Potpourri, again

Once more I have a lot of ideas saved up. Here are some:

1. Blushing Bride. The local news had a story maybe 10 days ago, which again I'm in too much of a rush to link to, about a store that sold wedding dresses that suddenly shut its doors and declared bankrupcy. It featured, as might be expected, distraught brides to be, complaining about the awful situation they were in, because they trusted the company and then they suddenly closed, without notice.

I take the unpopular position that the news treated the bankrupt company unfairly. I don't hold them blameless, but from what little I know about business bankrupcy, the report failed to provide the context that would explain the company's actions. In doing this, it failed to point the way to possible solutions to keep this from happening in the future.

First of all, the company undoubtedly did not set out to go bankrupt. I haven't seen their business plan, but most companies want to make money, not lose it. As far as I know there have been no allegations of fraud, i.e. that the principals of the company overpaid themselves in order to rob the company as much as possible with bankrupcy on the horizon. It is pretty common for the owner of a small business to loan the business money to keep it afloat, hoping it will turn the corner and survive.

I don't know if the company's original plan was reasonable or whether it was reasonable for it to try to ride out the crisis as long as they did. It sounded like the company used a lot of shipping. When gas prices rise, shipping costs rise. That could help explain why things went awry. I do think it was piss poor to get into this situation. I think a company that undertakes an enterprise like this should make damn sure they're not undercapitalized, and there should be some insurance offered to customers to prevent the worst. But society has not set up a strict liability standard. The law and the culture encourage half-assed startups in the name of the market. So the entrepreneur cannot entirely be blamed.

The customers wish they had been informed in advance. My understanding is that there is no such thing. Once there is an announcement of an impending bankrupcy, any hopes of riding out the crisis pretty much go out the window. No one will put anything into the company anymore, because they're on notice they may not get it back. Fraudulent conveyance laws kick into place preventing the company from giving things out -- it's treated as creditor property even before the papers are filed. Basically, the company has no choice but to close its doors. Even to give out dresses kept on the premises would be considered stealing from the creditors.

I think it's shitty that the company did not leave their customers a longer note. It's not enough to say, sorry for the inconvenience, and let people presume the worst. They should have said, now that we're bankrupt, matters are mostly out of our control, but we will do our best working with the lawyers and creditors to get everyone their dresses if possible. That could have alleviated at least some of the stress.

Ultimately, everyone whose weddings were scheduled within two weeks of the bankrupcy were promised their dresses. As far as I know this promise was kept. It was reportedly kept for at lest the first bride with an upcoming wedding. I have no doubt this was the lawyers who worked this out, recognizing the potential for bad publicity against the creditors.

In sum, the company acted badly, but the news media's inept and misleading coverage made them the only culprit, and failed to explain how some of the complaints against them were really attributable to aspects of the law and culture that should have been questioned, but remained unquestioned after all the reporting was done, helping set this up to happen again.


2. McGruff. McGruff, the crime dog, is at it again, teaching the kiddies how to do crimes.

Cartoons are popular with three kinds of viewers: kiddies, the tragically ironic, and no-goods who bust into houses to rape, steal, and watch Tom and Jerry. Adults seeking serious information on how to prevent identity theft generally do not go to Blue’s Clues, Clifford the Big Red Dog or McGruff.

So here he is again on TV, showing us how you can take a picture of someone’s credit card discreetly with a cell phone, and use the numbers to make unauthorized purchases. Cool. Kids don’t have credit cards, though if the kid is over 12 he probably has his own cell number. So you know kids aren’t gonna run and tell their parents this new trick.

No-goods will be sitting in someone’s living room after a home invasion when McGruff comes on during Matlock, and reminds them how they can get a credit card out of the victim’s purse and order a pizza.

And of course, the tragically ironic just think it would be cool to commit a crime suggested to them by a misguided crime-prevention effort, so they order original artworks from the Banksy website and have them sent to the Whitney at Altria.


3. Yellow Ribbons. Yellow ribbons, it turns out, are a fascinating example of semantic drift. Part of the message of the ribbons has remained the same: I support you. But tracing their use backwards, it turns out that the rest of their meaning has reversed almost 180 degrees.

Today, the ribbons are an endemic outgrowth of the Iraq war, and they seem to signify something like, “I support you in your mission. You’re a hero.” Everyone is supposed to have one of the damn things. It’s considered patriotic to consider the mission heroic on the level of the individual soldier, even though most now see the war as a whole as stupid and counterproductive, if not simply wrong – one unnecessary atrocity spangled with smaller atrocities. It’s currently debated whether the ribbons also display support for the war.

I recall earlier uses of the ribbons. The previous Iraq war, or “Persian Gulf War,” then years before the current one, saw the ribbons. Their meaning was not support for the war so much, at least where I was. It was more, we love you and we want you back. Over the decade, the military aspect and even the location were unchanged, but there was a subtle change in tenor from expressing love and the pain of absence to support for the mission.

Ten years before that was the first use of the ribbons that I know of. We’re now back to the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979-80, the “crisis” that became “America Held Hostage” and later NBC’s Nightline. The ribbons were for the hostages. Between the Hostage Crisis and Iraq I, the notion of “we want you safely home” remained intact, but shifted from diplomatic hostages to military personnel engaging in a hot war.

The first use was in 1974, when Dawn, featuring Tony Orlando, performed “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree.” From some of the lyrics, you might think there was a hint of soldiers returning from the Vietnam war: it begins and ends with simply, “I'm comin' home…” Everyone knows the chorus:

Tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak treeIt's been three long years. Do you still want me?If I don't see a ribbon round the old oak treeI'll stay on the bus, forget about us, put the blame on me.If I don't see a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree

But the context is clear that the singer is actually much more like the hostages in Iran than like our troops. He’s a prisoner. An inmate at one of America’s fine penal institutions:

I'm comin' home, I've done my time…
I'm really still in prison, and my love she holds the key
A simple yellow ribbon's what I need to set me free

So, the yellow ribbon used to say: Yes, it looks like you done wrong and landed in jail. But you’ve done your time, you’ve reformed yourself. You’re willing to accept responsibility and “put the blame on me.” That gives me faith in you to forgive you and take you back.

Appropriate for Lynddie England, perhaps. Certainly not the meaning the ribbons have today.


4. Other. Here is just a reminder to me of things I want to write for this space:

a) The Activism Amendment, b) Venezuela or Guatemala for the Security Council? c) Democrats criticize Chavez, d) Dogcross, e) Westphalia, f) The purported rights of nations to persist, g) 911 and immigarants, h) guns in schools and nukes for nations, i) Sex talk, j) God Talk, k) Cry Wolf, l) Eden.