We have a local talk radio station that has gone brand crazy. They can’t seem to stop themselves from branding every second of their existence. Since the disaster in Haiti, every time they talk about it, a deep announcer’s voice comes on and says “THE HORROR IN HAITI” They even use alliteration. It’s starting to really irritate me.
While I’m in rant mode, I saw that astonishing Pat Robertson video clip. At first I thought it must be some kind of parody. It’s disturbing that a guy with scary ideas like that has such a big following in America.
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It looks like governments and relief organizations have mobilized pretty fast to get some resources and help down to the people in Haiti. From the reports that have come out of there so far though, it can’t be fast enough.
27th Street 
Curious to know of which station you speak….
Newstalk 1010, the former CFRB
The Alberta government, in all its typical big-heartedness, stated yesterday that it will not be contributing to a Haitian relief effort. Thankfully there was a big uproar and they have since come to their senses. Or grown a heart or something.
The government contributing to relief efforts thing has me somewhat confused no matter which level of government is doing it. Ultimately any level of government has no money of their own, all they are doing is donating money which the ordinary people have to fund and which certainly will be taken from them at the earliest opportunity. If the federal government decides to take $x million dollars from the people and send it over there they certainly have the power to do that and hopefully they deal in amounts which the people can afford. When a provincial government also decides to jump on board and send relief they are in effect double dipping from their provincial residents whether the residents want that to happen or not. If the city of Calgary then decided to not appear as cheap heartless bastards and made a further donation of funds belonging to their citizens Calgarians would find themselves on the pay out end of 3 donations before the local churches and girl scouts dipped into their pockets for a 4th, 5th or 6th dip. Don’t get me wrong here, I am not at all against helping out in a disaster. I do however think that governments need to remember that it isnt their money they are sending and I think there is a lot of merit to finding some way to centralize relief efforts so that say only the federal government makes relief donations. Right now it is much too easy for special interest groups to strong arm multiple levels of government into dipping into public funds so that individual politicians dont have to look like heartless bastards. Let’s let the government of the country look after international relief efforts and then if individuals want to kick in more they are free to do so.
Ahhhh! See what you mean. Mad as a hatter.
I like the branding of Duff Beer….;-)
We don’t tend to get too much of that in England. But we will. Everything American arrives here eventually – not that I mind that in general.
Apart from MacDonalds. He is one freaky clown.
What doea Pat Robinson say / do? Never heard of him – which seems like a good thing. I’ll google him and have a look.
Pat Robertson is one disgusting SOB.
I will pass on the media thing that always annoys me so that you too will notice it and also be annoyed. Every time there is a shooting of some sort, radio and TV say the victim was “gunned down”. No one is ever just shot they are always gunned down. Peculiar though that no one seems to be knifed down or bussed down.
The Pat Robertson thing just has me so freaked out. It’s absolutely sickening. There are some perfect words for a guy like that.
I am so sick of the branding fetish…it’s terrible that even radio does it…tv’s fox and cnn are bad enough! Thank god for Jon Stewart the voice of reason and sense and humour….he always makes fun of all the logos and brands…I avoid the news and watch him and Colbert instead. Sanity!