When Sir Paul McCartney performed a historic concert in Israel earlier this week, he wore the OneVoice symbol on his lapel – as did every member of his band. How did this come about? When we learned that McCartney was headed to the Holy Land, our team in OneVoice Europe, led by Sayyeda Salam, took [...]
Seeing Alaska Gov. (and McCain Vice-Presidential nominee) Sarah Palin be interviewed by Katy Couric gave me a strange sense of deja vu. Where had I heard this before? Then it came to me… Here is the CBS News interview – discussing her foreign policy experience: And here is what I had heard before: Miss Teen [...]
Following the trend where comedians (Stewart, Colbert) tend to be the best at undoing all the spin and exposing the raw political reality, David Letterman’s reaction to McCain’s cancellation of his visit to the show provided the best analysis of the situation. The Christian Science Monitor provided a good recap here – quite funny actually. [...]
In contrast to Coke’s advertising trying to say that Coke is all-natural (!), Pepsi has focused its product development and advertising messages separately promoting lines that are "FUN" (as above) and lines that are "Healthy." Of course the goal should be to create healthy and fun lines, but at least where fun is what you’ve [...]
When the movie Life is Beautiful came out back in 1997, I felt a gnawing guilt at enjoying the movie so much, when the protagonist, as a concentration camp prisoner, found a way to laugh and make others laugh, amidst dehumanizing circumstances. Could a sense of humor have a place in such a dark episode [...]
Almost a year ago, I was so upset at unfair attacks being lobbied at my Palestinian partners at OneVoice. As they were gaining more and more prominence for their work to achieve a two state solution, those who opposed them within Palestine tried to discredit them based on a smear campaign revolving around questioning their [...]
From a lunch meeting with my friend Frederic Brenner, the photographer, philosopher and social anthropologist, he shared this powerful quote: Nous sommes tous de lopins et d une texture si informe et diverse, que chaque pièce, chaque moment fait son jeu. Et se trouve autant de différence de nous a nous mêmes que de nous [...]
with respect to acting in the face of danger, courage is a mean between the excess of rashness and the deficiency of cowardice; with respect to the enjoyment of pleasures, temperance is a mean between the excess of intemperance and the deficiency of insensibility; with respect to spending money, generosity is a mean between the [...]
A new social psychology study asserts watching meanness and aggression on TV rubs off on viewers. If true, we are in for something. Meanness appears to rub off on viewers By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY Researchers have long known that watching violence on TV or in movies ratchets up aggression, but what about watching people [...]
Interesting WSJ article about "guerrilla marketing." LIFE & STYLE SEPTEMBER 12, 2008 The New Pranksters By ELLEN GAMERMAN Across the country, young people are joining campaigns that are drawing thousands of followers inspired by a common purpose. They’re not handing out leaflets at rallies for Barack Obama or John McCain. Instead, they’re posing like statues [...]