Author Archives: Jon Lowder

Why RJ Reynolds Should Be the Biggest Arts Sponsor in the US

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Winston-Salem is the home to both RJ Reynolds and the North Carolina School of the Arts.  Until now this seemed just a coincidence to me, but now I think the folks at RJR may have seen the future decades ago and worked behind the scenes to make sure the NCSA came to Winston.  Here’s why: to get around smoking bans in liberal states like California and Minnesota bars are starting to have theater nights. It seems that in these states actors are allowed to light up during live performances, and so bars are staging plays and calling all the patrons actors.  Nifty!

Here’s a piece about the smoking ban work-around on Boing Boing, and the article they link to in The Star Tribune, the newspaper of record in those other Twin Cities in Minnesota.

I’m thinking that RJR’s marketing folks need to get hyper aggressive in promoting bar-plays AND their lobbyists need to get busy making sure this loophole doesn’t close any time soon.  To push bar-plays they should print and distribute free of charge every play that features multiple characters sucking on cancer sticks.  Better yet they should commission students at NCSA to write plays in which every character smokes and have multiple crowd scenes.

And while they’re at it why stop with bars?  They should see if this work-around applies to schools.  Those kids are always doing plays and I keep hearing how those commie-educators are constantly cutting back on arts programs so school plays offer a perfect opportunity for business/education synergy.

This’ll show those rubes at truth who’s in charge.

What’s In Your Congress Critter’s Wallet?

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I just received an email from Legistorm announcing the availability of a database that shows the personal financial disclosure forms of members of Congress and their staffs.  The purpose is to make it easier for "Joe and Jane Citizen" (that’s you and me) to see if our legislators have any conflicts of interest.  Of course I went to the site straight away to see how my personal Congress Critter, Rep. Foxx, and her staff are represented.  A couple of interesting discoveries:

  • Rep. Foxx has what appears to be a fairly extensive portfolio that includes lots of companies like Smuckers, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Verizon, etc.  I’m willing to bet that most members of Congress have similar financial holdings so it would be almost impossible for Senators and Representatives to not work on legislation that directly effects the companies that they have interests in.  I’m hoping that people don’t fly off the deep end and start saying that there’s a conflict of interest just because someone owns shares in particular companies.  For instance just because Foxx owns shares of Verizon I don’t think she should have to recuse herself from anything telecomm related.  On the other hand if Verizon made up 99% of her portfolio and represented all of her nest egg then that would be a different thing.
  • The travel expenses for her office reveal a trip made by former staffer Deana Young Funderburk to something called the Humpty Dumpty Institute.  Gotta love the name.  Here’s how they describe themselves:
  • Young Funderburk worked for Tom Delay before joining Foxx’s staff.  Great reference, huh?
  • Staffers have to reveal a lot about themselves on these forms.  IRA, pensions, debts, rental incomes, etc.  It’s all there and when I looked at it the reality of being a "public servant" really hit home.  Would you want the world to be able to see all of your finances like that?

Being a Mormon-Catholic-Moravian Doesn’t Make Me that Weird

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The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has released results from a recent survey that include some interesting numbers.  Among them:

  • "More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in
    which they were raised in favor of another religion – or no religion at
    all."
  • "If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is
    included, 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation,
    moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated
    with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific
    religious tradition altogether."
  • "The number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular
    faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were
    not affiliated with any particular religion as children."
  • "Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion."
  • Protestants are almost a minority in the country at just 51% of the population.
  • Within the ranks of protestants, 23% are evangelical, 18.1% are mainline protestant and 6.9% are affiliated with historically black churches.
  • There are now as many Mormons as Jews at 1.7% of the population each.
  • "While nearly one-in-three Americans (31%) were raised in the Catholic
    faith, today fewer than one-in-four (24%) describe themselves as
    Catholic. These losses would have been even more pronounced were it not
    for the offsetting impact of immigration."

I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of people taking issue with this report.  For instance there will be lots of Christians who will take exception to Mormons being included in their ranks.  I know this from personal experience since I’ve had a bunch of evangelical and mainstream Christians tell me that I was lucky to escape the "cult" of Mormonism.  FYI, I was Mormon until around age 10, went to a Lutheran H.S., converted to Catholicism when I got married and now am a member of the Moravian church.  I think if they’d polled me I would have been responsible for the +/- skew you see in all surveys.

I’m also fairly certain that a bunch of Catholic bishops will say that the numbers are wrong and they really aren’t losing a bunch of their members.  They seem to excel at denying reality despite the ready evidence of parishes being closed and land sold off, and the ripple effect from their incredibly bad handling of the abusive priests controversy.

My final thought on this is that when you really think this through it’s amazing that during my parents’ adult life we had a presidential candidate who had to overcome the obstacle of being a Catholic to get elected.  He had to assure the people that he wouldn’t be answering to the Pope, and just short of 50 years later no one would think twice about a Catholic running for president.  On the other hand we just had a Mormon candidate drop out of the race and his religious affiliation was seen as a contributing factor to his failed candidacy, and just today I saw an item about Hillary Clinton’s campaign possibly being involved in leaking a picture of Barack Obama that would seem to imply that he’s Muslim (he’s Christian).  As much as things seem to change, they ultimately remain the same.  We always seem to find a way to separate ourselves by our differences rather than celebrating our commonalities while enjoying our diversity. 

All this and people still debate the value of secular government.

Fecal Lemons?

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Lex points to a video on Youtube that basically says that the lemons in your drink at a restaurant are probably contaminated with all kinds of nasty bacteria.  "Fecal" is part of the description which means that I’m pretty much done with the lemon thing for the next couple of weeks.  FYI, my memory sucks so I’ll forget all about this in a couple of weeks, thus no claim from me that I’ll "never have lemons in my drink again."

Want to Prep for Jeopardy?

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Anyone who needs to prepare for an appearance on Jeopardy! need only live with teenage children.  Invariably they find it much more convenient to ask you questions than to actually do research so on any given night you’re bombarded with questions like:

  • "You know that guy Stalin?  What was his first name?"
  • "When did the Renaissance start?"
  • "Who said ‘Et tu Brute?’ in Romeo and Juliet?"
  • "Is pi, as in the pi you use in math but not the kind you eat, spelled with or without an ‘e’?"
  • "Was World War II after the Civil War?"

I’m telling you, they keep you on your toes.

Looking for an Excuse

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According to this story on WXII’s site Brennan’s Bridal in Winston-Salem failed to open its doors, its web site was down and the phones weren’t being answered.  As you might expect bridal hysteria ensued, what with brides and their mothers already being near the top of the list of World’s Most Hysterical People.  The folks running the store claim they’re simply closed for restructuring and will be open for business on Wednesday (Feb. 20, 2008) which, if true, means they qualify for the title of Worst Customer Communications program EV-AR!

My favorite part of the story came at the very end, where a guy obviously desperate to get out of his impending doom nuptials used the shop’s woes as a convenient excuse to cancel the wedding.  Smart man, that one.  Yes he’s a butt-head, but being a butt-head doesn’t make you stupid.

Testing GOOG-411

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I just saw the video about Google’s 411 service on bookofjoe (I’ve added it below) and decided to give the service a try.  I called the 1-800-466-4411 number and when prompted asked for "Winston-Salem, NC" and then when asked for a business name I said "Cicciones" which is one of my favorite pizza joints.  I figured you couldn’t get much harder than that for voice recognition.  The results?  A+

Google gave me four choices and after each one I could either press the key for what I wanted or say the number.  Option 3 was the Cicciones right down the street from me and when I said "three" it automatically dialed the number for me.  Best of all is it’s FREE.  There’s also an option to have the restaurant’s info text messaged to my phone and since my Blackberry is web-enabled it can send a map to me as well. These folks continue to amaze me.