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[Carrie McLaren <temporary181 AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

Hello, here are recent highlights from the Stay F---! blog for you. 
Apologies again for the delay, but we've been busy working on a book 
proposal at Stay Free! HQ. Per usual, see 
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org or full text, images, and more 
articles.



KILLING TREES FOR ADS

In case you've run out of reasons to hate outdoor advertising, here's 
one: billboard advertisers are poisoning and chopping down trees that 
get in the way of people seeing their ads along highways.

Continued at:
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/06/trees_billboard.html



THE VIRGIN THAT WANTS YOU

After Virgin Mobile's painfully misguided attempt at targeted 
advertising, Jason Torchinsky discovers that Virgin's micro-marketing 
is even worse than he thought.
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/the_virgin_that.html



A 1934 AD FOR "SKINNY" WOMEN TO GAIN WEIGHT

It's hard to imagine a time when it was common for American women to 
try to put *on* weight. But thanks to this awesome 1934 ad we know it 
happened.
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/fat_ad_women_sk.html



NEW ZEALAND FIGHTS BACK AGAINST ATTRACTIVENESS

Pity poor Burger King. A distant number two to McDonald's, they try 
to close the gap with a little T&A and a bunch of New Zealand 
tightasses shut them down. It appears that the Kiwis don't allow 
advertising that uses "sex appeal simply to draw attention to a 
product." Apparently, some people in New Zealand have daughters or 
are women or something.
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/burger_king_bab.html



ARE CONSUMER PRODUCTS MADE TO BREAK?

Carrie interviews Giles Slade about his book _Made to Break: 
Technology and Obsolescence in America._
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/are_consumer_pr.html



ARE OLD HOUSES REALLY BUILT TO LAST?

While it's often said that consumer producs are "made to break," a 
little over a year ago I started wondering about buildings. Do real 
estate interests plan for obsolescence in the same way product 
designers do?
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/brownstones_old.html



REPLACING ADS WITH ART

Stay Free! blogger Steve Lambert of the Anti-Advertising Agency got 
some coverage in the New York Times for AddArt, a Firefox App that 
replaces advertising on web pages with modern art.
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/replacing_ads_w.html



THE "GOOD" NEWS ABOUT JAPAN'S INCREASINGLY AMERICAN DIET?

This story in the Wall Street Journal just caught my eye: "Japanese 
Clothiers Update Their Lines; Changes in Diet Produce Curvier Bodies 
in Women."  It begins: "All over Japan, retailers are scrambling to 
keep up with a new look known as 'bon-kyu-bon.' It means 
'big-small-big' and it signals a change in the way Japanese women 
look: They're getting curvier."
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/japan_diet_fat.html



EUPHEMISM OF THE WEEK

What do you call the "agitation, anxiety, akathesia, panic attacks, 
irritability, aggressiveness, worsening of mood, dysphoria, crying 
spells or mood lability, overactivity or hyperactivity, 
depersonalization" and other symptoms suffered from getting off of 
SSRI antidepressants such as Prozac or Zoloft? Well, if you're in the 
pharmaceutical business, you don't call the problem "withdrawal," you 
call it "Antidepressant Discontinuation Syndrome."
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/antidepressant_.html



CLOSED-CAPTION COVER-UP

Sometimes my role as a Luddite assists in my more prominent role as 
defender of the underdog. In this instance, the underdogs in question 
are users of television's closed-captioning feature: the hearing 
impaired, viewers of any BBC series, and hammered fans in loud sports 
bars. I was watching a VHS tape of the final episode of the sadly 
ignored sitcom, Andy Barker, P.I.  The recording's sound quality was 
dreadful, so I periodically had to revert to those trusty closed 
captions to catch a particularly garbled word....
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/closedcaption_c.html



A MAGAZINE YOU CAN READ IN YOUR UNDERWEAR

I've been spammed for a lot of things that I neither need nor want. 
Out of all the junk I've received, however, I can think of nothing I 
want less than Blogger & Podcaster magazine. Finally, a print 
magazine worth leaving my computer for!
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/magazines_about.html



THE SOCIOLOGY OF TRANSIT

I've been reading about urban planning and transportation lately and 
thought I'd share an observation gleaned from a couple of 
books--namely, _The Geography of Nowhere_ by Howard Kunstler and _How 
Cities Work_ by Alex Marshall. The observation goes something like 
this: seemingly simple changes to city streets or pathways can change 
entire ways of living. In the same way that removing a particular 
insect can spark a chain of events that ultimately transforms the 
"natural" world, the design of roads, trains, and city spaces can 
radically alter the social environment -- the way people live...
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/sprawl_cities_n.html



KIDS WITH AUTISM LIKE TO RECITE ADVERTISING

In response to my post about autism and TV, reader Bernardo tipped me 
off to this story from China Daily about autistic kids' penchant for 
reciting advertising...
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/autism_ads.html



TARGET MARKET CROSS REFERENCE

Alexis Lloyd has created a mini-database of outdoor advertising in 
different New York neighborhoods; East Harlem, SoHo, and the Upper 
East Side.  Adscape is an online inventory of ads appearing in public 
space in the week she took her survey.  The site provides evidence 
for all those hunches on how marketers target groups of people.
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/03/target_market_c.html