Random is sometimes best

Why is it that people know what needs to be done, but won't do it themselves?

It fascinates me (and is cause for great perplexity) is that while everyone knows what the right thing to do is, yet not everybody can be counted to the right thing.

I don't mean just petty things like lying or stealing, or things that could lead to reprimands if found out. No, I mean things things that only the person knows is wrong yet will most likely not be found out if committed.

The actions that truly define the sanctity of ones' character.

I believe that everyone has a conscious and that the conscience can and does feel guilt at every wrong doing. In my opinion every conscience has a in-built 'guilt trigger' that rings out every time the bearer does something wrong; this trigger rings out every time (perhaps redundantly) even if it is suppressed through years of neglect.

Of course one can never be certain with theories, but by that extension, how about a theological Talatism truth: We only really 'sin' when we rue it deep within. So if a person can steal, cheat or even kill without a hint of remorse he or she has not sinned.

However, because deep within ourselves the conscience is always active (even when it is ignored), a person who lies, cheats or kills knows, and because he or she cannot be of 'clean' conscience so to speak as result, he or she has sinned. The sinners know who they are... even if others do not and they think they 'got away with it.' Here is a reality check, the maker knows.

You'd think people would get that...

Hooked on power

June 10 marked the day in history that Benjamin Franklin, US statesman, signer of the US Constitution and US's third president, was asked to fly a kite and he did to shocking result!

It was 1752 and it sometimes seems that we've been paying for electricity ever since! I thought we should remember because our life is hooked to the power outlet, so much so that we are probably running on electricity.

Bean sprouts in cross-hairs of German veggie wars

German authorities have finally concluded that contaminated bean sprouts from an organic farm (no less) in Bienenbuttel, southeast of Humburg in the country's north, were most likely cause for “one of the world's worst outbreaks of E. coli.

The outbreak scandal, in my opinion, is a total con by the big, faceless, processed-food corporations – what else can it be when it takes a swing, first, at wiping the profiteering smiles off of farmers from Spain and France, and then taking a swipe at organic farming. Sounds like too much 'horse crap.'

Bottom line is the message being sent is fresh vegetables could be too 'fresh' for consumption and that tinned veggies are safer (maybe not better, but the tests are still out on that one) for the health – after all if you don't have your health what's good of an environment?! So it's a little hotter...

Ridiculous!

Light on feet, levitating mind

I hope the headline is very haiku because what I encountered on the web recently was for me a very 'haiku' moment – a sense of succinct rhythm conjuring images that absolutely defy the power of the word.

I always been amazed at the human mind and its capacity to create an alternative perspective if let out of the box. Unfortunately too few people do so in fear of ridicule for not following on the established norm.

The mind of Natsumi Hayashi, a young Japanese photographer's assistant and a photographer herself, has not just been allowed out of its box, it has burst out!

A even greater achievement when you set it against the perceived high sense of decorum and conformity of the Japanese people.

Natsumi realised at an early age that “keeping two feet on the ground” was highly overrated and admits she didn't want any of it. When it came to practicality or sensibility, to be grounded and pragmatic. She knew what she wasn't and so wanted none of it.

Floating across a restaurant

Her self-portraits are solely those with her seemingly levitating all over Tokyo. “I am not a practical person at all. Therefore, I try not to have my feet on the ground in my self-portrait photos to show my true self,” she was quoted in a news report.

Of course she can't levitate, but she can jump – which is levitating backwards in a sense. She sets her camera, either on self-timer or with a friend clicking the shutter for her, at 1/500 second or faster shutter speed and jumps. A lot.

She says that it can take her anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes to get the right shot... which may mean sometimes as many as 300 jumps for that perfect instance of unadulterated levitation.

Its people who think so purely out of the box that have my devotion. People who are not confined by the values set upon them by others, who, in turn, are probably living the values set on them by still others.

Natsumi shatters the myth of individuality in conformity. She has taken the camera as her voice, and armed with her unique vision she has snatched her moment and frozen her true self for the world to see.

Want to see more of Natsumi's work... visit her website or click on the images in this post.

… but do you have the right logo?

Sports is big business for certain, but sports branding is bigger business still.

Big names like Nike, Adidas, Puma, Reebok (or, in this day of dropping consonants and texting – rbk), Marlboro, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Carlsberg, McDonald's, Burger King, to name ten, are all heavily invested in some form of sports sponsorship or the other.

Corporate sponsorship equals branding opportunity on the team's (or individual's) jersey's for the sponsors. World famous logos are world famous in my mind because of two qualities – 1) quality products which people want to purchase and consume for benefit of self, and 2) quality logos which people want to be seen associated with for benefit of ego.

For example, Ferrari is a coveted brand, no doubt – the maker of a universally acclaimed quality sports car. Discerning buyers buy Ferrari, blah, blah. However, you can be certain that more people wear Ferrari caps or jackets than drive the car – and you can be even more certain that Ferrari does NOT manufacture caps or jackets (or key rings, or the like) in their factory in Maranello.

So what is it that attracts people to don the Ferrari cap or jacket even though they don't (or couldn't) own the car? One thing, and one thing only - the prancing horse logo, what that logo represents, and far more importantly the perception of that logo to a onlooker.

It's a beautiful logo no doubt, but logo is not the only thing. The logo more importantly is associated with a brand that people want to be associated with too.

Not to undermine another universally acclaimed vehicle manufacturer, but tractor maker John Deere does not enjoy the same appeal among the masses as does Ferrari – even with its beautiful prancing deer logo. However, another former tractor manufacturer, Lamborghini and its charging bull logo is a different matter altogether.

Bottom line is that the standard of the product and what I like to call the 'association vanity index' both have to be high to make it to people's imagination and by that route onto the sports sponsorship jersey.

Its easy to visualise a Puma or a Nike logo on a athlete's shirt, but what about a monkey or a cute turtle caricature? A hippo? How about the local super market chain logo (for example Piggly Wiggly) on jersey for a team called the Cougars? Not only does the name sound too cutesy for a team that wants to project aggression and power, but the all more cutesy logo just wouldn't do in this case.

Some things just don't go.

And brand association is something that money just can't buy. Coca Cola has a brand value worth far excess of its assets – same too each sporting team or figure has a brand value that just might not go with a haemorrhoidal ointment (come to think of it one would be really hard pressed to find such a team or a sports personality who would fit that bill).

Of course there are sports professionals who endorse such products on TV but you can be sure they'd never wear the logo on their shirt. But if they did, it would have to be a really cool logo (but one definitely not made with the name of the product!).

A logo is much like a person's signature fragrance, hairstyle, dress sense or appearance – while people might like someone with 'personality,' they more often prefer someone associated with a certain finesse. Someone who, in close proximity, makes them look good too.

People in general are shallow. Image sells because imagination is so easy to fool with 'beauty' – couple that with a brand value with a sky-rocketing AVI (association vanity index) and that's that, hook, line and sinker!

Brands evolve with time and sometimes the imagination must be allowed to as well, the real challenge is always keeping its link close to the intrinsic value of the brand. Click the video below to see the evolution of the Batman logo through the years... a logo that has allowed the imagination to keep pace without ever forgoing the brand essence and the essential association vanity index.

You can bet any team in the world would love to wear the Batman logo (that is if Batman
was a consumer product).

And when you can do that successfully, you can get your logo on a sports jersey. :)

It's a strange world after all

Just read about the start of a great club that all men would encourage their wives to join – its founded in Malaysia and is simply titled as “Obedient Wives Club.”

(Possibly so that there is no confusion whatsoever about the club's profile and motto.)

According to a newspaper report, the club has set itself up on a lofty (ambitious?) end game – to cure social ills such as prostitution and divorce by “teaching women to be submissive and keep their men happy in the bedroom.”

The concept of the club is possibly every man's pipe dream and sounds almost too good to be true to be founded by women.

Before any man falls on his knees in supplication and rejoices out loud that “there is a God,” it should be noted that, true to form, the club was founded by a fringe Islamic group known as the Global Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood).

Naturally.

The very idea of such a club reeks of man's narcissistic involvement somewhere. The dead giveaway, I think, is the name of the club itself. Men (especially Muslim men obsessed with the bedroom) are too eager to get something started (no pun intended) to sweat such details – in the name of efficiency they would want to make no bars about what is expected of its members. Clearly women have a better imagination and are better at the art of manipulation.

Although, the fact that the club, which was found only last Saturday, already has 800 members does put this theory to question.

Whatever else can be said about the Global Ikhwan, it must be said that the group definitely has tremendous temerity and high levels of frustration among its ranks – previous activities included the setting up of a polygamy club two years ago!

The group is already eyeing a Jakarta chapter of the 'Obedient Wives Club.'

*

On another note on an entirely different topic, and on the other side of the world, according to a radio report a US father in Utah has waved goodbye to his 16-year old son on the school bus every morning of the 180-day school year dressed in different costumes everyday.

Which does not sound as bad as it does embarrassing for the teen, until you consider that he would dress in clothes ranging from Elvis, the Little Mermaid, and Princess Leia.

His rationale for doing this? To show his son how much he cares about his son.

Waving from a ceramic 'throne'
Image from waveatthebus.blogspot.com

He was quoted in the Deseret News, a Salt Lake City newspaper, saying “I hope this lives with him for the rest of his life," adding that "He can use it against his kids and tell them, 'If you think you are embarrassed by me, you should have seen your grandfather.'"

The son had enough time to overcome the embarrassment to eventually find it entertaining.

Costumes have also included a killer clown, werewolf, ninja, leprechaun, gypsy, Batgirl, and Michael Jackson. He has worn spandex, pleather, feathers and wigs.

The man's wife began posting daily photos of her husband waving goodbye to the bus on her own blog, waveatthebus.blogspot.com.

No one cares about apathy

Image from Conner's Conundrums

A few days a go I put up a post in the form of a youtube video that I came across.

The video was a news clip broadcast on Russia TV news. The footage was taken off a CCTV across a busy Turkish Highway and showed an infant crawling off the curb alongside the busy road and try to cross as cars went apathetically by.

I had commented in the post that I found it staggering (okay, I used 'amazing') how some people seem to be isolated in their own little island of contentment and are only moved when it concerns them personally.

From where I stand, watching the world as it goes about its business, more and more people seem to believe that things do not concern them anymore if they can just look away.

A reader of the aforementioned post commented that “it's the world we are building,” adding that that the world we are building “is restricted to the plasma screen of our entertainment. A world that erases our basic compassion.”

I had been thinking about this state that we find ourselves in, and came to the conclusion that human conditioning through competition has come at the high cost of human compassion.

But there is more...

The world is in turmoil at this moment. More turmoil than we have every witnessed before – recent history was that of the cold war. Even in the height of such polarised circumstances the world at large was not embroiled in so much turmoil.

Not since the 1990s, just before the US first invaded Iraq, has there been some semblance of peace in the world. Desert Storm brought US forces permanently onto Saudi soil and in-ostensibly gave birth to Al Qaeda and spearheaded the power of Osama bin Laden.

Since then turmoil has been exported from the US in the name of 'freedom' and 'liberty.' The US that supported and armed the Taliban against its one time cold war foe Russia in the 1980s now looked upon these same people as the enemy. I had once read in a magazine some years ago (I can't seem to source it at the moment) that it was the US that instigated the Mujahideen to instigate a Jihad against the Russians – the first time a muslim population rose to the task in centuries.

If it is true, this sort of manipulation and propaganda by the world's sole superpower has played a significant role in the heated environment in the world. The Arab Spring that birthed in Tunisia has spread across the region and into other countries governed by dictators (who have been able to hold office for decades with the tacit approval of the US).

The US, the self-professed protector of democracy and the voice of the people, has only now begun to take the side of the poplar protests because it knows that to do otherwise would undermine its moral superiority in the world architecture.

Thankfully the US government and the US people are not one and the same. However, most US citizens have been lulled into a sense of complacency and apathy by the comforts and security that the their government has given them. This is, of course, not a bad thing.

The US government has provided the best to its citizens and should be applauded. However, in doing so and propagating its influence into the rest of the world to ensure that superiority and safety for its citizens (to say nothing of maintaining a clean supply line for cheap oil) the government has also put their very security in the line of fire.

But I digress. It is in this polarised world we live in today that people rather than borrow a cup of sugar from their neighbours now report them to the authorities on suspicion of terrorist tendencies. People are being taught that it is no longer safe to trust your neighbours. People are moving away from helping each other for fear that getting involved could inadvertently link them to some sort of subversive act.

We are living in a world that a foreign-looking woman with a heavy bag is first marked as a terrorist in disguise and carrying a bomb; a man who absentmindedly forgets to pick his duffel bag up before he exits the subway car is marked and reported immediately.

Distrust and constant suspicion is a terrible way to live; and apathy suddenly becomes the only island for the sane.

The secret to good golfing...

This is a video for those days that just isn't for golfers at large.

How to improve on your golf... choose Rangé balls.

Click below for the well kept secret.