• by John Gaffney , February 6, 2003

Ad Spanked Girls?: Mattel logged another successful quarter with the Barbie brand and the SF Gate went ballistic: “Profits jumped 35% at Mattel Inc., the world's largest toy company, in the fourth quarter, fueled by strong sales of its Barbie brand, which should be just a little bit frightening in and of itself, huge toy empire and the bulk of its profits still comes from this scary little doll, not to mention how you know such a declaration just means yet another million or so young brainwashed heavily marketed ad-spanked girls have been sucked into the skanky Barbie vortex, and now you know why the company instantly sues the living hell out of anyone who ever mocks or satirizes its precious little plastic C-cup cash-cow brain-scrambler bimbo, not too fond of anyone calling her, you know, Mistress Skank Barbie….”

The View From The Lower East Side: Manhattan’s not-yet-trendy southside neighborhood houses an amazing amount of webloggers, who are sharper and more irreverent than most New York media sources. This is from LockhartSteele.com: “Last night at my girlfriend's apartment, I realized women have a special advantage when it comes to "leaning left." It's a magazine called Real Simple. No doubt you've seen it. But if you're a boy, perhaps you haven't ever read it. BIG mistake. HUGE mistake. It's genius. I quote verbatim from an article called Toast: It's Not Just For Breakfast Anymore (p. 102) with this "Tip": "Never poke a metal object into a plugged-in toaster." It's gems like these that have catapulted the magazine onto AdWeek's Hot List, where it's number three with a bullet. I'm buying my own copy at lunch today to begin work on my new life's goal: having a story published in this publication. Anyone with editor connections at Real Simple, please email me.”

Proof That Absolutely Anyone Can Get On A Wire Service These Days: “As the U.S. looks like it is marching towards a military conflict with Iraq, many Americans are openly questioning whether or not it's an appropriate course of action. One of those is Rickey Medlocke, a member (guitarist) of Lynyrd Skynyrd. I wonder to myself about why we're going to war at such an extreme rush with Iraq," Medlocke said.

And Not One Alliteration: Tina Brown, writing for the London Times about AOL: “Now that the esteemed, bland CEO Dick Parsons is the last man standing, business journalists are going to miss covering the antics of the gang of four who created all this mayhem. Abrasive Steve Case. Machiavellian Jerry Levin. Flash Bob Pittman. Motor-mouthed Ted Turner. Forget the finances, forget the gameplan, these personalities were never going to share anything. How could Case, the diehard Republican with the Pizza Hut sensibility, ever fuse his company with the Time Warner culture of bicoastal country club liberalism?”