Paper of the month: Tara Bahrampour

In wake of unrest, Britain replacing US as Iran "Great Satan"
Washington Post, July 17, 2009 You can read this paper here

This is an excellent paper which points out the difficulties we have in understanding not only foreign people but foreign governments.
How we are viewed abroad, and consequently how some government policies can be designed against us is not always based on facts, on good sense or on good information: it can be based on a reputation or on past encounters. In this report, Britain is seen by the Iranian government as the colonial power it was fifty years ago. I believe it: it took me some decades to change my opinion of Germany after WWII. Painful experiences with people or government make it hard to change our point of view.

This example is a good lesson for the US. We should do better with our strategic communications. and indeed restrict the publicity made by the Pentagon: they need the promotion but they are not the best at this; you should read also in the Washington Post, the paper by Walter Pincus (July 28, 2009)about the criticism coming from the House Appropriations Committee on this subject.)

I suggest that we change our image by hiring the people who promote tourism in Ireland: they make everybody want to go to Ireland which is a flat place with its past destroyed, always in bad weather and always on the verge of civil war. They have been consistently successful with this difficult task, therefore they can do anything. They are the best promoters in the world.

Business in need of translation

Ultimate simplicity: Belgian flag for Belgian beer.
Image from http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/16/beer-flags/

Try this ten days for ten dollars
As seen on TV: Free trial is outmoded, now you can try whatever for a ridiculous price. I find interesting that the two firms using this trick recently never tell you the price of the stuff on TV. Translation: the stuff is so expensive that they wont tell you the real price until it is too late.
Lifetime free replacement of anything
If it is a small business: they plan to go bankrupt immediately after the sale
If it is a big one: the shipping and handling will cover their cost
Ten tools in one
Translation: none of them tools works properly
Do you know your sleep number?
Smartest way to sell an air mattress!
Save 400 dollars with our car insurance
This is hard to translate, because all major companies promise the same thing. It does not make mathematical sense. Unless of course they share the market secretly: you in this state, me in that one, or me the old, you the careful drivers. But of course, they would not do that because it is illegal. Any translation?
Ads with dogs
Do not buy it. The product is not good by itself or it is too expensive. I make an exception for Bush beans, because it is an ongoing story where the dog plays against its traditional role.
Ask your doctor if this medication is good for you
Translation: your risk of being killed by it instead of cured is important.Scratch important, replace by not negligible.
What doctors (or some dealer) do not want you to know
Translation: We intend to make money out of a patsy like you. Because if the stuff worked, the doctors or pharmacists or whatever would sell it themselves, wouldn't they?
As seen on TV: "Post shredded wheat does not believe in progress"
Translation; some stupid pub firm has made a study showing that (a) a lot of ecolo buy the product (b)ecologists are usually conservative.
How many people like me will never buy Post again because of their stupid ad is not factored in.
What it says about CNN or MSNBC, I am not sure. Money pimp?

The romantic governor Sanford

I was wrong: the lovestruck Governor came back in the news.
I was not impressed when he refused the help of the federal government for his state: the first part of it was fine, honest post-Bush Republican worry about the national debt. The second part: how he was going to deal with South Carolina's problems was totally absent. So, I thought he was not presidential material: either he was unprepared, or he lacked the drive to keep himself informed on unemployment and to take a positive action.
Shortly after that, he disappeared into a lovenest, which is, in my opinion, a problem between his wife and himself, not between the electors and the press.
The only problem I have is that he cannot stop talking. It is hard enough to have your husband saying that another woman is your soul mate, but to say that you are trying to fall back in love with your wife is adding insult to injury.
You think it would stop there. It does not. My guess is that Governor Sanford keeps talking because it is the only way he is still in touch with the woman he loves. So now we are told that he has a book deal? Chucks, it is only on fiscal conservatism, and it fell through. What about how he sacrificed his true love for his constituents?
I am sure his wife would like the book. He is adding a book deal to insult to injury ? To be called a "magnificent Christian woman", under the circumstances, would not cut it for me, I would feel that it means I am sowehow a good person, not a very attractive one.

Many a wife is left wondering how come she never saw that her husband was a prick.