Mark Maynard | 2015 | October

And the award for darkest brand jamming goes to….

By Mark | October 19, 2015

Earlier this month, seemingly out of nowhere, references to a new campaign for Frosted Flakes started showing up online. The campaign, called Tony is Back, promised to bring Tony the Tiger back into our homes to address the real-world problems of modern adults with enthusiastic encouragement and sugary cereal in the much the same way that, years ago, he used to do for kids. Well, the first three videos have now been released, and let’s just say they’re a little edgier than most people probably expected, dealing with topics like prostitution, police violence and terrorism… Here they are.

I’d thought at first, given the tone and quality, that this might be the most recent work of the Atlanta-based crew responsible for Too Many Cooks. According to the work of internet sleuths who were able to identify one of the actresses, Gina Ferranti, and track down her social media accounts, though, this is the most recent campaign of Finnish anti-capitalist artist Jani Leinonen, who made headlines a few years ago for kidnapping and beheading Ronald McDonald on behalf of the Food Liberation Army. [Said sleuths also apparently connected the dots and discovered the videos in question were produced by First Breath Films, which is a subsidiary of a company called Route 1, which counts Kellogg among its customers. Or at least they did, up until today.]

I don’t know that Frosted Flakes would have been my first choice as a target, and I’m still sorting my feelings out on the videos themselves, but I felt as though I should share them for two reasons. First, regardless of what you think about the content, you have to admit that they’re incredibly well done, and it makes me wonder what we might see from culture jammers in the future who set their sites on particular companies. And, second, I just found it hilariously funny that Kellogg had to come out today and issue a statement saying that, no, this isn’t their attempt at viral marketing. [“The website and video have absolutely nothing to do with Kellogg,” the company told Ad Week.] I just find it so incredibly interesting that Kellogg would have to come out and say that they weren’t behind a campaign depicting a woman finishing her bowl of Frosted Flakes and then proceeding to blow up the restaurant where she’d been eating, killing everyone around her. I think that says a lot about both the world we live in and the state of marketing today.

[update: Jani Leinonen has apparently come out and taken responsibility for the Tony is Back campaign, stating that this is just a precursor to a film he has coming out called “The Mascots – A true story about corporate mascots, starring Tony the Tiger.”]

Posted in Marketing, Media, Uncategorized | Tagged ad campaigns, anti-capitalist, brand jamming, cereal, culture jamming, Finland, First Breath Films, Food Liberation Army, Gina Ferranti, Jani Leinonen, Kellogg's, mascots, McDonalds, police violence, prostitution, Ronald McDonald, terrorism, Tony is Back, Tony the Tiger | 9 Comments

“Be Warned”… Cindy Gamrat demands that I apologize to her

By Mark | October 19, 2015

I just received an email titled “Be Warned” from someone claiming to be disgraced former State Representative Cindy Gamrat demanding that I make a public apology for having claimed on this site that she A) used tax payer funds to cover up an extramarital affair, and B) shared an office with her lover, State Representative Todd Courser… Courser, as you may recall, was caught on tape not too long ago telling an aide how he intended to hide his affair with Gamrat by proactively waging an anonymous attack against himself, in which he’d be outed as a “bisexual monster,” “a freak,” and a “porn addicted, sexual deviant” driven by “alcohol, drugs and illicit sex”. His brilliant plan, of course, did not work, and he ended up resigning from office this past September. Gamrat, however, attempted to stay in office, but was was ultimately expelled from the Michigan House in a vote of 91 to 12, making her the fourth representative in the entire history of the Michigan legislature to be voted out of office by his or her peers. But, now that she’s made the decision to run again for the seat she was expelled from, I guess she’s trying to clean up the online evidence of her previous wrongdoing… Here’s her letter to me.

I am requesting an immediate apology and correction from all media outlets that have reported the following misleading and inaccurate statements:

1. That I admitted to misusing taxpayer dollars to cover up an affair.

2. That I shared an office with another Representative.

These are false statements and the continuous circulation of these false statements have caused harm to myself, my family, and my campaign.

Also, I have not been found guilty of a crime nor have any costs to the state been assessed to me regarding misuse of taxpayer dollars or otherwise.

In addition, each Representative has their own office as did I. The office of the Representative in question was on another floor and on opposite sides of the building, and across the street from each other. There was an overlap of staff duties for each office.

I am requesting a public apology and correction from all media outlets who have reported these false statements. I am also requesting to be copied and made aware of each correction.

Also, let it be known for future reporting, that you have been made aware of the inaccuracies of these statements.

I appreciate and respect the necessary role of the media, and all the hard work that has been done to get on top of this story. I expect that this is just a simple oversight, however, these errors have continued unaddressed for far too long and are causing irreparable damage to me, my family, and my campaign.

I anticipate each news outlet will be just as eager to set the record straight and make a correction regarding these statements as they were in reporting them.

Thank you for your quick and timely response in addressing this,
Cindy Gamrat

Yes, you read that right. My blog post did “irreparable harm” to her family. [While her husband and their kids were apparently fine with the graphic accounts of her fucking her fellow Tea Partier, my post on the subject of their hypocrisy did irreparable harm.]

For what it’s worth, I don’t think I ever said that she admitted to using taxpayer dollars to cover up the affair. Furthermore, I don’t think I said that she shared an office with Courser. I may have said that she and Courser are said to have fucked quite often in a back room of his office, but I don’t think I ever implied that she actually did “work” in there. [If I insinuated that she did work in Courser’s office between their heated, deeply patriotic love-making sessions, I’m truly sorry. But, like I said, I have no reason to think that any work was done in their private, closed-door meetings. I suppose it’s possible that they said a few phrases here and there about bills they’d be voting on, just in case anyone was listening, but, once the door was closed, I’m sure they jumped right into Ayn Rand meets William Hickman role-play.]

Also, I don’t see how it really matters where her office was, but maybe I’m missing something. Did the location of her office figure prominently in the decision to expel her from the House? From what I recall, she was expelled after both she and Courser, in the words of the Detroit Free Press’s Kathleen Gray, “admitted misconduct in office and misuse of taxpayer resources,” but maybe that was secondary to the location of her office.

For what it’s worth, I’m apparently not the only one she’s demanding an apology from. It would seem that she’s also asked Lansing’s CBS affiliate to set the record straight on the location of her office.

To her credit, Gamrat is mounting a hell of a comeback campaign. I think, if I’d been busted fucking a fellow “family values” Republican, I’d slink off, never to be heard from again. Gamrat, however, is going on the offensive, positioning herself as a “small government” freedom fighter who was removed from office, not because of her ethical lapse and admission of misusing resources, but for her rabid defense of the constitution. Here, to give you a sense of how she’s portraying herself post-scandal, is a clip from her website.

An Open Letter to the People of District 80 and Michigan —

In the early morning hours on September 11th, 2015, Allegan County had their voice in the House of Representatives stolen from them. The Representation of 90,000 people was overridden by 91 Lansing politicians. They decided that they knew what was best for our District and that the people of Allegan County should not have a say in their Representation.

It sounds extreme, because it is extreme. Lansing took the most extreme action possible in overriding the voters of Allegan County, even though the House Legal Counsel, under oath in the committee, said multiple times that the evidence against Gamrat did NOT rise to expulsion. Lansing politicians knowingly took away Allegan’s Representation anyway, even though the evidence did not warrant it.

So who was on the committee? Four Republicans and two Democrats, including the two Republican Representatives who are the main sponsors of the bills to increase our gas tax and another Republican Representative who tried to pass a bill that would let the government ping your cell phone without a warrant and without your knowledge. And lastly, the fourth Republican Representative who directed the entire Republican caucus to violate the State Constitution on the very first day of being sworn in. Obviously, I could not go along with these egregious overreaches of government and spoke out against each one of them.

Now they have used misleading and personal attacks because I HAVE STOOD WITH THE PEOPLE against tremendous pressure as a strong voice against the huge tax and spend policies.

Lansing is doing everything they can to silence Allegan’s voice because they know my strong record as State Representative. I have voted for and sponsored bills that support life, our Second Amendment, and limited government. I have not missed a vote or a committee, and have combed through the budgets to find over 20 ways to fund road improvements without raising taxes! I have worked hard while serving as State Representative and followed through on my promises to put the people first!

I believe the people of Allegan County deserve a voice in this matter and I will fight for them to have it.

Posted in Michigan, Politics | Tagged Allegan County, Ayn Rand, Cindy Gamrat, family values, hypocrisy, hypocrisy watch, Lansing, Michigan House of Representatives, scandal, sex, tea party, Todd Courser, William Hickman | 15 Comments

HP Jacobs, runaway slave turned state senator, doctor and university founder, recognized in Ypsilanti

By Mark | October 18, 2015

Earlier this year, in the second installment of our interview with local historian Matt Siegfried on slavery, the fight for emancipation, and the role played by Ypsilantians in that struggle, we heard the story of a man named HP Jacobs, a runaway slave from Alabama who made his way to Ypsilanti, became a janitor at what is now Eastern Michigan University, and then went on to found both a church and a school for black children here, before heading back south for several years after the Civil War, where he served in the Mississippi State Senate, helped found what is now Jackson State University, and, at the age of 65, become a doctor. Well, today, an incredible group of local teens from Ypsi Community Schools started work on a mural recognizing these many accomplishments of HP Jacobs.

Not seen in the above photo, which I took this afternoon, are Ypsilanti Community High School art teacher Lynne Settles and Jackson artist Doug Jones, both of whom, as I understand it, were instrumental in making this happen… The mural, which, according to Jones, should be finished next weekend, is on the side of Currie’s barbershop, on Harriet Street.

For those of you who may not have read the interview with Siegfried referenced above, here’s the portion of our discussion about Jacobs, followed by a short video of the local historian talking about Jacobs and his local contributions.

MARK: What about other stories concerning the lives of former slaves in Ypsilanti? Are there any folks that we didn’t talk about last time that you think people should know about?

MATT: A name that must be mentioned is HP Jacobs, born into slavery in Alabama as Samuel Hawkins. He learned to read and write and forged freedom papers for his extended family. They left Alabama on July 24, 1856 and arrived in Canada on August 19th. There he was baptized by Rev. William Troy and shed his slave name, taking the name of HP Jacobs.

He then came back to Ypsilanti in the late 1850s and worked as the janitor for the Normal College (now EMU). While here, HP Jacobs founded Second Baptist, still active over 150 years later, and became its first pastor. Both black churches here, Second Baptist and Brown AME, were founded by fugitives from bondage and would have undoubtedly been deeply involved as their Detroit sister churches were, in the struggle for freedom. The stained-glass windows at Brown AME commemorate some of those very freedom-seekers, and are, in my opinion, among the most important historic treasures in all Ypsilanti.

[note: Our discussion of Isa Stewart can be found in part one of this interview.]

MARK: I’d never heard of Jacobs. What else can you tell us about him?

MATT: Well, he also helped to organize a school for Ypsilanti’s black children. His was the most prominent black voice in Ypsilanti during the Civil War period, leading marches, organizing rallies and speeches and participating in the statewide 1863 Michigan Colored Men’s Convention held in Ypsilanti. He may well have been active in the Underground Railroad, for he was connected to many of the most militant leaders in Detroit through the Baptist Church and 1863 convention, and as he was a veteran of the road himself.

He enrolled his daughters in the Normal (blacks could always study at the Normal) and his daughters (and granddaughters) would become the most celebrated area musicians of their day. When they graduated in their early teens, he took the family to Natchez, Mississippi. There he founded the Natchez Seminary, a school for recently freed slaves, which is now known as Jackson State University.

He would be elected to the Mississippi State Senate twice and Natchez City Council during Reconstruction… from slave to Senator in ten years. He helped to rewrite Mississippi’s constitution so it could be readmitted into the Union. He was also founder and first President of the Missionary Baptist Convention, the state’s first black Baptist authority. His children would later return to Ypsilanti and live here for decades at the center of black social life. His daughters, and this is the 1870s, would retain their maiden names, hyphenating Jacobs with their husbands’ surnames. Anna Jacobs-Dehazen taught music from her front room on South Adams Street.

HP Jacobs would travel the country, often returning to Ypsilanti to visit his family and speak as an honored guest at Emancipation Day, the generations-long celebration Ypsilanti held on August 1st in conjunction with other black communities. Nothing underlines Ypsi’s role in the freedom struggle like Emancipation Day, which would sometimes bring thousands of people in the City. [Right: Ypsilanti Commercial, July 23, 1886]

Late in life, he left the church and got his medical degree, becoming a doctor for black migrants out west. Recently, there has been a move to rename Jackson State University after him. There are dozens of Ypsilanti newspapers articles from the period which mention him, his activity and role. This was the one-time janitor at EMU… and perhaps the most important black man to ever call Ypsilanti home.

As a historian, I want to know what happened between then and now to bring us to a point where, today, no one in Ypsilanti knows him, the most important black Ypsilantian of the era.

[If you’re interested, video also exists of Siegfried talking with Ypsi students about Jacobs and why his legacy is so important.]

Posted in History, Ypsilanti | Tagged Doug Jones, Eastern Michigan University, Harriet Street, HP Jacobs, Lynne Settles, murals, slavery, YCS, Ypsilanti Community Schools | 10 Comments

The chickens, having come home to roost, consumed Boehner… Nixon made a deal with the devil by opening the Republican party to southern racists, and, now, almost 50 years later, the party is paying the price

By Mark | October 18, 2015

Quite a bit has been written over the past few weeks about John Boneher’s unexpected decision to step down as Speaker of the House and leave Congress. While everyone seems to be in agreement that his decision is largely due to the increasingly ugly battle being waged over the heart and soul of the Republican party, I think William Greider’s most recent piece in The Nation has really gone the furthest toward explaining why things are coming to a head right now, and how everything we’re seeing play out in present day America has its roots in Nixon’s so-called southern strategy, which successfully sought to bring racist former Democrats, who had felt betrayed by Johnson’s Civil Rights Act, over to the Republican party. You should read the whole thing, but here’s a little excerpt to give you a sense of it.

…The GOP finds itself trapped in a marriage that has not only gone bad but is coming apart in full public view. After five decades of shrewd strategy, the Republican coalition Richard Nixon put together in 1968 — welcoming the segregationist white South into the Party of Lincoln — is now devouring itself in ugly, spiteful recriminations…

At the heart of this intramural conflict is the fact that society has changed dramatically in recent decades, but the GOP has refused to change with it. Americans are rapidly shifting toward more tolerant understandings of personal behavior and social values, but the Republican Party sticks with retrograde social taboos and hard-edged prejudices about race, gender, sexual freedom, immigration, and religion. Plus, it wants to do away with big government (or so it claims).

The party establishment, including business and financial leaders, seems to realize that Republicans need to moderate their outdated posture on social issues. But they can’t persuade their own base — especially Republicans in the white South — to change. The longer the GOP holds out, the more likely it is to be damaged by the nation’s changing demographics — the swelling impact of Latinos and other immigrants, and the flowering influence of millennials, the 18-to-30-year-olds who are more liberal and tolerant than their elders.

Nixon’s “Southern strategy” was cynical, of course, but it was an effective electoral ploy. Now, however, it is beginning to look like a deal with the devil. For 2016, the GOP has to cope with very different challenges. The party has to find a broadly appealing nominee who won’t scare off party moderates and independent voters, but who at the same time can pacify rebellious right-wingers and prevent a party crackup…

Scott Lilly, a liberal Democrat who for many years was the sagacious staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, explained the GOP’s intra-party fracas in that context. Boehner’s resignation, Lilly wrote in The Washington Spectator, “was, in fact, about the steady unraveling of a coalition that has allowed the Republican Party to hold the White House for 27 of the past 47 years and maintain a seemingly solid base for continuing control of the US House of Representatives.”

Nixon’s reconfiguration brought together “polar opposites among white Americans,” Lilly noted. The traditional wing of the party — “country club” Republicans, who include corporate leaders, financiers and investors — became partners with poor, rural, church-going voters, among them the Southern “segs” who had previously always voted for Democrats. Black Southerners didn’t count in the equation, since they were still mostly being blocked from voting.

After Congress enacted the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Lyndon Johnson confided to a White House aide, “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.” Nixon’s new Republicans became a formidable national party, Lilly explained, but they always straddled the tension between rich and poor…

“The problem,” Lilly said, “is that this latter group has almost nothing in common with the country club wing… The country clubbers don’t care about prayer in the public schools, gun rights, stopping birth control, abortion and immigration.” On the other hand, common folks don’t worry over marginal tax rates, capital formation, or subsidies for major corporations.

“If they ever fully understood that their more prosperous party brethren were contemplating deep cuts in Medicare and Medicaid to pay for those policies, they would be in open rebellion,” Lilly observed.

Nixon and his successors hid behind ideology and obscured the contradictions by pursuing a strategy I would call “no-fault bigotry.” Every now and then, especially in election seasons, the Republicans played the race card in dog-whistle fashion to smear Democrats, with savage effect. The GOP never attempted to repeal civil-rights legislation but sought cheap ways to undermine enforcement and remind whites, South and North, that the party was on “their” side…

So what caused the current rebellion in the GOP ranks? It finally dawned on loyal foot soldiers in the odd-couple coalition that they were being taken for suckers. Their causes always seemed to get the short end of the stick. The GOP made multiple promises and fervent speeches on the social issues, but, for one reason or another, the party establishment always failed to deliver.

This belated realization stirred the anger that has flared across the ranks of the followers — and not just in the South. The financial crisis, the bailout of the banks, and collapsing prosperity intensified their sense of betrayal. People began mobilizing their own rump-group politics to push back. The tea party protests were aimed at President Obama, of course, but they were also an assault on Republican leaders who had misled and used the party base for so long. Tea party revenge took down long-comfortable legislators and elected red-hot replacements who share the spirit of rebellion…

Posted in Civil Liberties, Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged angry Republicans and their ideas, Civil Rights Act, John Boehner, LBJ, Lee Atwater, Lyndon Johnson, racism, Republicans, segregation, the collapse of the Republican party, The Nation, the southern strategy | 5 Comments

Talking about saving trees and saving lives with the folks at Urban Ashes, the controversial EMU presidential search, and Cultivate Coffee and Tap House… on this weekend’s episode of the Saturday Six Pack

By Mark | October 15, 2015

While a few elements are still coming together concerning this Saturday evening’s show, I wanted to share couple of items with you so that you can start thinking about the things we’ll be discussing, and perhaps share this post with others who you think might be interested. Before I get into what we’ll be discussing on the show, though, I wanted to first thank our recent guest Frank Allison, who just sent in an awesome new theme song for the show, which we’ll definitely be opening this Saturday’s episode with. My favorite part about doing the show, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, is when people take it upon themselves to contribute, whether it be through the writing of a new theme song or a well-thought-out prank call to the show, and it makes me incredibly happy to know that Frank took the time to write and record something for us.

As for our in-studio guests this Saturday, we’ll be joined in the 6:00 hour by Paul Hickman and Calvin Evans from Urban Ashes, an Ann Arbor-based producer of hand-made photo frames, custom-made furniture, and the like. While we never know exactly where the conversation will lead us, I imagine quite a bit of our time will be spent discussing their dedication to using salvaged materials and their commitment to hiring ex-felons. Following, to give you a sense of where the conversation may lead us, are a few short bios for Hickman and Evans.

PAUL HICKMAN: As a designer, artist, project/production manager and business owner, Paul has 35 years experience creating things from billboards to environmental graphics to retail store displays to furniture and picture frames. 15 years into his career, Paul hit a wall with the materials he was working with; they no longer made sense to him. In seeking answers, he discovered the world of working with sustainable materials and production practices. Since 1996 he has been a leader in the green building and the local movements. Forming Urban Ashes in 2009, he has been able to use his extensive experience to build a company that focuses on the empowerment of ex-felons through meaningful employment, and in reclaiming urban salvaged and de-constructed wood to produce picture frames and furniture your grand-children will fight over.

CALVIN EVANS: On January 29th, 2013, Calvin was released from prison after having served 24 consecutive years. Since his release he has become the HR/Operations Manager at Urban Ashes; a member of the Washtenaw County Workforce Development Board; a Violence Intervention Specialist for Wayne State Sinai Grace Hospital; and a highly sought after speaker including going back into the very prison system (twice) where he had done time, to speak directly to the inmates. Calvin’s mission is to be the face of what prisoners can become upon their release.

And, at 6:45, we’ll turn our attention toward the controversial Eastern Michigan University presidential search, as we’re joined Judith Kullberg from the EMU Faculty Senate and Howard Bunsis from the EMU chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), who, as you might expect, are not happy about being kept in the dark about the candidates being considered to lead their university… Here, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the issue, are the comments made by EMU Professor Howard Bunsis at the October 13 EMU Board of Regents meeting.

I am speaking today about the Board’s misguided, shortsighted, and unfortunate decision to make the presidential search a closed and secret search, ensuring that the campus community will not have any significant input into the selection of the next president of Eastern Michigan University.

This decision makes clear that the Board does not believe in shared governance. This is not a surprise; most of you come from the private sector, which is very different from a university. Colleges and universities are different, and public universities especially so – faculty and other voices need to be heard, for the simple reason that we teach the students, and we are the ones how are closest to the core mission of EMU.

AAUP statement on presidential searches and campus visits:
“There should be Campus visits where the candidate will meet with different constituencies, particularly faculty and students. These open visits are crucial in the success of the search process because they permit members of the campus community to participate in providing impressions, as well as to contribute to the candidate’s understanding of the culture of the institution. In this final phase of the selection process, open visits present vitally important opportunities for both the campus community and the candidate to determine each other’s suitability. This final step is extraordinarily useful to the search committee in making its final recommendation to the board.”

Shared governance does not mean that we decide – you are still the bosses. You are still the deciders. But you have to listen to us first. By not allowing the candidates to meet with faculty and others before a selection is made, you eviscerate shared governance here at EMU.

Transparency and honesty should be core values that you, the Board adhere to. Instead, you have chosen secrecy and duplicity. You are just going to announce, without any input from the campus community, that our president is ______. And if you bring the one final candidate to campus before formally being named, that is the furthest thing from shared governance you could find.

So why are you doing this? Because the search firm you hired got burned at the University of Iowa. What happened at Iowa? The final candidates were brought to campus, and the campus community was able to see how wrong the preferred candidate was. So in reaction, this search firm now advises: “no more candidates to campus.” This is the same search firm that got paid $200k at Iowa, and could not even discover their preferred candidate lied on his resume.

And this is NOT about hiring a non-academic for the position. We do not demand that an academic be hired. Not even close. This is not what this is about. This is about a process where you violate the basic principle of shared governance for faculty and other employees.

In addition, your process is not to designed to get the best candidates. Once candidates see that this is a secret process, they will know they are considering a campus where shared governance does not matter.

Lastly, despite your claims that everything U of M does is the gold standard and therefore automatically perfect, we believe that this secretive process violates the Michigan Open Meetings Act. Newsflash: U of M is not perfect. Newsflash: EMU is not U of M.

For these reasons, the All Union Council voted unanimously to pull our representative, Mike Shumaker, the president of the All Union Council, from the search committee. We refuse to be involved in such a flawed and secretive process. Go ahead and pick a president in secret – but you will not do it with our consent or support.

And, at about 7:15, we’ll talk with Billy Kangas about Depot Town’s most recent startup Cultivate Coffee and Tap House.

And, here, thanks to AM 1700 senior graphic designer Kate de Fuccio, is this week’s poster, in case any of you want to print copies and put them on every seat at U-M stadium.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NEVER TUNED IN TO THE SIX PACK BEFORE, HERE ARE THE DETAILS ON HOW TO LISTEN:

Unless you live inside the AM 1700 studio, chances are you won’t be able to pick the show up on your radio. As that’s the case, I’d recommend streaming the show online, which you can do either on the AM1700 website or by way of TuneIn.com.

And for those of you who aren’t yet familiar with the show, and need to get caught up, you can listen to the entire archive on iTunes. If you start right now, and listen to everything at double speed, but you can do it.

One last thing… If you’d like to tell your friends and neighbors about the program, feel free to share the Facebook event listing.

And do call us if you have a chance. We love phone calls. So please scratch this number into the cinder block wall of the recreation room of whichever facility you’ve been assigned to… 734.217.8624… and call us between 6:00 and 8:00 this Saturday evening. The show is nothing without you. Sure, sometimes it’s nothing even with you, that’s true, but usually you make it better.