Streaming Magazine » Arts & Culture

Blog Holds Ralph Lauren Responsible for Inappropriate Photo Editing

andrea — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:03:35 +0000

It comes as no surprise that print advertisements are edited. In fact, most things media-related are edited. Still, it’s always disturbing when you see a model with a waist smaller than her head.

The last installment of such a fiasco comes from Ralph Lauren.

The advertisement, featuring model Filippa Hamilton, was seen on the blog Photoshop Disasters in late September. Soon after, the advertisement was all over the place, including the blog Boing Boing.

According to ABC News, PRL USA Holdings, Inc. (Ralph Lauren) informed Boing Boing that their Web site wasn’t “authorized” to post the ad. Ralph Lauren kindly notified everyone with negative responses to the ad that they were in “copyright infringement.”

Boing Boing was not having any of it. They refused to take the picture down. Editor, Cory Doctorow, said, “Instead of responding to their legal threat by suppressing our criticism of their marketing images, we’re gonna mock them… Copyright law doesn’t give you the right to threaten your critics for pointing out the problems with your offerings.”

Ouch!!

Advertisements like this are why so many Americans have eating disorders.

Boing Boing should be proud of themselves for sticking up for what is right.

Ralph Lauren should be ashamed.

But, should we be surprised?

Communist hypocrisy

Rob — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:00:07 +0000

When people think about communism, they think of the Chinese and the Great Wall and their red flag. Or they think of the old Soviet Union and the iron-fist of Stalin. Some will even remember where communism came from and think of Marx and Lenin. But no one thinks religion.

Welcome to the American version of the Communist Party.

When the Communist Party in America is so unpopular that it resorts to contradicting the very core of communism itself, you know something is wrong.

Here are some historical tidbits the Washington Post was kind enough to dig up.

Marx said, “Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.”

And Lenin stated, “Religion is the opium of the people.”

So, in this ‘New Age,’ communism embraces people of religious denominations in an attempt to attract faith based people to the ranks of the Red. It does strike me as odd that the party would choose this route instead of appealing to the many non-religious people of society (an increasing proportion) and essentially turning itself into a more liberal form of the second most extreme conservative viewpoint. Communism itself is supposed to be a pseudoreligion of the people.

I suppose it won’t be long until the Fascist American Party decides to open accounts at the Bank of Israel.