On The Mark -- Dowd's Coalition of the Shilling

Maureen Dowd's column today in the New York Times was written as satire, but it could very well make a lot of sense. She proposes that, in order to help the troops get the equipment and protection they need, corporate sponsors should step in as they do with stadiums (Staples Center, Minute Maid Park) and athletes, as well as product placements when soldiers are being interviewed on television (holding a can of Coke or wearing a Nike hat, for example). She called it the Coalition of the Shilling and gave several examples, including a very clever one, the American Express Green Zone. Sponsors would never support a negative image you say? OK, explain to me then the sponsorships of today's athletes who take steroids, or get arrested on charges such as rape, or any number of other thuggish activities. I think the sponsor dollar would be much better spent helping our men and women in uniform stay alive and safe. Maybe the White House shut down the Marketing and Public Relations Division too soon.

Maybe you forgot, and maybe you didn't, that Rudy G. was totally down and out before 9/11. Sure, he walks on water now, but before 9/11 I remember reading article after article about his affair, how the mayor's mansion was split in half with his divorce-in-waiting wife, and that it was reported that he allegedly wasn't bashful about bringing his mistress into the house while the divorce case was raging. Rudy's anger with Kerik really has nothing to do with Kerik's problems. Rudy knows that his shaky past will get kicked up again, just when he was about to start his campaign for the White House. During the presidential campaign Bush and Cheney kept saying that Kerry was still thinking pre-9/11 and that new world had started that day -- basically, forget about everything pre-9/11. Well, they just got some cold water splashed in their faces, because the world that existed before 9/11 hasn't gone away.

I remember while I was in Russia a conversation I had with a Russian about politics. I said to him that Putin had caused quite a stir in the USA with his comment about a secret super nuclear weapon. My Russian friend laughed and said that everyone in Russia knew that comment was good fiction, that Putin was just trying to figure out a way to stay on the world stage. I responded, "Probably as fictional as our so-called missile shield. So we're both safe because your non-existent bomb can't get through our non-existent shield." We both had a good chuckle. With today's news, it turns out the joke wasn't on us, but for us.

I hope Bose is ramping up production of their silencer headphones, because I'm anticipating a rapid uptick in sales if they allow cell phones on airplanes. Flying is already a miserable experience...can you imagine what it will be like listening to people screaming into their phones for hours and hours with no place to escape? They should install "cell-phone zones" where people will have to go to make calls, along the lines of smoking zones in airports.