As IF Times

Source: Enough votes to remove Confederate flag, survey shows

I blame Oprah.  Who knew that our dysfunctional society was chock full of offensive and insensitive symbols representing oppression of virtually every subset of society? The confederate ‘stars and bars’ flag is claimed to be a symbol of  slavery and oppression from a long bygone era and as such should be eliminated from public display.  Hmm.  In Oklahoma, a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments is also targeted for removal because of its religious symbolism and therefore offensive to some.  For those not familiar with the Ten Commandments, they describe some of the most basic rules about living in a society; practical things such as not killing others, not stealing etc., perfectly reasonable (to most) and not the exclusive purview of those with religious leanings.

We recall the manufactured outrage over the Washington Redskins name last year when apparently people could barely live with that offensive label.  Somehow they have.  The Outraged and Offended racket (O and O racket) is coming into full bloom with the aid of sensationalist and ratings hungry media and of course the usual endless cast of litigating lizards.

Virtually everything we can think of these days is a Rorshach test of sensibilities, like people seeing evil messages in a bowl of alpha-bits. One can easily interpret the Apple logo as one which represents evil and sin as in the bite taken from the apple in the garden of Eden.  Years ago, the stars and moon in the logo for Proctor and Gamble was interpreted as symbolism for witchcraft and paganism.  What about Underwood devilled ham with the red guy and the pitchfork on the can?

It’s so easy to be offended by something these days that if you can’t find something that offends you, you’re not trying hard enough.  What is most interesting is the bullying aspect of those who are offended by a given issue.  That is, if you don’t agree with their views, you must be a hater.  What if you really don’t care?  Why isn’t that option B? So if you don’t really care about gay marriage, you’re a homophobe.  If you don’t recycle, you’re a polluter.  If you don’t eat organic chickens, you are contributing to cruelty.  If you don’t buy fair trade coffee, you are contributing to oppression in other countries.  Somehow, the self righteous  who universally have IPhones don’t seem too concerned about the sweatshop conditions that exist in the countries that manufacture them.  Or the designer clothes that they wear.

Of course, some people have legitimate claims to be offended.  For example, the husband of Joyce Mitchell, the woman who helped the two inmates escape from a New York prison has every right to be offended since he was actually targeted to be killed in the original escape plan. But, even he forgives his wife.

Unless you happen to be a basket of kittens, you are going to offend somebody and something is going to offend you.  Suck it up. You could be living in the African sub Sahara where you can be offended by a lion trying to eat you.  Let’s be practical and  be offended about  things that really affect us; such as media stupidity and body odor.

link P&G Razor Launches in Recession’s Shadow – WSJ.com.

This is truly what makes America tick.  Never mind the weighty issues of the day, annoying things such as unemployment, depleted pension funds, collapsing currency, nuclear nations, far away wars, none of that stuff.  What men prize most above all is a close shave.

According to the website, about.com, the patent for the ‘safety’ razor was issued in 1904 to King C. Gillette, ushering in whole new way for men to make themselves presentable.  Until this point in history, men had to endure the fickleness of shearing off facial hair with various kinds of sharpened knives and until Gillette’s invention, a straight razor.  I don’t know about anyone else, but the thought of sitting in a barber’s chair all lathered up while he goes at your face and throat with one of those sharpened blades makes me tense up like a fat guy at a cannibal convention.

Before the invention of the safety razor, it’s amazing that men bothered to shave at all.  Even with a safety razor, it was not unusual for men’s faces to appear as if they had been using their faces to fight cats, with red slashes and nicks aplenty.  The interesting part of the Gillette story is the idea planted in his head by William Painter, the inventor of the crown cork bottle cap.  Painter told Gillette that the real money was to be made by selling your product over and over again to the same satisfied customer.  Sheer genius really.  Thus was born the now famous “razor blade” business model, though as we see, it should  really be called the bottle cap model.

Gillette spent money and research to develop the type of steel needed to satisfy his business model, consequently factories were built, people were employed and with a military contract in hand, the rest as they say, was history.  From an idea to a business dynasty.  Fast forward a little more than 100 years.  Even with the invention of electric razors of all kinds, the razor blade business is still pretty vigorous.   According to the linked article, sales of Fusion, Proctor and Gambles’s top selling razor, contributes over $1 billion dollars of sales a year to Gillette’s parent company.  The product itself has evolved substantially from the 1904 model.  Over the years, there have been multiple blades added to the device which now stands at 4 or 5 on some of the recent iterations.   I can’t remember exactly how many, suffice to say, you are essentially shaving with venetian blinds.

The real challenge though will be how they propose to sell this.  The article states that the blades will sell for almost $17 for a 4 blade package.  Not exactly shave and a haircut, 2 bits as per the old ditty.  Seems like a lot of scratch to scratch your face.  I suspect women will be as likely to purchase at this price point as men, since at $17 bucks, a case of beer may be the stronger pull.  However you can never count out a company that has been successful for well over a hundred years on ingenuity of marketing alone.  Now about those nose hairs…..