Daniel Lubetzky

Totally unrelated to silly Republican attacks against Obama for being too popular and too hip, the Obama campaign (to which, though an independent, I’ve contributed the maximum allowed) some times seems to not quite get the need for a bit more gravitas.  I just got an email (the umpteenth one in the last week) asking me to send $30 and be the first to get an Obama-Biden T-shirt.  The subject of the email:

First Edition Obama-Biden T-shirt

Really?  Is that the message the campaign should be disseminating?

Now, if some putz out there wants to hawk political campaign t-shirts as epochal collectors items, that’s fine.  But the official campaign team?

Show your support for the Obama-Biden ticket today. Make a donation of $30 or more and you will receive a first edition Obama-Biden T-shirt.

This follows a neat idea to have Obama supporters be the first to get an email advising who Obama had selected as his VP – and in Biden he made a great choice with gravitas.  That was a smart choice.  And it is great that the campaign can be "with it" and appeal to the young and use all necessary tech tools. 

But let’s hope the Obama team doesn’t get too enamored with itself and it’s appeal to the new generation.  It also has to appeal to the older generations.

From the ever-incisive and amusing Michael Kinsley, trying to decode the Democratic Party’s "platform":

Translating the document is no simple task. First, an alarmist note. Democrats favor “tough, practical and humane immigration reform.” And, “We will provide immediate relief to working people who have lost their jobs, families who have lost their homes and people who have lost their way.” It’s not clear what that third item refers to. Tax credits for G.P.S. devices? Presumably, “people who have lost their way” doesn’t mean illegal immigrants trying to find the border.

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Here is an amusingly observative piece from Verlyn Klinkenborg in the NYT editorial page about how smart-phones are taking over the human race and turning us into weirdly asocial beings…

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Before you watch this, make SURE you watch the earlier post about Matt (here).

Watch this and I dare you not to smile.

You can learn more about Matt here.

I noticed he visited Tel Aviv and East Jerusalem for modest takes in each place, but I’d love to bring him back for a BIG dance across Israel and Palestine.  We at OneVoice are always so worried about ensuring the OV brand is mainstream and not seen as flighty or disconnected from the reality on the ground, but frankly, you see this video and you realize, in the end, all that matters is what Matt is doing – transcending differences.  And to those that don’t understand that, I dare them not smile (and discover others’ humanity) watching Matt’s work.

What do you do when your formerly fun and irreverent brand has been threatened by months of media criticism over alleged corporate missteps? Regardless of where you stand on whether Microsoft tried to manipulate Yahoo or Jerry Yang missed an opportunity to drive shareholder value (or far harsher assessments including this one from Joe Nocera – and the counter-reply from the "fake Steve Jobs"), if you are part of Yahoo’s management – you need to get your team’s spirit back up, and you need to re-focus the world on the deep base of greatness and funk you’ve established over the years.

In a quirky way, this is exactly what this video, which is getting a lot of play and coverage, such as here, is achieving.

Whoever came up with this move at Yahoo deserves a lot of praise.

Every line in Cameron Crowe’s script for Jerry Maguire (one of my favorite movies) is at once witty and apt.  IMDB has a good compilation of some great lines. Besides the ones that have made it into every day life, like "Help me help you", "You had me at hello," and "Show me the money!", here are a couple examples:

Rod Tidwell, Jerry’s only remaining client: You are hanging on by a very thin thread and I dig that about you!

Jerry Maguire: I’m finished, I’m fucked. Twenty four hours ago, man, I was hot! Now… I’m a cautionary tale. You see this jacket I’m wearing, you like it? Because I don’t really need it. Because I’m cloaked in failure! I lost the number one draft picked the night before the draft! Why? Let’s recap: Because a hockey player’s kid made me feel like a superficial jerk. I ate two slices of bad pizza, went to bed and grew a conscience!

Avery Bishop, Jerry’s hard-core fiance: If you ever want me to be with another woman for you, I’d do it. It’s not something I’m interested in. Once, yeah, it seemed normal, but it was just a phase, a college thing, like torn Levi’s or law school for you. Would you like something from the kitchen? I’m gonna get some fruit.

Copy store clerk, after reading Jerry’s Mission/Manifesto: That’s how you become great, man. Hang your balls out there!

Ray, Dorothy’s munchkin son: D’you know that the human head weighs 8 pounds?
Jerry Maguire: Did you know that Troy Aikman, in only six years, has passed for 16,303 yards?
Ray: D’you know that bees and dogs can smell fear?
Jerry Maguire: Did you know that the career record for hits is 4,256 by Pete Rose who is NOT in the Hall of Fame?
Ray: D’you know that my next door neighbor has three rabbits?
Jerry Maguire: I… I can’t compete with that!

Avery Bishop: There is a sensitivity thing that some people have. I don’t have it. I don’t cry at movies, I don’t gush over babies, I don’t buy Christmas presents 5 months early, and I DON’T tell the guy who just ruined both our lives, "Oh, poor baby." But I do love you.

Dorothy: I just want to be inspired.

Dorothy: He’s coming over.
Laurel: Tonight?
Dorothy: He just lost his best client. I invited the guy over.
Laurel: Dorothy, this is not a guy. It’s a syndrome. Early mid-life. Hanging on to the bottom wrung. "Dear God, don’t let me be alone or I call my newly long suffering assistant without medical for company settlement."

Marcee Tidwell: [shouting, to Jerry] What do you stand for?
Dorothy: How about a little piece of integrity in this world that is so full of greed and a lack of honorability that I don’t know what to tell my son! Except, "Here. Have a look at a guy who isn’t yelling ‘Show me the money." Did you know he’s broke? He is broke and working for you for free! Broke. Broke, broke, broke. I’m sorry I’m just not as good at the insults as she is.
Marcee Tidwell: No, that was pretty good.

Dicky Fox, Jerry’s mentor earlier generation agent: Hey, I don’t have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success.

James Montague from The Guardian newspaper just posted an article about Eytan Heller’s vision for Israel and Palestine to co-host the World Soccer Cup in 2018, an idea which so far has already spawned OneVoice’s Imagine 2018 Campaign.

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Before you could type the lyrics to a song and find what you were looking for through google.  Now check out this very cool site: www.midomi.com.

Even for out of tune people who can’t sing, like me, you humm a song and the site helps you find what you were looking for.

When the site got a different song from what I tried to humm, I tapped to hear what it sounded like, and it actually sounded closer to what I ended up singing.

This episode of the Colbert Report is hilarious. Reporting on the news that fruit overtook cookies as the #1 snack for kids over 6, they note:

It’s an outrage that cookies are no longer the number one snack for children under six. Fruit is un-American.