quillnews

Foul! Apple communications hit Intel below the belt

Quillnews usually doesn't fret about the inner in's and out's of the high technology industry (I save such obsessions for the news and petroleum industries), but as a growing consumer of the wonders of high tech, I have learned to pay a bit closer attention.  Besides, one aging tech head (Jobs) who got a clue just had a multi billion dollar pay day by selling his fantasy factory (Pixar) to the Mouse House (Disney). Zowie. It is hard not to notice that kind of market impact. Despite the glitz of high tech, there are rules of engagement that these guys simply haven't learned.  Courtesy and respect transcend industries.

What planet is Apple on? 

The Mac Kool Aid Squad's ad department just kicked Intel in the nuts for a frat-house laugh. The 2001-ish images in Apple's new ad, with voice over by 24's take-no-prisoners Jack Bauer, reporting that iMac now uses Intel micro processors, was a multiple-bumper-shot of insults and arrogance: the ad house rips off images from a previous customer; they say that Intel has been stuck doing boring things for its entire existence (say wha?); and asserts that it is only now when Intel is in iMac will Intel be fully realized and do fun and neat things.  Hmmm.  If so, why did it take Apple so long to sign with Intel?  And why does Mac only have 6% of the market to begin with.  Is the other 94% of the market stupid?

Quillnews questions:  who in Intel approved this ad by Apple?  Don't you guys have any self-respect?  Don't you mind being Job's new bitch in a smart ass Mac ad?  And best of all, how far up the food chain did the management approvals go on this ad in Intel and Apple?  Intel tech wizards need to pay closer attention to the rep of its corporate brand.  This ad translates into Intel being a dullard who don't mind being humilated during recess in the school yard by a class' smart ass with a rep as a narcissictic bully. And at Apple, was this ad given the OK by a punky wanna-be inside trying to ape Job's arrogant market branding strategy.  Or was it Jobs himself, revealing in fact that Apple has a serious character flaw at the core of its corporate culture that is beyond the perception or management of its current executives? Let me put it simply.  This kind of smart ass ad would never fly in a mature industry where companies are forced to deal with competitive vendors, suppliers, partners, shareholders and customers who demand performance and price. In such environments a business's behavior toward others must display a mimimum level of mutual respect for the challenges faced by the entire community and upon whose good will you rely.  I know in the oil business, you insult a partner in public like this once, you'll be lucky if you survive the market reaction to get a second chance. (Apple Ad, Intel, Engadget, EG2, Jobs' payday) 

Happy 4th - Why Independence Lives

A Quillnews plume to Brit Hume and his Special Report team at Fox News for an outstanding hour today discussing the meaning of our July 4th celebrations and the particular and everlasting debt all people owe to the sacrifices and courage of those in our history who served to defeat tyranny.  The story of the day was Bush 43's speech in W. Va., but the broadcast used its hour to show how the efforts of today's patriots are in keeping with American tradition, and that our freedom didn't just happen.  Each succeeding generation - including those of American Revolution - has had to choose to defend freedom.  Their service created a world where every human being in our dominion has the opportunity to achieve all that was intended by Providence, and as a result such liberty is possible for all humankind.  Hume and colleagues Jim Angle and Major Garrett each had illuminating discussions with authors whose new books discuss the courage and foresight of previous generations, and place in perfect context the worthiness of efforts in the wake of Sept 11 to resist and destroy the tyrannies of today:

• David McCullough, author of 1776
• Douglas Brinkley, author of The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day, and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion
• Bevin Alexander, author of How America Got It Right: The U.S. March to Military and Political Supremacy

G-8: Bono's the One

Quillnews was happy to sign the One petition here. Any doubts I had about this trendy do-gooder initiative being just another goo-goo ego trip by loony lefties, have been dashed by long standing and sincere efforts by Bob Geldoff and U2's Bono to build political consensus for African debt relief and reform, and the responsible leadership they have shown in touting the Live 8 concerts. I encourage any doubters to read the transcript of Bono’s interview Sunday on Meet the Press. The guy is right. Good on ‘ya, mate. (Editor’s aside: G-8. Don’t forget loose nukes!)

Stop the presses: Exxon Mobil gets bad PR

Exxon Mobil got a PR pasting in the MSM because it hired the ace White House aide on environmental quality, a guy who worked for the American Petroleum Institute for ten years, and who in his job as chief White House staffer on environmental quality had a hand in what the actual words were in administration statements. Okay, so Exxon gets poor marks for inartful political positioning for a few days. But what exactly – if you are the biggest shareholder oil company in the world – is the problem with hiring the senior top guy in industry and public policy on the subject of global warming if governments are all set to regulate this matter that has an effect on your business operations?  Isn’t it the duty of the biggest and smartest to hire the best?  Not in the MSM's DC, it seems.

The premier value to the MSM in the nation’s political capital is to “appear” to be acknowledging the beliefs of those who you oppose or who otherwise have political say over what you do. Values as they are displayed like in Europe, say, where Shell and BP have signed up – on a corporate policy basis – with the conventional Green wisdom on global climate change that “something” must be done about green house gas emissions.  (China, India and Russia where the real problems exist, simply tell the rest of the world to fix it - they are busy with poverty).  What everyone is supposed to actually do is all kind of vague.  But you can be sure it will involve the US doing the most.  And, such statements of political support from EU-based outfits come easily. For despite the fact they are in the same business as Exxon Mobil, have the same operating parameters and otherwise say the same things in technical meetings and at regulatory hearings, BP and Shell talk a different game because their politics at home require it.  You see, BP no longer means British Petroleum.  It means Beyond Petroleum.  Get it?  If you say you aren’t in the oil business and have green and yellow colors on your corporate logos, and talk a good game you get political credit in Media-ville.  And you get called smart despite the fact that your operating habits are virtually identical - despite high profile but paltry spending on show-case topics - to all others in industry.

BP and the Dutch/British Shell can afford to do this, of course, because they know that Exxon Mobil will hold the flag for science and technology in the debates about ways forward.  Meantime, these EU-based outfits can position themselves to look green and not lose too much face in industry because Exxon Mobil will understand their EU-based competitors have a political positioning problem at home and will not really call them on it in public because such finger pointing isn’t done. The only thing that really matters to Exxon Mobil is what you do, not what you say. If you mess up, fix it. But don't promise what you can't deliver.

Exxon Mobil, being based in the US and free to openly advocate what it's scientific and economic analyses say to be true, meantime gets lots of stories written about how clumsy and – you know – brazen they are.  Imagine hiring an expert who actually has worked on this problem and is the most credentialed staffer in the country on this particular matter!  How like a bunch of engineers and technical experts to not know how this would all look!  Perhaps.  But, quess what?  I worked with these guys for years.  Who do you think – within industry, inside government ministries around the world, in the capital markets, among customers, suppliers, vendors, investors – trusts who in the global petroleum industry to do what they say, to tell the truth and to honor their commitments?  Right. Quillnews recommendation: buy XOM.

The dangers of Media-ville -- no facts, just attitude

Quillnews’ brother Bill, who toils in the Lord’s vineyards in East Tennessee, (pix left during recent pilgrimage to St. John the Divine in Manhattan), sends a link from the NYT that makes the point about the perils of Media-ville spot-on.  Stacy Shiff picks up the themes of fellow NYT scribe Frank Rich about the nature of reality in our interactive, 24-7 world of all media all the time, which I call Media-ville. (QN2) Under the headline “The Interactive Truth” Shiff’s essay is worth a read. Among its points, was the LAT announcement that is will revise its editorial page format to be interactive – a wiki-editorial – where the readers jointly get to decide what the community thinks.  Explains Michael Kinsley, LAT editorial chief, “it’s the ultimate in reader participation.”   

My brother remains among those who believes that the WMD issue was the “let’s go now” issue that caused the US to okay war in Iraq.  He and I have differed on the nuance of this for several years. I have believed that the casus belli for the Iraq war - which Quillnews continues to support - were these combined interconnected post-Sept 11 realities: 1) the need for the free world to secure alternate supplies of oil apart from Saudi Arabia – the source of Jihad; and 2) the threat that Saudi Arabia’s neighbor Saddam, a terrorist on top of and neighbor to the world’s oil reserves, by his record and presence, held an intolerable live-or-die control over the economies of the world.  The US, as guarantor of the free world's security, was duty bound to lead a force to redress this threat.  This debate will continue I believe through history.  On Saddam, however, post-Sept 11 wisdom dictated that the US follow Teddy Roosevelt’s example with the decision to build the Panama Canal, “let’s build it now and debate about it for 50 years, not debate about it and then build it.”  Bill and I have corresponded earlier on how in Media-ville today we must decide what is right and wrong when the realities we live with are the manufactured facts and fictions of political, marketing and entertainment packaging.  Said Bill in his note accompanying the Shiff article: 

I think this article in the NYT touches on your ideas about Media-ville. Media-ville smears "facts" with its own attitude.  In our Media-ville culture there are no "facts."  There's just attitude: religious attitude, political attitude, social attitude, scientific attitude.   So, my attitude is: “Just where are those weapons of mass destruction?”  Well, so be it, but I still have not seen the evidence, yet. Which by the way is beside the point of securing an oil supply for world production and consumption.  I mean I understand it is a reasonable presumption to think that if oil production ceases the world economy ceases. I think this is a fact. But our culture would treat it as a “belief,” i.e. just an attitude. In the current culture everyone is now an editorialist given equal weight.  No one trusts anybody else.  How sad.  Where is the forgiveness? Where is the suppleness?  Where is the recognition that one's attitude is human, bears some element of fallibility or humility? Instead Media-ville inflates everyone. The result is everyone is demeaned.

Hmmm.  Food for thought.

Deep Throat? Interesting, but Tricky Dick was the story

Quillnews was a newspaper reporter in the New England boonies at the time of the Watergate break-in. From the point of view of that young reporter, I say to The Post and Woodstein: you guys covered that story like a hot rash. If others in your professional wake over did it, that’s on them.  Your’s was an awesome job on a story that was a newsman’s dream.  Beyond that, it’s hard to be too insightful about the Deep Throat episode without over-interpreting the disclosure according to contemporary political agendas.  But there are a few lessons.   

1) Keeping one’s word:  Bradlee, Woodward and Bernstein honored themselves and the WP for the way they kept mum on the identity of their source for 30 years – and also by the halting way they were led to confirm the identify of their secret source.  To these stand up guys, at least, a promise was a promise.  (NYT, CQ, LAT)

2) The power of movies:  The influence of Hollywood as an architect of popular mythology was never more clearly illustrated than with Watergate. One of the guys most interviewed this week on the Deep Throat story on the 24-7 chats, was movie maker Robert Redford!  Hal Holbrook nailed the Deep Throat role in Redford’s ’76 film, which created such a powerful, creepy and sinister tableau for the interactions of the bag guys, good guys, and their secret (anonymous HT: Jarvis) source that its story telling power will linger long after the somewhat farcical and mixed mélange of real life heroism, venality and humanity are revealed.  But the movie, the book, The Post, the reporters and editors, the secret source are all colorful diversions, just as are the parlor games associated with the chatter about Deep Throat. (Slate, Powerline, Mann, EJE, LAT, WP, WP2, Quinn)   2-A) Porn goes mainstream: The fact that the title of an obscene porn film could enter the mass market political dictionary marks a milestone in American of pop culture. It will take mavens with more mojo than I to make learned sense of all this, but there will no doubt be a reckoning with this libertine spirit down the road. (Team America, South Park, Porn Generation, Inside Deep Throat).

3) Presidential character matters: The core of Watergate remains Richard Nixon and his flawed character, as he sought to deal with the real dangers of the Cold War while the US was fighting a real (if ill-focused) war in Vietnam.  It was Nixon’s duty when he took office in Jan 1969 to cope with the mired results of more than 20 years of hashed up US policy and practices in Indochina.  In some respects – giving Russia fits by going to Peking – Nixon’s actions were geopolitical genius.  But in the dark corners of his private self, Nixon got tangled up in his own demons and led his nation into the disaster that cost him his job and reputation in history, which no doubt was profoundly altered by his political demise. (Noonan, WSJ)

4) Can’t political parties weed out candidates better? Nixon’s is a cautionary tale about how perilous (if also resilient) our democracy can be, and how it can be manipulated by flawed human beings.  The nation’s experience with, say Clinton, to name just one, shows America’s political grown-ups (professional campaign managers and their financiers) still aren’t too good about sniffing out and stopping the unsuitable before they get to the highest office. (Clinton's pre-nomination rep was widely-known but ignored.)  But I'm still convinced Providence indeed does smile on the US.  Accidents like Truman and Bush 43 were in office at points in history when their clarity of mind and inner character served to protect the republic and free people everywhere. Where would the world be if, say President Henry Wallace has been at Potsdam July ’45 or when North Korea invaded South Korea in June ‘50, or had President Al Gore been listening to his advisors after Sept 11?

G-8: this time the “Mouth from the South” is right. Loose nukes are the #1 danger

In a round-table discussion timed to have an impact on planning for the G-8 Summitt in July, Meet the Press earned its paycheck Memorial Day weekend by devoting its hour to this most bone-chilling threat – terrorists detonating a nuclear explosion in an American city.  Overstating it a bit?  I don’t think so.  The topic at hand – nuclear terrorism – is simply so big and horrible most in MSM would rather talk about hamburger ads featuring girls in sudsy swim suits, or only quote political operatives using the word nuclear in a tasteless metaphor over Senate rules nobody understands in a way that trivializes the horror involved.  (HT: former SecDef Cohen for scolding his former colleagues on this inappropriate assault on language and meaning).

Message to the G-8 sherpas prepping brass about the agenda July 6-8 in Gleneagles, Scotland. Listen up: nukes are loose! Sherpas setting the agenda for busy pols need to do their jobs for free people.  Not to dismiss the anti-poverty (?) stunts, but Quillnews advise to the world's grown ups is to enjoy Live 8 rock, but focus on nukes.   

Indeed, people trying to cobble together lives amid life’s ordinary but often cruel challenges, can be cut some slack for not spending hours worrying about nuclear explosions going off downtown.  That’s what government is for. Quillnews plumes to Tim Russert, MTP, NBC News, and the entire GE/NBC Universal crew for devoting attention to this difficult issue at the very moment we honor those who have sacrificed for the freedom we have enjoyed – so far.  (These are honest props from Quillnews, who kicked GE/NBC around pretty good last post on the shoddy way its Hollywood unit handled the Lariam issue.)

The appearance of this panel of wise-men was Media-ville at its best.  The chosen topic also shows that the free people in the free market can indeed act to change their lives. The panel was as distinguished as can be marshaled for a Sunday morning TV show; Lugar, Nunn, Hamilton, Kean, and Thompson all took part in an illuminating hour-long kick-around. The transcript is here.   

The architecture of their MTP appearance also shows that leadership on public issues is not always centered in tactical political operations teams employed to get candidates elected, gig a political adversary or that policy agendas only get grease when their primary purpose is to protect or further corporate interests.  In this case, the agenda is not just national security, it is also an attempt to organize the world public sector to action against a genuine and almost unthinkable threat to all life and civic order – now. (If you want to sleep, don't read "Nuclear Terrorism:  The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe," by Graham Allison. Foreign Affairs article, book review).

It is because so few can think about this subject that the issue of loose nukes must be placed high on the agenda of the July 6-8 G-8 meeting. The buzz in Media-ville needs to come back to the real world.  Remember all the chatter post-Sept 11 about how nobody was connecting the dots, that no one was paying attention, how the press missed the story… etc?   Well, now is the time to pay attention: Half of the nukes the Soviets built during the Cold War are lying around unguarded, unprotected and vulnerable to be purchased or stolen by Islamic jihadists who want to destroy civilization by detonating a nuclear bomb in an American city.  Now is the time to fully fund the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, ramp up the number of clean up projects, and also get the leaders of the other G8 countries (for a start) to put the issue of nuclear terror on their top propriety list.  It is also time for the people of the free world to wake up and demand action by their governments!

The strategic design of the Global War on Terror (of which the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns are only an early part) is devoted to 1) killing, jailing or otherwise stopping jihadists who vow, among other threats, to use nukes, 2) convincing governments who nurture and exploit these terrorists that we can and will act to overthrow them if necessary if they fail to do what is right, 3) creating the political conditions for freedom and democracy to ensure peace best, and 4) staying on the offensive on the enemy’s turf not ours until the job is done.  Bush 43 has outlined this strategy often. (SOTU, NDU, NA, MD) As Bush 43 said Memorial Day: Because of the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, two terror regimes are gone forever, freedom is on the march, and America is more secure.

What hasn’t happened is a public focus on the connection between the terrorists and the possibility that the nukes already loose will be used by terrorists against us.  Such an attack could kill many thousands and waste a city for generations, and alter our national life forever.  Nothing should stop free people from acting to reduce this possibility to as close to zero as possible.  (Quillnews note to Amnesty International: Hey, you goo-goo's think Gitmo is a gulag?  Wait until you see what happens to America’s enemies if jihadists hit the US with a nuke! Hint: there will be no amnesty!) (Editor's aside: I still hear complaints that the US unfairly targeted Iraq because Saddam didn't attack Sept 11!  As if the US shouldn't have invaded North Africa, Sicily and Italy during WWII on the way to Berlin!)

The threat of nuclear terror is being addressed in the course of government planning within the bureaucracy. The State Department coincidently updated its material on nuclear terrorism May 26, just days before the MTP panel’s appearance May 29.  Hmmm. The panel specifically cited a recent Harvard study outlining more that can be done.  The public needs to more fully understand that the entire GWoT is designed to prevent nuclear terror – and that a critical element of this is to lock up all nukes now so they can’t be used by bad guys.  The public role is required in order to prevent politicians from avoiding the issue and so they have the courage to do what is needed – and pay for it.   (Editor's aside: Nunn pointed out that 10% of the lights in the MTP studio came from nuclear material already harvested in the former Soviet Union under the existing Nunn-Lugar clean up program and put to peaceful uses for energy.)

The individuals at the MTP table were widely respected and represented telling constituencies.  Their selection was purposeful and required planning and attention to detail by an operations team assigned to the chore.  The public policy agenda this team was advocating also requires intellectual and academic capital to argue the case, all of which requires years of work by honest persons and the support of their patrons willing to finance the endeavor over years.   On MTP were:

• Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) - chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee
• Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) – former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee
• Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) – former chairman, House International Affairs Committee, recently co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission
• Thomas Kean (R-NJ) - former NJ governor, co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission
• Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) – former Senator, attorney, Law & Order actor.

Lugar, Nunn and Hamilton are among the most respected in DC on international affairs.  Hamilton is president of the Woodrow Wilson Institute.  Nunn is chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, of which Lugar is also a member. Hamilton and Kean were recently chairmen of the Sept 11 Commission that identified the jihadist threat, recommended wide reforms in national intelligence efforts, homeland security and a refocus on nuclear terrorism.  In an effort to force the issue into the public consciousness, the NTI has underwritten and supported a number of academic efforts. To popularize the issue it produced a dramatic docu-drama about the theft of nuclear material that is used by terrorists.  Thompson, whose dramatic skills are practiced from his duties on NBC’s Law & Order, stars in the film, which is being given away free here.  Tom Brokaw narrates the epilogue. Here's a must-read info sheet on the threat. 

The only guy missing at the table was Ted Turner, who as the private sector bankroller and architect of this recent loose nukes initiative, has been performing an act of singular public service. Turner's patronage, financial support, and never quit personality have been uniquely suited to the task of getting the world's governments to pay attention to these dangers.  Turner set up the Nuclear Threat Initiative, funded Harvard studies, promoted books, enlisted Nunn, a fellow Georgian, to lead NTI, and persuaded former real-life GOP presidential hopeful Thompson to act as make-believe president in the film he produced.  Helping guide the public grass roots development effort are Lugar, chairman of a powerful Senate committee, and Nunn who as a member of GE’s Board of Directors, no doubt had some standing when NBC, GE’s unit, got wind of NTI’s interest in highlighting this new film and talking about nuclear terrorism.  NTI bird dogs public events (like the recent Bush 43-Putin summitt) and offers contemporary analysis and commentary to highlight the issue and iron out next steps.  (The seven page exec summary is solid, particularly pages viii-xi)

Ordinarily Quillnews considers Turner to be like a bobcat on acid – agile, admirable for guile and stealth, but occasionally a fang-bearing feline with a vicious streak. Turner’s involvement in this issue is a huge red flag (so to speak) to any warblogger.  In my view, he’s wasting a lot of resources backing lousy ideas (QN), and his tastes (here, here), and outbursts (here, here) sometimes make everyone wince or think twice about the guy’s balance.

But give Ted Turner credit.   He was the uncouth red neck who first accused the Big Three Broadcast Networks (CBS, NBC, ABC) of being clueless and had the chops to do something about it.  His willingness more than a quarter century ago to risk his inherited fortune on an untried business model as the killer app for the new technologies of satellites and coaxial cable, created CNN, and new cable TV markets for 24-7 global news and entertainment nets (tbs, TNT) that have now reached even higher levels of info monopoly-busting world-shrinking capacity with the internet. Turner made a fortune and his communications assets were eventually absorbed by Time Warner, which has now put him out to pasture.  In addition to his more colorful recreations, Turner has devoted himself to good works. 

(Editor’s asides: 1) Quillnews plume to Turner for TCM, a genuine treasure of pop culture wonderfully managed, and TNT for its willingness to produce first-rate westerns (Selleck/Brandman, SB2, SB3); 2) Turner’s career arch should be an object lesson in the case-study reading for this month’s crop of MBA grads: it’s over quick.) 

To highlight the tight world this issue of nuclear terror and the UN occupies, it is useful to note that Lugar is chairman of the Senate committee that considered Bush 43’s choice of John Bolton to be the new UN Ambassador. Bolton also has been on the opposite side of the debating table from Turner and his UN booster acolytes for years.  Bolton no doubt sends bolts of fear through the entire Turner network of UN do-gooders.

Lugar told MTP viewers he expected that the Senate will vote to approve Bolton’s appointment.  Maybe Bolton’s nasty personality wasn’t such a handicap after all.  As the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, Bolton has been the Bush 43 Administration’s point man on nuclear terrorism.  He has been given very high marks for his efforts on PSI and the other non-proliferation programs the US has pursued, despite the chronic problems created by the duplicity and trickery of Iran and North Korea.  Even critics agree Bolton has been very effective in non-proliferation areas, and a multi-lateral program is underway.  Turner, at least, would recognize a kindred spirit in Bolton – who also could care less what those near him think of his interpersonal behavior.  What counts are results.

GE's NBC drama tells Army families to have nightmares this Memorial Day

The Hollywood unit of General Electric, a premier defense contractor (GE, GE2, GE3, GE4, GE5) and one of America’s most respected companies, made and broadcast a drama seen by millions that alleged Army vets of the Afghanistan war were walking time bombs who may explode in madness, kill their wives and themselves and that the US Army is deliberating covering up the danger – even obstructing criminal investigations by deceiving grand juries.   

The incredible assertions occurred days before the Memorial Day Weekend, in the final episode Tuesday of the quality highly-rated cop drama, Law & Order: SVU.  In the episode E5225, entitled Goliath, the attractive actors portraying the do-right law men and women of the police sex crimes unit were pictured watching returning vets marching in their fatigues on a television screen and left to wonder how many of these returning vets would go crazy and kill their families and themselves – all with foreknowledge of their commanding officers who were covering up the dangers.   

This hatchet job by the GE unit occurred as the recruiting efforts of the US armed forces are under stress, as more than one million US service personnel are now veterans of the Afghan/Iraq deployments, and the families of US service personnel are under increasing stress and strain in their struggles to meet the demands of the US Global War on Terror.

The parallel world created in Media-ville by the GE unit was made even more mind bending by the portrayal of the Manhattan DA by former (real life) US Senator Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) who is no longer a presidential wannabe but an actor on the hit series.  One of Thompson’s characters most dramatic moments in the episode was to quash an eager assistant’s (actress Diane Neal) subpoena of Secretary Rumsfeld to account for the Army’s behavior before a criminal grand jury.   

(Editor's aside: Time out.  Okay, maybe the rhetoric about how the Hollywood arm of a premier defense contractor is slandering the Army and sewing fear in the minds of military families during war time is on the edge. But hey, Quillnews used to write for the tabloids; everything written above is kosher tab treatment.  Back in the day, news was news and drama was drama; facts were facts and fiction was fiction.  But in today’s Media-ville the distinctions between news and entertainment, fact and fiction, are blurred so regularly and consciously for fun, entertainment, irony and political objectives – who knows what is true on TV anymore? (Boorstin, Mitroff) If GE and its Hollywood fantasy factory, NBC Universal, can get away with this kind of allegation during a war – turn about is fair play where I come from.)

Quillnews background:  Of course, there is a problem: malaria.  The Defense Department, Army, Marines and the volunteers in the armed services are coping with the facts of life in dealing with this deadly disease, as are other responsible institutions of government, including the FDA and CPC. (DoD, DoD2) The problem is that parts of the world in which Americans are seeking to destroy their enemies are also locales where deadly diseases like malaria lurk; our troops deployed in harms way are inoculated with medications modern medicine has devised to prevent disease and death. Malaria is one of the most deadly diseases, particularly a strain that exists in Afghanistan, and which has proven to be resistant to the most popular anti-malaria medications, chloroquine and other doxycyclines.  All US personnel, including troops, deployed there are obliged to have medical protection. In the case of malaria and Afghanistan the prevention is an anti-malaria drug mefloquine which is manufactured and sold under the brand name Lariam ® by Roche, the US unit of Hoffman-La Rouche Inc., one of the world’s leading research-oriented pharmaceutical companies.

The concern at hand is that there is evidence that some who take Lariam have had very adverse reactions due to mefloquine toxicity – including psychotic episodes, violent outbursts and thoughts of suicide. As a result of this anecdotal evidence, Lariam is a well-known actor in the world of anti-malaria drugs. One traveling Aussie took the medication in the 1995 during a trip to Africa and his experience changed his life.  Some have had genuinely tragic experiences they attribute to Lariam. The Aussie's insightful website on his experience with Lariam is a very helpful resource. 

Lariam came into public consciousness in the US in 2002 after three soldiers who returned to Fort Bragg from Afghanistan, murdered their wives and killed themselves.  UPI reporters Mark Benjamin and Dan Olmsted began a series of stories – which continue – into the incidents, the use of Lariam and the dangers associated with the anti-malaria inoculation program. (UPI, TGM, SMN, EP, WT) Benjamin is now with Salon.com. News units of WP, CNN, CBS and UPI’s sister publication, Insight Magazine, have all done very thorough reporting on this issue. (IM, IM2, IM3, IM4, IM5, IM6)

There is a lot to know. (FDA, WHO, WHO2, WHO3, State, CDC) Military volunteers, service family members and all travelers to the region are advised to look into the considerable material available about Lariam. (Roche) Partly as a result of the excellent reporting by Benjamin & Olmsted the Army, the FDA and DoD have all launched further studies. The preliminary study by the Army in 2002 into the Fort Bragg murders found that Lariam was an “unlikely cause of the clustering” of deaths there.  However, a spokesman for DoD told Quillnews: 

“Since that study, Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, also asked the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board (AFEB) for its recommendations on the most scientifically valid methodology for a comprehensive study of anti-malarials, including mefloquine. The AFEB is a panel of civilian experts who advise Dr. Winkenwerder and the military Surgeons General. Based on the AFEB's recommendations, two studies are currently underway and the initial results are expected in about six months. One study is assessing benefits and risks, including the possibility of neuropsychological events.  Dr. Winkenwerder directed the studies to ensure the Department could answer the concerns raised by some service members and others regarding mefloquine.  There have been numerous studies of this FDA approved and CDC recommended drug, which has been prescribed to more than 20 million travelers worldwide; however, DoD believes it is important to address service members perceptions and concerns in a careful, scientific manner.”

I had called the DoD Wednesday to inquire about the Law & Order: SVU show and find out what the background on the anti-malaria drug the script identified as “Quinium.”  I have a bit of skin in this game.  When I worked as an oil company soldier I took chloroquine and other medications for years when I traveled in coastal west Africa and way out of the way spots in Indonesia where there were some deadly malaria strains in the same neighborhood as some oil prospects.  (Editor's aside: Oil never seems to be in easy-to-get spots.)

Like all travelers, I had weighed the risks. Adverse reactions associated with mefloquine were 1 per 6,000 to 1 per 10,600 travelers, compared with 1 per 13,600 travelers taking doxycycline.  In Nigeria, I knew of another ex-pat's spouse who didn’t like how malaria pills made her feel so, tragically, she didn’t take them. She contracted the disease in Lagos one sad Tuesday and was dead by Thursday.

After the dramatic allegations about “Quinium” on Law & Order: SVU episode, I looked for the information about the drug on line. I never liked taking the anti-malaria drugs and thought they made me sick; at times I've wondered if there was any lasting effects.  Finding no information or explanation at the GE, NBC, NBC Universal, NBC Universal Television Group, Law & Order sites, I asked the DoD for further information. 

A spokesman said there was no drug called “Quinium,” but she emailed me loads of material about Lariam.  “Oh I bet that reporter Mark Benjamin is part of this program,” she joked, explaining that Benjamin had been working the story for years. I took it he'd made a pest of himself while researching his articles. I emailed Benjamin and he sent me a link to the story he posted in Salon.com Wednesday on this very subject. Under the headline “Ripped from my headlines!” the lead paragraph of Benjamin’s Salon story reads:

“When you turn on one of the 'Law and Order' shows and it's styled to look as if it's been 'ripped from the headlines,' what that really means is 'ripped off' from the headlines. Tuesday's episode of 'Law and Order: SVU' looked like it had been ripped from the headlines of three years of investigative reporting that cost me a lot of sweat and shoe leather. No, I did not get a dime. And no one from NBC even called to say how truly inspiring my work was, or how the truth really can be stranger than fiction -- or even that the damn episode existed…”

Benjamin’s Salon article is informative and gives a good-natured critique of the TV drama versus the real life events he helped illuminate (even having some fun with the show's characterization of a dumpster-digging newsman who gives the cops crucial notes).  In the final paragraph of the Benjamin’s article shows while he and his colleague Dan Olmsted may have done what the truth required, the TV story tellers failed:   

“There was one last leap of logic that TV could take, but we couldn't. The detectives decide at the end of "Law and Order: SVU" that the military is well aware of what the drug does to soldiers. That they have made a cold, hard cost-benefit analysis that it is worth the deaths of some soldiers -- and even their wives -- to prevent malaria. They think this drug is better than the alternatives and they don't care who it hurts and they will cover it up if they have to. Dan and I never found any evidence that that was the case.”

It is here that Quillnews has a problem. GE is one of America’s greatest corporations.  It is a model of corporate citizenship and excellent operational performance for shareholders.  Among its many operating divisions are units specifically targeted at the US government for Military and Homeland Security applications.  GE also has operated the best of the three TV broadcast networks for years, nurtured a quality NBC News, and been creatively adapting with a variety of diverse programming to the new world of cable and internet with its CNBC and MSNBC units.

GE recently acquired Universal Network Television unit from Vivendi/Universal and merged that Hollywood production factory with NBC Studios to create NBC Universal Television Group.  This GE unit works with Wolf Films Inc. to produce Law & Order: SVU, among many other shows. 

These are all quality shops.  Wolf is one of TV’s best.  GE has a long distinguished history, beginning with Thomas Edison, through its association with an actor/pitch man, Ronald Reagan, who went on to become an historic titan of public affairs after years of lecture circuit chores in GE plants, through the ace earnings and operational performance of exec Jack Welch, who will likely be judged among the most accomplished of his generation of corporate leaders.

America, GE’s home base, is at war.  The volunteers who serve to protect and defend their country and their families during this difficult conflict deserve more consideration than to be given sleepless nights by of some TV cop drama.  If GE’s NBC unit wishes to get into the Lariam matter, it has ample ways to serve the greater public good and alert people to the issues.  But GE should not be party to some Hollywood scriptwriter's or producer's anti-war agenda by making dramatic narratives that the US Army is deliberating ignoring and covering up dangers associated with medicines and as a result family members of more than a million service personnel are at risk from their returning loves ones. 

Quillnews advice to GE’s NBC Universal: Your total response to Quillnews on these questions about your allegations against the Army was: "Law & Order is fiction."  That is technically true, perhaps, but an unworthy dodge. (Editor's aside: GE/NBC's response is the equivalent of saying: we didn't commit a crime. That's a good start GE/NBC's in-house attorneys would approve. But the families of America's volunteers deserve better than that from one of American's best outfits).  All fiction exists in a context of time, and in a political, cultural and social context from which the fiction derives its narrative power.  The context for this fiction was this war in May 2005, the tragic facts about Lariam and dangers of malaria, and the sacrifices and sufferings of the volunteers who are serving our country.  For your fantasy factory to hide behind the feather fan that your seditious slander was "fiction," and after you have accused the Army that defends you of lying, of obstruction, of complicity in homicide... Puh-lease! 

Quillnews suggests that if GE's Hollywood shop wants to raise a sensitive or troubling issue like this in a fictionalized drama from time to time, have those who wish to enjoy the fiction, but use the web to help those viewers who wish to learn more about the complete truth behind your dramas.  A brief explanation about the issue after the show showing a toll free number or web address and a simple link, say here, to guide viewers seeking more information about Lariam and malaria would give you more credibility when your creative artists in Hollywood make their arguments about artistic freedom, poetic license, the enlightenment possible from creative arts, and the seeking of the greater good and higher artistic truths.

GE, get real: some Hollywood weasels are using your assets to get over their anti-war propaganda here. We all know the script from that phony Michael Moore movie: the US government is lying to the people, the volunteers are being fooled and tricked and poisoned, and the Army higher-ups are covering it all up. Bad things are happening as a result. We say this just before Memorial Day because we really are just supporting the troops!  This has been the default party-line since the anti-Vietnam war days. Let true believers in that message -- Sixties dead-enders and their Red manipulators -- say what they want, but don't put GE's assets and the reputation of your employees and brands at their disposal to undermine the forces defending freedom.

Imran – one tacky Pakistani

In the obsession with the internal who-shot-John, the 24-7 MSM has neglected to indict the person most directly responsible for the deaths from riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan and who was Newsweek’s enabling co-conspirator in the seditious libel against US service personnel. The culprit is Imran Khan, one of the most famous athletes in the world – a household name in the UK, South Africa, South Asia and Down Under where cricket is followed. Khan, known the cricket world round simply as Imran, 52, a one-time London playboy who is now a Koran-waving rabble-rousing Pakistani pol seeking to overturn the regime of US ally, Pervez Musharraf.  (Steyn)

Khan is a world-class Muslim star.  A tab headline writer only needed to pen the five letters in Imran’s name for his edition to fly for money.  Though sport page catnip for cricketers, Imran’s mojo was also a must have in the tab gossip columns for his after hours exploits in London carousing and having the kind of randy fun a world class athlete and South Asia heart throb might believe was his due.

Khan, from a prominent and upper-crust Pakistani family, was long known to be a pol in training. He surprised fans in 1995 when he married Jemima Goldsmith, then 21, the daughter of the Sir James Goldsmith, who made his bones as a global corporate raider and anti-EU zealot.  Her Jewish heritage was also noted, though Jemima converted to Islam, and had two children as a Pakistani pol’s wife, before a divorce and flight to London in 2004 to, among other things, be squired by such as Hugh Grant, if the tabs are to be believed.  Khan remains in Pakistan where he served in parliament and became a full-time pain in the neck to Musharraf, gigging the brave US ally every chance he gets.

On Friday May 6 Khan the publicity hound called a press conference in Islamabad, waved a copy of Newsweek around, quoted from the Koran-in-the-can story.  “This is what the US is doing, desecrating the Koran…”  His seditious claims were picked up – as he knew they would be – by radio in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the rent-a-street-thug crews were organized.  The governments in both countries - both US allies - were put in the impossible position of defending the indefensible. Death toll: 15 or 16. The immediate political beneficiary – Imran Khan.  He later told the AP, "If the United States does not apologize on these incidents then they must be asked to wrap up and vacate our bases under their use."

This was more than two weeks ago. Americans at war with Islamic jihadists have been treated to endless domestic media naval gazing and accusations. By now, just about every school kid knows who Isikoff is.  What about that tacky Pakistani pol?  Divorcee Imran Khan is a worldly cynic who knew precisely what he was doing: shouting fire in a crowded theater. Will the 24-7 story tellers in Media-ville get around to telling their audience about this phony jerk?

PS -- Newsweek's real-life desecration:  Quillnews was prepared to let Newsweek’s Koran-in-the-can screw-up fade until the publication’s real-life desecration of a symbol I actually revere – the American Flag – got circulated in the blogs for all to see. What is the matter with these editors at this Washington Post Company publication? (Chrenkoff, LGF, LGF2, Aaron's cc, Ed Driscoll, Riding Sun).  It seems that Newsweek’s international edition brass come from the same wacky crack house as Pepsi’s Indra Nooyi; soooo eager to prove they agree with all those worldly foreigners who think America is just too simple-minded and pushy to be trusted. Newsweek’s foreign desk apparently believed that marketing of its publication in overseas requires Newsweek to display its edgy First Amendment chops by highlighting how messed up they known their country is. These Hate-America-First Weasels are seditious. This isn’t journalism.  This is deliberate packaging and selling anti-Americanism for profit.  Shame on them.

The “real” Empire Strikes Back!

Complaints about news bias and the perverse attitudes of filmmakers are common as dirt, so it’s no big surprise when a Newsweek, CBS, and Star Wars impresario George Lucas walk into the blog buzz saw from time to time for doing or saying something really dumb.  But Pepsi-Cola?  Uh-ho.  Talk about tipping points!  (Glenn Reynolds)

Those who make their living through marketing, advertising, entertainment, news are having a hot time in the new Media-ville.  Advances in internet technology has dispersed Media-ville’s microphones, presses and image equipment throughout South Park. There is no going back. Quillnews figures it’s going to get a whole lot hotter for persons not accustomed to media rough house. 

Ask Indra Nooyi, the president and CFO of PepsiCo, who gave a commencement address at Columbia Business School recently. Ms. Nooyi, 48, is a native of Madras, India with an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, and graduate degree from Yale School of Management. She has worked for Boston Consulting Group, and held strategic planning positions with ABB and Motorola before joining PepsiCo 10 years ago.

Nooyi, as president and CFO, today reports to Steven Reinemund, 55, who PepsiCo’s Chairman and CEO.  Her corporate non-operating division post has earned Nooyi a position on PepsiCo’s board of directors and given her wide visibility, particularly in India and elsewhere abroad where PepsiCo has ambitions.  Nooyi used an unusual metaphor when discussing the need for sensitivity in the global market place. Her choice of words was odd for a corporate officer who would be expected to be schooled in the language of political correctness.  Her remarks led, among other reactions, to the following headline: Pepsi Exec likens America to middle finger!

Said NYSun:  “Ms. Nooyi described the world's five major continents as being like the five fingers on a human hand.  For example, she said, Africa is the pinkie, because it's smaller and less significant economically. North America and, in particular, the United States, the India-born Ms. Nooyi said, stood out as the middle finger and anchor for the functions of the hand.  "This is a really good thing," she said in her speech, referring to the nation's leadership position in global business. But if used inappropriately, she continued, America risks conveying a negative message to the world. “What is most crucial to my analogy ... is that each of us in the U.S. - the long middle finger - must be careful that when we extend our arm in either a business or political sense, we take pains to assure we are giving the hand ... not the finger," she said, according to transcripts of the speech.”

Many in the audience were not only offended by the vulgarity, the notion that foreigners in – say the Middle East where PepsiCo sells Diet Pep, Mountain Dew or a bag of chips – might find the behavior of the US at war to be “arrogant” was, well, completely misplaced.  That America’s enemies should find US behavior as “arrogant” is the least of the troubles the American people have in store for them.  They will find that America’s behavior to be utterly deadly.   

For the past few days, Nooyi and Pepsi have been treated to a visit from the South Park welcome wagon. Powerline, PL2, PL3, Third Wave, HH, Irish Pennants, Malkin among others.  Ouch! 

Quillnews read the speech and had a reaction similar to other warbloggers but with a somewhat different take.  How was this possible that an otherwise respectable exec with all this hard won pedigree could be in a position where her few remarks at a school jeopardize the value of world class brands worth billions?  Zowie.  Was anybody in her company – her boss, her staff, her colleagues – paying attention to what execs on the company time say about US war behavior?  Or were her sentiments so commonly held that others in the Pepsi executive suites agreed with her – the US needs to be careful it doesn’t insult anybody!  The US’s fight for survival might cause us to miss our sales targets in Q1-Q4 in the outlying five-year plan!

Nooyi has access to speech writers, no doubt, from PepsiCo’s corporate staff, who presumably are competent to know that a vulgarism associated with a middle finger should be off limits to any corporate executive.  Long before the speech is to occur, these staff should circulate the remarks for approval and comment to others in HQ.  Though possessing an exalted title, Nooyi’s function remains corporate financial staff.  The chiefs of the major PepsiCo operating divisions – North America and International across the way in Westchester, Frito Lay in Dallas and Quaker/Tropicana/Gatorade in Chicago – report directly to Reineman and are not in Nooyi’s loop, unless the corporate staff thought to clear Nooyi’s remarks with them.  Did the execs in charge of the core brands and profit centers get a shot at these remarks?  Did Reineman?  Or was Nooyi’s appearance at Columbia such a no-brainer nobody at HQ gave it a second thought about what she might say.

Say this for Nooyi and PepsiCo.  After a day or so of heat, they got the picture. A contrite apology was issued and posted. More importantly, an outfit of meat-eaters like those who sell PepsiCo products are hyper-sensitive to market reactions and no doubt have been calling Reineman to air their views. Marketers like these file their teeth in the morning and are often quite effective (perhaps even arrogant) when handling clueless HQ staffers.

But what about the thinking involved here?  If market sensitive outfits like Pepsi can make this kind of “let’s just all be friends” mistake about the central struggle of our time – it’s time for a stand-down in corporate America to wake up and smell (in Pepsi’s case) the Starbucks double shot. Are the corporate directors and executives of PepsiCo aware of the stakes?  Is the US action in the global war on terror merely a function of American “arrogance?” Is the fight being undertaken under the flag of the US merely so they can perform their profit making functions for shareholders? Forget market surveys and opinion polls in emerging markets and the chatter at the diplomatic receptions.  Are corporate America’s directors and senior executives aware of the beliefs held by their countrymen who don’t live in metro New York, DC or LA and who – every day – make the sacrifices and endure the sufferings to defend freedom?  And, which, by happenstance also make possible the first class tickets, expense account, club memberships, philantropic donations to alma maters and spouses' favorite chairities, multi-million salary and pension packages, cradle-to-grave health care, and employment positions protected by legions of lawyers who answer all questions respectfully.

People who purchase Pepsi products by the billions daily are in the fight of their lives, and are volunteering to protect the free markets upon which all Pepsi shareholders depends.  Forget the hard-case gotcha guys in the media who – until recently – have been richly rewarded for their cynical iconoclasm.  The balance sheets of news operations like The New York Times or The Washington Post are dinky compared with a PepsiCo, and the business models (NYT, WP) of these media companies are a mess. The directors of these modest if very visible companies (NYT, NYT2, WP, WP2) are beginning to focus on the problem, despite the continuing screw-ups of its operating units like Newsweek, which not only epitomize their problem but make it worse.  Even Viacom, a corporate fantasy factory, and its directors are reacting to the failures of its CBS news units.

Quillnews' questions:  Are the directors of PepsiCo, this giant enterprise and the other executives who direct and manage corporate institutions just like it paying attention? Are they taking this all in and contemplating the consequences of the war against jihadist terror in the context of their fiduciary responsibilities to their owners?  What does their legal counsel advise?  Does this new political environment require adjustments in corporate behavior or earnings projections? What are the new legal, moral and citizenship responsibilities?  Has legal counsel devised a post-war litigation strategy to withstand the calling to account by free people after victory?  Quillnews says: its time for directors to earn that paycheck. 

And then there is Darth Vader and the "real" Empire:  Movie maker George Lucas, one of Hollywood’s truly influential moguls, is a private entrepreneur, so he doesn’t have shareholders to worry about – just the good will of his audience and reputation as an artist. It is hard to know what he was thinking – opening his epic in France at the Cannes Film Festival – then saying Bush 43 was in danger of taking the US to the dark side.  Having villain Darth Vader say:  “if you are not with me, you are with my enemy” is an obvious reference to Bush 43’s “you are either with us or you are with the terrorists.”  Was Lucas trying to create buzz for the final installment in his $20 billion 30-year, six part shoot ‘em up?  If so, I'm with the NASCAR Vader. The last two flicks were embarrassing as film dramas, though the image, sound and visual technology was cool. Lucas’ true genius has been the back room technical stuff anyway. (Lucasfilms, LF2, LA3) Still using the sacrifices of his ticket buyers as fodder for film buzz a la Michael Moore?  Shame on him.  (Chrenkoff, Patrick Ruffin, Mudville, MD2, SM, LaShawn, Oxblog, Tim Blair)

Peter Sealey, a former marketing chief at Columbia Pictures, told the NYT Lucas was probably savvy in adding sizzle and relevance to a movie that otherwise might have earned publicity only by its effectiveness as entertainment. "He could've come out and said, 'That's ridiculous - this is the white hats and black hats of the 1950's in space,' and quashed it" but didn’t said Sealey, who teaches entertainment marketing at Berkeley. "It was probably smart. If he can get 'Star Wars' brought into the debate over unilateralism and the Iraq war, it just brings a current spin to it…”

Will it have an effect?  Sealey warned that filmmakers and marketers “might do well to inspect their pictures for latent political messaging before the public does it for them.”

In fact, it is the real Empire – free people – striking back! Free people are at war with tyranny, and will not be dissuaded from their hunt for freedom by the whims of corporate directors and their executive enablers and movie makers whose only care is to find their market niche.  Some aspects of the market – freedom – are non-negotiable.  Free people will secure their own continued liberty. Coddling or rewarding whiners and complainers, ignoring the slights and insults of zealots and their protectors – these days are at an end in the Media-ville.