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I’ll be honest: Slim pickings this week in dissent, critiques, and backlashing. Here’s all I can offer you.
1. A Christian group (“The Resistance”) is calling for a boycott of Starbucks on the theory that its logo is offensive. Significant? Uh, well, no. But I like the reverse-anti tone of the Starbucks Gossip item on the subject: “Christian group doesn’t have anything better to do than protest Starbucks’ logo.”
2. Wal-Mart opening thwarted in Chicago: Wal-Mart got the word from city officials last month that Mayor Richard Daley doesn’t want to risk a messy showdown with unions over Wal-Mart—like the big-box store battle of 2006—while Chicago is still in the running as a host city for the 2016 Olympics, according to people familiar with the matter,” says The Chicago Tribune. Via Wake Up Wal-Mart.
3. The Orlando Sentinal comes out against “Bus Radio, the prerecorded music-and-advertising programming being broadcast to students,” in Seminole County, Florida. I guess it plays on the bus. Isn’t weird that we live in a time when someone has to editorialize against an advertising medium tied directly to the school system? No? Okay, I’ll take your word for it.
4. Too Much Packaging Material. Via Treehugger.
That’s all folks. Hopefully next week will be more pessimistic. I’m optimistic!
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Kim Fellner's book 
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Reader Comments
I guess you don’t remember the fuss over Channel 1, the ad-supported morning “news” show I had to watch every fucking day of high school.
Sorry. It’s kind of seared into my brain.
Weird, yes, and sad that schools are so strapped for funds they need to turn to something like Bus Radio.
I do remember Channel 1, although I had basically forgotten about it. It was quite controversial for a time, but I guess that controversy hasn’t ended school/ad schemes. Possibly for the reason Lisa suggests: they need money… To me it’s odd that we’ll accept advertising as part of the school experience as a way to solve that problem.