(no subject)

PR, and how it can go awry:

Many soldiers, same letter
(from the Olympian, a Washington newspaper)

The gist is that someone had a bunch of soldiers serving in Iraq sign form letters describing the positive impact the Army is having there and had those letters sent to newspapers in those soldiers' hometowns-- without telling the soldiers what was really going on. Most of the soldiers, when told what had been printed in the papers, said they agreed with the content of the letter but had no idea why it uas being sent in their names.

To be honest, I can see how this could happen pretty easily: some PR guy in the Army says to himself, hey, these guys know what a good job they're doing, so why not have them send letters to the editors of their hometown newspapers telling it like it is? And his superior, who knows these kids a bit better than the PR guy, says, no way are we letting them write whatever they want to write to the editors; print up a form letter, get 'em to sign it, and we'll mail it ourselves. And somewhere between the ivory tower where this idea was born and the sandpits where it was implemented, someone forgot to include the bit about "if you want to."

The Chain of Command is only as strong as its weakest link.

(no subject)

I want a new Mac.

I had to edit my last post because my current iMac, a lovely 266mhz G3 that has served me well for the last four years, got low on memory and decided that every instance of "w" should be a "u" instead when I use the post method. Fascinatingly enough, this little quirk also affected my Outlook messages, which should tell you just how secure Outlook is.

I've got my eye on a neat-o G4 iMac with the swivel neck. Hm. Probably not until after Xmas.