. Haven't administrators heard about the healing power of human touch?

Full article below the fold

Ounce of Prevention To Reduce Errors, Hospitals Prescribe Innovative Designs Newest Layouts Stress Safety

Wall Street Journal
By GAUTAM NAIK
May 8, 2006; Page A1

WEST BEND, Wis. -- In May 2003, St. Joseph's Hospital hired a local accounting firm to install a hotline for staff to anonymously report medical errors and near-misses, either their own or those of colleagues. Before the system was set up, the hospital collected 250 reports per month. Afterward, the number shot up to 3,000 per month.

The cases confirmed what administrators at St. Joseph's had suspected: The hospital wasn't adequately addressing safety issues. At the same time, the cost of the preventable errors was escalating. St. Joseph's paid more than $70,000 in malpractice insurance premiums in 2000. In 2004, the figure exceeded $440,000.
[John Reiling]

Rather than merely overhaul medical procedures, the hospital decided to try a different approach. St. Joseph's then-chief, John Reiling, was already leading a $55 million effort to build a new facility. His idea: cram the new building with innovative design to help staffers do their jobs more precisely, more carefully -- and, he hoped, prevent errors in the process. "We decided to use patient safety as the guiding principle," he says.

Many hospitals aim to improve safety by focusing on ways to reduce human error. They encourage nurses to wash their hands more often to prevent the spread of infections and push doctors to write prescriptions more legibly in order to avoid mix-ups. A growing number of administrators are now factoring hospital layout and design into the patient-safety equation.

Traditionally, architects designed hospitals much like any other building -- making adjustments along the way for things like toilet location, medical equipment and ventilation. Mr. Reiling persuaded the facility's architects to draw up blueprints with specific medical benefits -- such as slip-proof floors and soundproof walls -- already built in.

The old St. Joseph's suffered from all the faults of a typical U.S. hospital. Lighting varied from one area to the next, making visual diagnoses inconsistent. Noise levels were higher than those recommended by health experts, making it harder for patients to rest.

At the new 80-bed facility, which opened its doors in August, the size and set-up of every room is identical. That means doctors and nurses quickly can find everything from syringes to emergency oxygen lines. Nurse stations are placed so that all patients are visible -- without pillars to block the view. Filters and ultraviolet devices trap and kill germs and other particles, making for healthier airflow throughout the hospital.

Though the changes are relatively new, the hospital says it is reaping benefits on both safety and financial fronts. Anecdotal evidence suggests that infection rates, injuries from falls and medication errors are lower than at the old facility. The hospital expects that over the next year, the average length of stay could decline by as much as half a day -- freeing up beds more quickly and allowing St. Joseph's to serve more patients.

"Many people are now aware of the impact that environment has on patient safety," says Craig Zimring, an environmental psychologist and a professor of architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. He is also a member of the board of the Center for Health Design, an advocacy group whose main goal is to provide "researched and documented examples of healthcare facilities whose design has made a difference in the quality of care." The group has identified at least 35 health organizations that are building such new facilities.

Concerns about hospital safety intensified in 1999, when the Institute of Medicine reported that between 44,000 and 98,000 patients die each year because of medical mistakes, making them a bigger killer than breast cancer or car accidents. The institute, part of the National Academy of Sciences, estimated the annual cost of those preventable errors -- including corrective treatments and disability expenses -- at between $17 billion and $29 billion.

Federal and state regulators are pressuring hospitals to reduce medical errors, too. A recent impetus is the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act, which President Bush signed into law in July. Borrowing an idea from the aviation industry, the new law allows doctors and nurses to report medical errors voluntarily and confidentially.

Insurers are also taking a tougher safety stance. Many health-maintenance organizations, as well as Medicare, now refuse to reimburse doctors for certain procedures that merely rectify a physician's mistake. Some insurers, such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, are granting easier patient access to hospitals' records of medical mishaps.

The emphasis on safety helps explain why design has been enlisted in the battle to reduce hospital errors and insurance rates.

The University of Michigan Health System has made patient safety its main priority at its new $523 million children and women's hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich. Virtually all corners in the hospital interior are being built with round edges. And while most hospitals recycle their air up to eight times -- thus increasing the risk of spreading infectious germs -- the new building won't recycle air at all.

A big benefit of the system: "Our terrorism expert advised us that if a biological or chemical outbreak or attack occurred, the agent would be confined to one room," says Robert Merwin, CEO of the hospital's owner, Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame, Calif.

HCA Inc. of Nashville, which runs more than 180 hospitals, says it will no longer use vinyl coverings on exterior walls because the material attracts infection-causing mold. At SSM Health Care's new hospital in St. Louis, Mo., set to open in 2008, nurses will pass medicines to patients via a small sliding drawer from an adjoining alcove. This limits the number of times a nurse enters the room, thus lowering the infection risk for a patient.

Few efforts are as ambitious as those at St. Joseph's. Mr. Reiling, who until recently served as CEO, says that personal experiences with medical errors "sparked" him to push for a much safer facility. In the early 1990s, the young daughter of a friend had a curable form of cancer but died from an overdose of chemotherapy at another hospital. Soon afterward, the father of the girl, who was chairman of a Minnesota hospital, was shaken by the death of another child who died in his hospital due to a surgical error.

In February 2003, Mr. Reiling approached architects Gresham Smith and Partners of Nashville, Tenn., and asked them how they might design a safer hospital. "I admitted I didn't know how," recalls Tom Wallen, a veteran health-care architect at the firm. "But we knew that the automotive and aerospace industry had improved safety for its customers, so we tapped into those resources."

One key idea was standardization. Airplane pilots and car drivers know precisely where to find emergency controls; the designers aimed to create a similarly familiar hospital set-up.

Mr. Reiling had to rally his board. He brought in patient safety experts for talks. At the board's annual strategy meetings, he screened patient-safety films, such as one that recreated a malpractice case. He persuaded the chairman and other board members to attend a big brainstorming meeting in April 2003 that included safety-minded representatives from the American Medical Association, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Their goal was to answer a single question: How could a hospital be designed from the ground up to maximize patient safety?

Not everyone embraced the concept. Dan Johnson, vice chairman of St. Joseph's board, expressed doubt to other members that Mr. Reiling could pull off his bold idea in tiny West Bend, Wis. "I thought that there was no way we could do this," says Mr. Johnson. "We'd be engineering huge expenses into the project."

Many ideas came from doctors, nurses and patients. At the old facility, architects built life-size mock-ups of what the new rooms would look like, and invited the medical staff to stick notes or scribble suggestions on the walls. One such test room went through more than 30 revisions before the final design was pinned down.

Mr. Reiling did considerable legwork on his own. He visited General Electric Corp.'s Lighting Institute in Cleveland, and ordered lighting that best simulated natural light. Today, doctors no longer have to wheel newborns to a window to check for jaundice.

Since window blinds are a known breeding ground for germs, the hospital installed windows that enclose the blinds within the glass. Heating vents above the windows reduce the condensation that usually lets germs thrive.

Mr. Reiling pushed to make every patient room look the same, so that in an emergency doctors and nurses would know exactly where to find things. The standardized, pre-fabrication approach enabled the hospital to get discounts from vendors, and whittled down the budget.

The savings allowed the hospital to build other facilities it hadn't previously planned: a postpartum recovery room for new mothers, a new diagnostic area and an education center. Even with the additions, the hospital came in $500,000 under budget.

For the labor delivery room, the architects wanted to stick with the standard of placing the patient toilet along the headwall of the bed, so patients could get there easily and would be less likely to take a tumble. But nurses and doctors argued that they and family members are often milling around the patient's head, so it was safer to place the toilet door away from the traffic, on the opposite wall. Their approach prevailed.

Next to each room is a glass-fronted alcove with a computer, allowing nurses to order drugs or enter medical data while the patient is constantly in view. Based on an idea known as "continuous flow" that's popular in manufacturing, the approach lets a nurse complete all tasks related to one patient before moving on to the next.

Not everything has gone smoothly. Because the new rooms are larger, some of the corridors in the new facility are long, so it can take a while to reach a patient. And since every floor looks alike, some disoriented patients can get lost.

Much of the artwork is bland, and few walls are cheerily painted. "They put most of their budget into safety and had little left over for aesthetics," says Sara Marberry, spokeswoman for the Center for Health Design, who has visited the new facility. Serene designs can be less stressful for patients, she says.

Nonetheless, St. Joseph's is attracting plenty of attention. Mr. Reiling has been invited to describe the design at conferences, while several health administrators from the U.S. and overseas have visited to take a firsthand look. Denver Health, a big public hospital, has hired architects Gresham Smith to apply St. Joseph-style concepts at a new pediatric and maternity wing in Denver. Pembury Hospital in Tumbridge Wells, England, plans to incorporate many of the St. Joseph's ideas into a new 512-bed facility.

Mr. Reiling is determined to help keep up the momentum. Earlier this year, he left St. Joseph's to become project manager of another safety-driven project, the design of a $700-million facility for Boca Raton Community Hospital in Boca Raton, Fla.

Beatles beaten

In the now-historic trademark battle between Apple Corps and Apple Computer, the computer company was found not liable for violating its trademark license agreement.

Distressingly, the grounds on which Apple Computer won were stupider than anything I could have come up with. The London High Court ruled that iTunes was not a seller of music, but rather "a data transmission service." Is grooved vinyl or magnetic tape any less a data transmission device than an mp3? Doesn't that make Sam Goody a "data transmission service"?

Look for a different opinion from Apple about whether they sell "music" when arguing that they need to implement extreme-DRM at the request of the music industry.

Ivana trumps Donald's trademark

Ivana Trump has filed an application with the Patent and Trademark Office to use the mark "Ivana Trump" in the real estate business. Ex-husband and professional douchebag Donald has filed an opposition, leading to the immediate creation of the easiest headline ever.

Donald, Donald, Donald. Your early prenups were obviously weak. If you wanted to prevent Ivana from using "your" name, you should have taken it back in the divorce.

(Via The Smoking Gun)

Baby Boob Tube

After watching Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby delude anxious parents for years, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) has managed to call the companies' bluff. The nonprofit group has filed a complaint with the FTC accusing the video makers of false advertising. To wit:

Baby Einstein promises to "foster the development of your toddler's speech and language skills." ...which I suppose is true if you keep the control group tykes locked in a closet. (Hey, even the wire monkey mother is better than nothing.) 

Brainy Baby's claims are more outrageous still: "[Peek-A-Boo video] helps nurture such important skills as object permanence, communication skills, cause and effect..."  Because nothing teaches communication skills like solitary, sedentary watching.

What amazes me most about these videos is their success among parents of all stripes, despite the American Academy of Paediatrics's recommendation against television for children under 2. I even know of two famous, lefty media critics who'd prop their 1-year-olds up in front of the tube while they worked. When you ask these affluent, educated types why they do it, they'll acknowledge using videos as a babysitter. But even parents who can recognize ad claims as farce are unconsciously hoping there's some truth there. So fire up for CCFC and show 'em some love for crushing that hope.