The .Plan

Take this headline, for example:

Device found in body cavity; flight diverted

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — An Iraqi immigrant with a suspicious device lodged in a body cavity was detained Tuesday at Los Angeles International Airport, authorities said.

Come on. Whenever you see a headline that says “body cavity”, what kind of cavity could possibly be under discussion? Abdominal cavity? Oropharyngeal cavity? Retroperitoneal cavity?

The headline, “Device found in rectal cavity; flight diverted”, would be equally as informative.

Not until much, much later in the story do you learn what the real story is:

“He initially said (the device) was therapeutic,” she said.

The device had a wire and what may have been a magnet concealed in his rectum, federal officials said. It did not contain any explosives.

Well intentioned, but ultimately useless:

Steven Spielberg smiling down from billboards in San Francisco; Christy Turlington striking a yoga pose in a New Yorker ad; Bono cruising Chicago’s Michigan Avenue with Oprah Winfrey, eagerly snapping up Red products; Chris Rock appearing in Motorola TV spots (”Use Red, nobody’s dead”); and the Red room at the Grammy Awards. So you’d expect the money raised to be, well, big, right? Maybe $50 million, or even $100 million.

Try again: The tally raised worldwide is $18 million.
–Mya Frazier, “Costly Red Campaign Reaps Meager $18 Million”, Advertising Age, March 5, 2007