neighbour from hell

Oh look, there's good ol' Stacy Jones again.


But wait who's that behind him?


Why, it's a family in financial distress, asking people to donate to the Auckland City Mission.
If you get really close you can hear the mum say, "sorry darling, all our other furniture has been repossessed to pay the loan sharks.
"If you keep eating, we will have to join Auckland's homeless and will get disappeared by the council so as not to upset Rugby World Cup fans."
In an NZ exclusive I can reveal this is not the first blog post about this ad! No - it's featured on this Russian website. And thanks to my Latvian flatmate, I can reveal that the Russians were interested in the fact the ad started out featuring furniture which "crumbled" away, by design.
Which was disappointingly mundane after I went to the trouble to secure a Latvian flatmate and all. Surely it could have involved a conspiracy about Russian spies ending up at the City Mish in the hope the food there would poison them or something. (Disclaimer: I have never eaten at the Mission but I'm sure the counterspy ring would have had their hopes dashed!)
In another aside, Stacy here is pretty much opposite the Baycorp building...

Kiwi kids are weet-bix (if they're lucky) kids

Remember when Judy Bailey's kids in Exotic Poor Countries cost $1 a day?


$15 a month is 50c a day. South Auckland is cheap at half the price!
This. Is. Sick. Not the "Kids Can Stand Tall" charity itself mind, but the fact that the need for the charity exists at all. They give out raincoats and shoes and socks and food - as they put it, they're "meeting the basic needs of Kiwi children". The basic needs? the BASIC NEEDS?!? Yes folks, they're not joking. Because nobody else is meeting those needs... and when I say 'nobody' I mean the government, of all recent shades. This is a national disgrace but it isn't a National-only disgrace.
Oh sure, the Ministry of Health is a "platinum sponsor"... right up there with the Number 1 Shoe Warehouse. The government vaccum has produced advertising opportunity for the Golden Arches, as a raincoat "partner". Kids in poverty in NZ have become a business promotion vehicle. Their unmet need is being "leveraged" in corporate board rooms. This strongly private model of distibuting wealth to the neediest is a very scary one. How are children such a low priority in this country? This is neglect and abuse of the most systemic kind. As the charity frames it, it's an educational need - you're not going to learn if you're at school hungry.
How is this level of need tolerated and acceptable? Kids Can Stand Tall is the official charity of the All Blacks. Apparently this country is happy to flaunt its child poverty to the world during the World Cup. Business as usual I guess, not so shocking. For shame!
PS The Child Poverty Action Group is holding an info evening for young 'uns under 35 on August 17 at the Auckland Medical School (click here and scroll down for details).

do as we say we do

Man, ASB gotta change their ad people. First, there was that whole "we're a Kiwi bank" debacle, then they kept flogging that dead bird (I dobbed them in to the highest authority in the land - Sideswipe), and now this:

ok, so it's not so much offensive as overbearing, commanding, condescending, patronising, knowitall and smug. "Doctor" with a capital "D"? Because doctors are such important authoritative oracles, just like ASB? Also, shoes can talk, not that well-paid bankers would know about that.
Continuing the medical theme, here's an eye test:

Madly assuming some of you are sober, and are therefore seeing double, here's the translation: "Get behind St John. We are."
More commandments! I have never felt less like helping the children. Or the ambulances. Every time ASB tells me to do something I want to stamp my foot and yell "NO!"
Also, how many organisations are crass enough to use a whole ad just to tell you what they sponsor?
Kashin! You have betrayed me!

because your cancer's worth it

I'm sure this organisation helps a lot of women, and the vast majority of people involved will have the best of intentions. But still, this makes me uneasy:

If you look veeery closely and whisper "global cosmetics industry conspiracy" three times, it actually says "pick make up" (If you look even closer you can see the reflected electronic bus timetable... I like to think of my picture-taking skills as endearing).
Basically "Look Good Feel Better" offers makeup and wig workshops for women with cancer, in order to counter the cosmetic side effects of cancer treatments such as hair and eyebrow loss, dry flaking skin and pigmentation changes.
In itself, the LGFB service is commendable, I think. But why only for women? How come men don't have to look good to feel better? (Women get workshops and free make-up; men only get an online American brochure).
And why only women with cancer - why not also those whose appearance has changed due to burns, car accidents, domestic violence, alopecia, skin conditions and so on?
Author Barbara Enrenreich notes that breast cancer in particular is associated with "prettiness and pinkness...meant to inspire a positive outlook", and that this expectation of positivity can add to the stress of having cancer. Get your free "Cancer Sucks" button here.
More generally - and the LGFB service and its branding are more a consequence than a cause of this problem so I don't mean to single them out - why is self-prettifying (including clothes shopping) the main self-medication option women are given when we're feeling crap? (Followed by eating chocolate, of course.)
From volunteers in the LGFB's July newsletter: "we run our Workshops to empower woman [sic] and give them confidence".
Empowering women with make-up? I imagine those who agree include whorehouse madams, 1950s housewives and perhaps LGFB's Board of Trustees, made up of people from "the Beauty industry, and PR industry, and the Cancer Society".