On Edmonton's Own Ad Scandal

So, the big news here in Edmonton is the below advertisement, from Fluid Hair Salon. It was actually created and launched a year ago, but was only caught by bloggers and made big in the last couple days. Since then, women's rights groups in the city have been up in arms, and it's not hard to see why.

A well-coiffed woman sits on a chair in front of a frightening Dexter-type man, sporting a nasty looking black eye. The caption "Look good in all you do" implies, sort of, that as long as she looks good eventually, with a shiny new necklace, abuse is just fine. It's a risky and dark ad, and I personally don't think that a salon should be touching this subject with a 10 foot pole, but that's just me.

However, up until now I'll admit that I wasn't that interested or insulted by this little controversy. It was a very misled "artsy" ad that never really got big before now, and in a way it actually does some good by bringing needed attention to the issue of domestic violence. 

What actually got me intrigued is that somewhere out there, someone was mad enough to vandalize the salon. Here are a couple pics from CBC:

"This is art that is wrongly named violence; that was violence wrongly named art!"

It's sort of poetic.

On the Vancouver Riots

Pictures from identifyrioters.com

The riots in Vancouver were news here in Sweden, and I imagine all across Europe. I am so very ashamed that my favourite city in the world is being represented this way to the world. Doesn't it look like an apocalypse? The saddest thing about the situation is that it's so senseless. It's not a revolution, it's not anger at the government, or even at another group of people. It's just senseless anger and destruction and there's no point beyond that.

The man in the bottom picture taking a swing at someone is actually a hero. Here's the video of him trying to stop rioters from burning a truck, when all of a sudden he is attacked by a man behind him and he punches him back (that's this picture). At that moment a mob of maybe 20 people jumps on him.

If you think you may know any rioters take a look at this site, and help the city identify them. Or just look at the photos of destruction and contemplate why alchohol + sports ≠ a jolly, good-natured time 

On a Far Away Vision for High Speed Rail in America

This has nothing to do with marketing, art, or culture, but bear with me. I found this picture on reddit.com and got really really excited. I may not be American, but if this could spread to the U.S. and be successful, maybe it could make it's way to the Great White North!

Living in Europe since January has shown me the benefits of a train system. We commonly just say "well Canada and the U.S. are too big for a train system" and write it off. But as this plan shows, we could just set up train systems in the densely populated city areas. Why do we need to drive everywhere we want to go? Planes are too expensive, buses are full of creepy people and time consuming. What if we had trains instead?

In Canada I could see this going up in the Eastern areas around Toronto, Ottawa and in Quebec. As I don't see myself with a car in the very near future (or, ideally, at all) I'd love to see this become a reality.