Ad it Up

Does this make you want to eat cheese? According to a survey cited in Ad Age, 86 percent of people who saw this Kraft Natural Cheese ad said it did. To me it looks fake, because the ropes of cheese do not appear to actually be attached to the neighbor slice, like they would on a real pizza.

For me, this creates what I call the "cereal glue" effect, in which discovery of the processes behind food ad creation makes the product seem suddenly unappetizing. What IS that cheese attached to, anyway? Whatever it is, it aint natural.

This is no small matter! This was deemed the most successful of all recent magazine ads. Apparently, you can fool [nearly] all of the people all of the time ...

Sugar Blues

I won't be the first—or the last—to point this out I'm sure, but the article in this week's New York Times exploring whether sugar is, in fact, toxic does validate Mayor Michael Nutter's attempt to tax soda in Philadelphia, just as we tax alcohol and cigarettes.

The main support for the argument on public health grounds would be how much sugar Americans consume today over and above what we would get from just eating fruits and vegetables; the connection between excess sugar consumption, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease; and the damaging effects of sweet drinks—especially on the liver.

Taxing soda as a deterrent to unhealthy eating and as a way to help fund public health programs in a city with such a rampant obesity problem certainly makes sense. Maybe now the mayor can get City Council to go along with him on this one.

Dowd on Dylan: Blowin' Hot Air

The New York Times is no longer taking comments about Maureen Dowd's most recent column criticizing Bob Dylan for playing a Chinese government-approved set in Beijing. This means no one may ever read my thoughts on the matter, but I'll share them anyway:

It's a testament to the power of Dylan's music that, 50 years on, people are still trashing him for not being someone he never claimed to be.

If Dowd wants ideological consistency—politics in lockstep with poetry—there are other talented figures from the '60s protest movement to look to. Phil Ochs, for instance, whom Dylan is said to have told, "You're not a folksinger. You're a journalist." That the fiercely political Ochs has, over the years, inspired far fewer listeners to political action than Dylan, who is loyal only to his own artistic compass, should give her pause, however.

If Dylan weren't Dylan—iconoclastic, inconsistent, maddingly (to some) disloyal to cultural movements he helped shape—we would never have had more than the tousle haired Kennedy-era folkie he was in 1963, singing music forever associated with a particular time and place. He might today be a Civil Rights Era footnote, no more or less intriguing to people in China than, say, Peter Paul and Mary (which is to say, not very). His first heresy was to pick up the electric guitar, which in retrospect sealed his message as timeless, to be revisited and reinterpreted by each successive generation.

The music of Bob Dylan has and will continue to inspire people the world over, and his appearance in Beijing, however impolitic, will do the same for the Chinese—whether Maureen Dowd likes it or not.

The Grandstanding Old Party

Well, the house has voted to defund National Public Radio. The GOP, in the best tradition of ignoring pressing matters and shamelessly grandstanding for its base, is going after NPR with the same righteous vigor it once did flag burners and people who exercise their constitutional right to worship where they please.

The action follows Andrew Breitbart's exposure of an NPR fundraiser expressing his personal opinion, in what he thought was a private conversation, that Tea Partiers are racists. Now, if he can just catch a government-funded researcher dishing on Sarah Palin, maybe we can get busy with shutting down the National Science Foundation!

It's too bad, really, as NPR affiliates around the country engage in a type of local news coverage and public advocacy you won't get from any other source. They'll continue to do it, but it will be harder now.

Here's how the local votes went down: Dent, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Meehan, Pitts, Runyan and Smith voted yes. Andrews, Brady, Carney, Fattah, Holden and Schwartz voted no.

The pittance saved is nothing compared to what could be achieved by a host of other initiatives ignored by the Republican-controlled congress, such as mandating Amazon and other Internet retailers collect sales tax on behalf of their customers. As noted last week by The Huffington Post's Nathan Newman, the loss in state revenues from this brand of unequal taxation translates to a greater burden on lower-income families.

If you missed it, be sure to watch this hilarious video of New York's Anthony Weiner, mocking the calling of a special session to vote on defunding NPR:

King of Prussia, By Rail

I learned today in the Inquirer that there's been talk for years of extending the Norristown High-Speed Line (the Rt. 100 trolley) to King of Prussia Mall. The proposal for a 4.9-mile spur will get a "renewed look" this spring as Upper Merion Township launches a locally-funded nonprofit planning initiative charged with researching and implementing improvements in the area.

King of Prussia Mall attracts 25 million visitors a year. Even with the current, somewhat awkward public transit set-up (I can get to the mall without a car by taking the high-speed line to the Gulph Mills stop, then a bus to KOP), a whopping 7,500 people use SEPTA every day to get to King of Prussia, according to the article.

This seems like a no-brainer in terms of viability. Many years ago, transportation companies used to put amusement parks at the terminus of their urban-suburban trolley lines to attract riders (the wonderful Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh is a surviving example). How much more of a built-in demand would there be, then, for an easy one-seat ride to one of North America's largest malls?

Make it easier and relatively stress-free to visit, and KOP might find a whole new customer base, as well as help solve intractable traffic and safety problems. I hope this line finally gets built.