Truthfully, Cemetery Mary is not that into raging, with or without drugs, but I’m always up for rebellion. So today I offer a rebellious game called “Attack the Medidiots” (that’s Media + Idiots if not obvious) and the object is to counteract the toxicity of our addictive daily news feeds, which seems intent on driving us all into deep depression, economically and otherwise, with nonstop need to terrify the general public.

I offer by way of example a recent Wall Street Journal story about Starbucks that I innocently read because one of my most beloved relatives spends her life doing PR for this gargantuan global coffee company.

Oh no! I thought, reading the article. Bad PR for Starbucks means a hard day for my cute relative, darnit! But then reading on, I got annoyed so annoyed…

The WSJ explained how coffee drink sales had dropped severely this quarter and how the company was going to launch a defensive advertising campaign to combat competitor insults, etc. etc….and because sales had dropped, and they were now making a quarterly net profit of only $25 million dollars …

Hey waitaminute…

TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS OF PROFIT IN THREE MONTHS? Total revenue is at $2.33 billion? Plus twenty more stores than last year? And this is worrisome why?

In my game, Attack the Medidiots, winners find ways to cut through the crap of the scary spin and find another truth that feels cheerful and motivating, instead of hopeless and terrifying

For example, Wall Street Journal, why not say:

STARBUCKS STAYS PROFITABLE IN GLOBAL RECESSION.

See how easy it is to play?

I MEAN REALLY, finding a downside to a story about profits during a recession is like grousing because last year we were running marathons when this year we’re just cheerfully walking around the block, healthy, while so many others have cancer, diabetes, or the swine flu. 

And speaking of The Flu Formerly Known as Swine, this H1N1 flu shows the Medidiots at their most ridiculous, no? News of its travel across globe is announced with the frequency of rush hour traffic reports, there are pictures of people in facemasks, and pigs may never recover from the hit on their reputations.

Then we learn that 36,000 a year die of just the regular flu?

Here’s the question of the day: Should this make us freak out LESS about The Flu Formerly Known as Swine, or do we need to freak out MORE about generic influenza?

Maybe it’s all a clever marketing scheme concocted by the makers of Purcell? I have no relatives who do PR for that lucky company, so you tell me.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Antidepressposts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.