FOR THE MEMBERS OF
CENTRAL OHIOANS FOR RATIONAL INQUIRY
"What you think you know may not be so."
Founded by Ann Pratt in 1996
Our 10th Year of bologna detection
Volume: 10 // Issue: 8
It's the *CORI SUMMER HIATUS*
No Meeting this Month!
*MEETING: The next membership meeting will be OCTOBER 1, 2005
LOCATION: TBA . . .
*TOPIC 1: WHITHER CORI – Is it time to fold the tent?
*TOPIC 2: TBA . . .
BUSINESS: Follows presentation.
LUNCH: Follows Meeting;
attendees are invited to gather at a nearby venue
LINKS FOR SKEPTICS
James Randi Educational Foundation http://www.randi.org/
*NEW*- Randi's Encyclopedia http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/
C.O.R.I. Website http://www.ohioskeptic.com
Rev. Art's Blog http://revart.blogs.com/minister_of_rants/
Artist: Benita Epstein
QUOTE / UNQUOTE
"Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God? [Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge]
"Baltimore Orioles slugger Rafael Palmeiro has been suspended ten days for violating Major League Baseball's steroids policy." [WBEN Radio, 8/1/05]
Rafael Palmeiro is a friend. He testified in public and I believe him. He's the kind of person that's going to stand up in front of the klieg lights and say he didn't use steroids, and I believe him. Still do. [President George W. Bush, 8/2/05]
FEATURE
THEY CALL IT "INTELLIGENT DESIGN" ...
Regularity in Nature is not proof of the control of Nature by a Divine intelligence; it is rather the reverse. If something- call it matter, or ether, or x - exists, it must operate in accordance with its innate qualities; and so long as this x remains uncontrolled, its manifestations will continue unchallenged- in other words, there will be "order". The same causes, the same results. That is the manifest signs of a natural "order" that knows nothing of God. [Chapman Cohen]
PRESIDENT ENDORSES TEACHING
INTELLIGENT DESIGN IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Wonkette smirked right back this week when Bush endorsed the teaching of "intelligent design" in schools adding that "we shouldn't leave interior decorating to the gays."
"Kidding, mostly.
"Intelligent design" actually refers to the argument that "life forms are so complex that their creation can't be explained by Darwinian evolutionary theory alone, but rather points to intentional creation, presumably divine." Teaching [ID] as an "alternative" to evolution is a little like teaching "magic" as an alternative to physics, which at least would explain the president's belief in the missile defense program."
(As often as he falls off his bike - maybe the Texas Dauphin has a competing theory he'd like to see in the curriculum right alongside gravity.)
BEING INTELLIGENT ABOUT INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Center for American Progress
On Tuesday, just a few weeks after the 80th anniversary of the famous Scopes trial, President Bush expressed his support for teaching intelligent design in public schools, saying, "[b]oth sides ought to be properly taught...so people can understand what the debate is about." In so doing, he "invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution." ... Treating (ID) as (a scientific theory) for political purposes does a disservice to the nation's children ...
ID PROPONENTS SHOULD ADVANCE THEIR THEORY THE RIGHT WAY
If proponents of "intelligent design" wish for their theory to hold the same stature in the scientific community as evolution, there is an appropriate course of action. Like any other researchers, they should subject their critiques and theories to repeated testing and submit their findings to be reviewed by their peers. Instead, as it stands now, "church groups and other interest groups are pursuing political channels" to crowbar their views into public classrooms. Neither, moreover, should we close our eyes to the scientific merits and teach "intelligent design" simply because some fear that theories like evolution, which say precious little about how humans ought to act, will open the door to "moral relativism." ...
"In districts around the country, even when evolution is in the curriculum it may not be in the classroom, according to researchers who follow the issue. ... Teachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from fundamentalists in their communities."
I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent. [Arthur C. Clarke]
"Intelligent design doesn't have to attract significant support from actual researchers to be effective. All it has to do is create confusion, to make it seem as if there really is a controversy about the validity of evolutionary theory. That, together with the political muscle of the religious right, may be enough to start a process that ends with banishing Darwin from the classroom.
[Paul Krugman, Columnist - New York Times]
MASSIMO HAS A BLOG!
Massimo Piliucci, Ph.D.'s new blog, about politics, science, religion, philosophy, and every other conceivable application of that most rare of human abilities - critical thinking - replaces the monthly column Rationally Speaking we have enjoyed since Year 2000.
Massimo says the blog is "in response to the ever changing dynamics of the Internet world." RATIONALLY SPEAKING
Massimo is a biologist and part-time philosopher at SUNY-Stony Brook, NY. He writes regular columns for Skeptical Inquirer, Free Inquiry and Philosophy Now.
BUSH SAYS SCHOOLS SHOULD TEACH INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Of course he would. ... I'm sure political gain does enter into this, but I also bet that Bush really is as simple-minded as he often comes across to be in media interviews. He probably does honestly believe that ID is a good alternative to the science of evolution, and all those political cartoons portraying him as a monkey don't help either. Though they are pretty funny...
So, what did Mr. Bush really mean, when -- referring to teaching intelligent design "theory" in public schools - he said that "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought; you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes"?
According to his own science advisor, John H. Marburger 3rd, "evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology" and "intelligent design is not a scientific concept." Marburger said people should not over-interpret Bush's statement, since what he meant was that ID should be discussed as part of the social context in science classes.
Hmm, apparently some of Bush's own supporters have a different interpretation in mind. Richard Land, president of the ethics and religious liberties commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said that "it's what I've been pushing, it's what a lot of us have been pushing, [evolution] is too often taught as fact; if you're going to teach the Darwinian theory as evolution, teach it as theory. And then teach another theory that has the most support among scientists."
What this "other theory" allegedly supported by "most" scientists might be is hard to guess. Surely Mr. Land could not have been referring to creationism, in any of its various and equally misguided forms.
And please stop this silly stuff about evolution being "just" a theory! Of course it is. Any scientific theory is a theory: gravity, relativity, thermodynamics, atomic, quantum mechanical, etc. But this does not imply that it is on equal footing with such nonsense on stilts as intelligent design or young-earth creationism. A scientific theory isn't a hunch, it is a coherent body of (often mathematical) statements about how the world works, used to intepret a wealth of solid empirical evidence (otherwise known as scientific facts).
Where is the evidence for intelligent design, please?
Slate
(Click on image to enlarge)
THIS BIOLOGY PROF IS MAD AS HELL!
Biology Professor PZ Myers provides a very helpful resource for critical thinkers, blogging @ Pharyngula :
Yeah, I’m afraid the “civilized academic debate” was settled about a century ago. Scientists have been engaging in that ideal, non-militaristic fashion for quite some time, and still are — those discussions go on in the pages of the journals. Unfortunately, while we have been doing everything in the proper civilized way, the forces of ignorance have not; they have lied their way into considerable power.
Here I am, a biologist living in the 21st century in one of the richest countries in the world, and one of the two biology teachers in my kids’ high school is a creationist. Last year, the education commissioner in my state tried to subvert the recommendations for the state science standards by packing a hand-picked ‘minority report’ committee to push for required instruction in intelligent design creationism in our schools. All across the country, we have these lunatics trying to stuff pseudoscientific religious garbage into our schools and museums and zoos.
This is insane.
Please don’t try to tell me that you object to the tone of our complaints. Our only problem is that we aren’t martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough. The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many schoolboard members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians.
MORE: Professor Myers proposes a "less-loaded" (or differently-loaded) survey question than the ones that are usually seen in the popular and sectarian media:
Should students be exposed to the best education possible, or should they be indoctrinated into religious concepts, like Intelligent Design creationism? Give us your opinion.
- Yes, the theory of evolution is one example of a robust scientific theory which should be taught in public schools.
- No, students should be taught sectarian religious concepts in public schools, at the expense of actual science.
Artist: Jeff Swenson
FALLACIOUS ASSAULTS
"No one has the right to destroy another person's belief by demanding empirical evidence." [Ann Landers, advice columnist, deceased]
"... the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science both reject intelligent design and don't want it mentioned in science classes. That, in my opinion, is fascism. There is no reason the students cannot be told that more than a few people, including some scientists, believe the creation of the world, no matter how it occurred, involved a higher power. ... Just state the facts, whether it be science or any other subject."
[Fox News Host Bill O'Reilly]
"... (the tragedy at Columbine happened) because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud."
[U.S. Representative Tom DeLay (R-Texas)]
OVERWHELMING SCIENTIFIC PROOF!
Posted by Giblets The Magnificent @ Fafblog
Dear Mr. President:
Giblets has news - SCIENCE news! - that will shake you to the very core of your being, that will render you a gibbering lump of stammering flab with the power of revelatory truth!
Last week Giblets was reclining on the grassy banks of an elysian river when he made an alarming scientific discovery: clouds aren't shaped like clouds, they're shaped like stuff. Look! That one looks like a moose, that one's a monkey, and that one is exactly the spitting and glorious image of Giblets rendered in living cloudflesh! "I dunno," says Fafnir. "That cloud looks like a cloud." Amazing, what are the odds! Conventional meteorology is useless in the face of these amazing stuffological anomalies. The only explanation that makes ANY SENSE AT ALL is that these clouds were designed - INTELLIGENTLY designed - by some intelligent cloud-shaper in the sky!
"Giblets you have blown my puny mind!" you say. Yes yes Giblets's revelations shock you to your presidential core, but there's MORE!
The other day Giblets was looking for his glasses but he could not find them anywhere! After hours of searching Giblets was about to give up when he found them on top of his very head. How did they get there? It is an unsolved mystery which science is powerless to solve! The only rational explanation: these glasses were intelligently designed on my head by an intelligent designer with vast and unfathomable powers! "You don't have glasses," says Fafnir. Even more incredible - they are glasses ex nihilo!
Possibly related: an intelligent coin-designer may have secretly hidden seventy-three cents in the cushions of Giblets' couch.
"Giblets you have shattered my reasoned and ordered worldview into a thousand splintering pieces with your hammer of unyielding truth!" says you. Silence you have only heard the tip of the iceberg! What comes next is the most important scientific discovery in the history of history.
Just yesterday Giblets was strolling through the woods and screaming at animals - what are they doing in Giblets's woods! - when Giblets just happened to accidentally step on an eagle. Giblets couldn't throw it out because there were no eagle recycling centers around; Giblets couldn't dump it on the ground because it would leave unsightly eagle stains all over his woods. But just a few feet away was a lake, so Giblets just threw the big ol' bird in there and it sank straight to the bottom, no muss no fuss.
Now, here's the question: how did the lake know Giblets needed to throw out a dead eagle?
The only answer: it was designed. Intelligently designed to be near Giblets when he stepped on an eagle. Giblets stepped on several cats on the way home to further confirm this hypothesis. Giblets has repeated this experiment many times with reproducible results.
What is obviously needed is a massive overhaul of the national education system to make sure children are taught the existence of intelligent designers in school, overseen by Giblets. To think they could go ignorant of the origin of bunny-shaped cirrus formations when the evidence around them is overwhelming! Look at this box and this soup and this inkblot! Look, you just make out a beard! Everywhere, everywhere!
COMMENT - TonyB responds to Giblets:
"Reproducibility is the gold standard of science, so Giblets has clearly established the shiny new paradigm of intelligent design. Good for you! But who designed the designer, eh? Could it be the same guy who guards the guardians?"
WHAT KEVIN TRUDEAU DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT
You may recall that your CORI Bulletin ran a review of Mr. Trudeau's book a few months ago and followed up with a discussion of same at our meeting . . .
The author of the bestselling "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About" claims to be a consumer advocate in the Ralph Nader mold. But the infomercial king just wants your cash.
By Christopher Dreher, a writer living in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Salon
July 26, 2005 | Many a late-night channel surfer has been numbed to sleep by endless infomercials hawking ab machines, penis enlargers, psychic readings and baldness cures. But how about a 30-minute faux talk show featuring a slick "expert author" who promises natural cures for cancer, diabetes and chronic fatigue syndrome and who claims that the FDA, drug companies and food industry have withheld such cures from the public in order to keep making bigger and bigger profits?
Step right up folks, and tune in to the paranoid world of master huckster Kevin Trudeau, whose book "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About"climbed to the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list for advice titles last weekend. The Federal Trade Commission virtually banned Trudeau from the airwaves last year in an attempt to "shut down an infomercial empire that has misled American consumers for years." But by shifting his business model from selling supposed cure-all products to peddling books, which are protected by the First Amendment, Trudeau has been able to slip past federal regulators and continue to sell snake oil to the masses -- first through his infomercial and now via mainstream book retailers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
Reno R. Rollé, an executive consultant who handles U.S. retail and international distribution for "Natural Cures," says the book has sold nearly 3 million copies since the infomercial debuted in September 2004, and he sees no end in sight to its success. "No one knows where this thing is going to max out. We're just printing as many books as we can," Rollé says. "We're poised to make history here. What we're doing could revolutionize the book publishing industry."
Even before hitting the bestseller list, Trudeau, who is in his early 40s, had built a billion-dollar empire as a prolific infomercialteer, selling various health and self-improvement products under the cover of night. This despite a two-year stint in federal prison in the early '90s after pleading guilty to credit card fraud, and a 1996 tangle with the Illinois attorney general, who accused him of running a pyramid scheme while working for a health-products company called Nutrition for Life. Trudeau and a co-defendant settled that case, paying $185,000 to Illinois and seven other states; during that time, the U.S. Postal Service and Securities and Exchange Commission also investigated his business dealings.
A close look at Trudeau's later run-in with the FTC, in 1998, during which he and seven cohorts were accused of making "false or unsubstantiated" claims in advertisements on radio and television infomercials, sheds much needed light on his character and says a lot about how seriously (or not) we should take "Natural Cures." Ads for the "Sable Hair Farming System," Trudeau's own "Mega Memory System," "Doctor Callahan's Addiction Breaking System," "Action Reading," "Eden's Secret Nature's Purifying Product" and "Howard Berg's Mega Reading" all came under scrutiny they could not withstand.
"We're going to be sharing Dr. Callahan's revolutionary breakthrough that he discovered while studying quantum physics," the addiction infomercial went, before claiming that the system cured compulsive eating, as well as alcohol, cocaine and heroin addiction, and led to weight loss without dieting or exercise. "This technique will take 60 seconds to apply and works virtually 100 percent of the time," the FTC noted as another claim. It said that the "videotape sold in the infomercial showed Dr. Callahan demonstrating his technique -- a series of gestures, including tapping the face, chest and hand; rolling the eyes; and humming, which, if mimicked, were the supposed addiction cure." The claims were false, according to the FTC.
Another Trudeau product, "Howard Berg's Mega Reading," offered a home study program guaranteed to boost reading speed and comprehension 10 times over. "I have a letter here from a girl who has brain damage," Berg confided in another infomercial. "She was in a car accident and half her brain stopped functioning. It was electrically dead." According to the FTC, "he then claimed that after using his system for a brief period -- as long as a coffee break -- her reading speed increased from three to 600 words per minute..." Not surprisingly, the FTC deemed the Berg program bogus as well.
And Trudeau's own "Mega Memory System," which asserted that everyone has an innate photographic memory that could be tapped into with his help, was unmasked too. To show how fraudulent the system was, the FTC cited snippets of the infomercial, such as: "Kevin Trudeau's breakthrough techniques were developed while working with blind and mentally handicapped students. Their recall ability increased from 15% to 90% in just 5 days," as well as the infomercial's claim that the system was "guaranteed to work for you."
In the end, Trudeau settled the case; he was fined $500,000 in consumer redress and warned against making false product claims in the future. But this didn't deter him. In 2003, the FTC charged Trudeau once more, this time citing another product, Coral Calcium Supreme. The FTC argued that claims made in Trudeau's infomercial by Dr. Robert "Bob" Barefoot that calcium derived from coral reefs near Okinawa, Japan, could treat or cure cancer and other ills -- such as multiple sclerosis and heart disease -- went far beyond existing scientific evidence concerning the health benefits of calcium. Trudeau settled that case as well. But this time, in addition to being fined $2 million, he was also banned from "appearing in, producing, or disseminating future infomercials that advertise any type of product, service, or program to the public" forever.
Afterward, Trudeau loudly complained that the FTC was censoring him and started a Web site called The Whistleblower, on which he tries to fashion himself as a new Ralph Nader -- a selfless consumer advocate opposing powerful institutions and defending regular folk. But Trudeau's claims of persecution and martyrdom are hard to swallow for many. "He wasn't censored -- that's just total fantasy," says Dr. Stephen Barrett, a health-fraud expert who runs a network of watchdog Web sites, including Quackwatch. "What's happened is that he's just not allowed to sell products with false claims. That's the only censorship going on."
"Trudeau is the undisputed king of false infomercial advertising," he continues. Barrett's alarm over Trudeau's tactics heightened with the coral calcium infomercial. "It was just one lie after another, all orchestrated by Trudeau," Barrett says. He isn't any more impressed by Trudeau's current infomercial for the bestselling "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About."
The book, which Trudeau self-published, is a paranoid mixture of self-evident and widely known health facts with very few, if any, natural cures. It is almost amusingly campy -- except that the information is so odd, and alarmist. "Natural Cures" is poorly sourced and peppered with jaw-dropping absurdities, such as "The sun does not cause cancer. Sun block has been shown to cause cancer" or "All over-the-counter nonprescription drugs and prescription drugs CAUSE illness and disease." Or, this tribute to logic and language: "If you read the labels of everything you put in your mouth, you would see the name [sic] of various chemicals. All the chemicals listed are dangerous man-made chemicals. They are poisons. If you were to take any of those chemicals and ingest a large amount at one time, you would probably die. Therefore they are in fact poisons."
His prose style mimics the gibberish favored by online spam advertisements, and he frequently uses SCREAM CAPS to emphasize OBVIOUS POINTS. At one point, Trudeau implies that he was an undercover government agent and that, because of his inside knowledge, the government and powerful corporations are out to get him -- though he doesn't share what any of his highly prized knowledge is. And always lurking somewhere is the nefarious "They" of the book's title -- the FDA and the FTC, who are in cahoots with the drug companies, which hold back the real natural cures because they won't make any money if you're healthy.
On every page, he stokes the paranoia and anger generated by recent high-profile corporate and government scandals, as well as the ire against the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. But don't worry, not only will his book save you, but you can also go to his Web site, NaturalCures.com, for more information and for the "real cures," all for a lifetime membership of $499 or a monthly fee of just $9.95. In essence, the infomercial sells the book, which sells the Web site --which nets Trudeau tons of money.
But there's nothing strictly illegal about Trudeau and "Natural Cures." Heather Hippsley, assistant director for the division of advertising practices at the FTC, who supervised the commission's case against Trudeau, explains: "Books are fully protected speech. He can author a book and voice his opinions ... The line is: Informational materials, OK. Products and services, banned."
Peer-review systems -- like the one in place on Amazon.com -- do their best work in warning potential buyers of bad or faulty products. On the Amazon site, over 500 people have weighed in on "Natural Cures" so far. Yet, although reviews have been almost overwhelmingly negative -- in Amazon's "star rating" scheme, the book is averaging a two -- sales haven't slowed. Despite headlines like "'Scams they don't want you to know about"; "Trudeau is worse than the drug companies!"; "Left feeling totally duped"; "Natural Cures he Contiunous [sic] Not to Tell U About"; and "The Book Just Simply Sucks," "Natural Cures" hovers at the top of the Amazon bestseller list week after week.
Indeed, all the negative Amazon reviews in the world probably won't keep people from checking out "Natural Cures." "What's driving sales is not people buying the book but people buying the infomercial," says Sam Catanese, president and CEO of Infomercial Monitoring Service, which tracks the direct-response television marketing industry. In fact, according to Catanese's data, "Natural Cures" was recently the most-run infomercial on television -- 139 times in one week. (The runner-up was a distant second, appearing 96 times.)
As for the television broadcasters' responsibilities in this issue, they've turned a blind eye to Trudeau and his type. "[The Federal Communications Commission] has never been inclined to take anyone's licenses away because the industry they nominally regulate actually regulates them," says Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University. "The industry is too powerful to contend with, and regulation is largely farcical, except when there's political teeth biting, as in the case of Janet Jackson."
It was Reno Rollé who initially urged Trudeau to combine his extensive experience in infomercials with the book business. "I suggested he focus less on hard products, ingestibles, and more on information and newsletters," he says. "That way he could find a safe harbor under First Amendment protections." They teamed up to see if, and how, it would work. "No one knew how a book would behave," he says. "Initially we treated the book as just a product that shouldn't behave differently than a stomach exerciser or kitchen utensils." It's a strategy that paid off handsomely.
"The infomercial business is very standardized," Rollé continues. "You put the product on TV first to create awareness and sell a large number of 'units.' Then, after a period of time, you pull trigger and head out to retail." And once a product hits retail, as "Natural Cures" did just four weeks ago, Rollé says, the industry standard is to sell two to 10 times as many "units" as were sold on TV.
Although Rollé could not give figures about the amount of advertising time being purchased for "Natural Cures," one source in the direct-response industry who asked not to be named estimated that Trudeau is spending a million dollars a week on national cable and could also be spending another half a million on broadcast channels. The source suggested that Trudeau's return from that investment would be about $2 million to $4 million a week. "He's got the formula down and he knows how to trick people," says the source. "And he's got enough money to do it. The FTC can't stop him because the amount they fine him is nothing compared to what he takes in."
Besides reader complaints on Amazon, there's other evidence that buyers of "Natural Cures" are feeling ripped off. Tim Young, an Alabama-based publisher of community maps and local directories, has had trouble for the last four months because Trudeau's marketing company that "publishes" "Natural Cures" chose the same name as his business, Alliance Publishing Group. Young has received hundreds and hundreds of calls about the book from booksellers, distributors and agents -- but mostly from angry readers. "I don't even answer my phone anymore if I don't recognize the number," Young says. "I'm getting all this e-mail from people who are pissed off because they bought the book for cures and there's no real info in the book and they have to go to a Web site and pay money to learn anything."
Trudeau isn't hoping to cash in on only one book, either. A few months before "Natural Cures" was released for retail sale, Trudeau contacted publishing giant HarperCollins about an early-'90s version of his infomercial spin-off "Mega Memory" book, which was on their backlist. HarperCollins has repackaged the book to resemble Trudeau's current bestseller and it will be re-released in mid-August, when "Natural Cures" will certainly still be hot. HarperCollins has also slapped "As Seen on TV!" and "By the bestselling author of Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About" prominently on the book's cover.
The FTC's Hippsley told Salon that while her agency will continue to keep a careful eye on Trudeau's publishing activities, the Constitution does offer him protection. "He can put that book out there, and if consumers choose to purchase it, that's lawful.
Unfortunately, there are individuals out there whose career is to do consumer frauds."
But some First Amendment experts point out that there are limits. "Nobody has a right to engage in fraud, even when the fraud takes the form of speech," says Richard H. Fallon, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School. "What, if any, laws does someone break when [engaging] in false or misleading speech? Generally none, because the First Amendment wouldn't allow punishment for [that]. But one of the exceptions is that false and misleading speech can be prohibited or prevented when that speech is closely tied to commercial activity," he says.
Meanwhile, Trudeau recently filed a lawsuit himself -- against the FTC. In it, he maintains that its September 2004 press release announcing his ban from infomercials contained false and misleading information, implying that Trudeau was banned from all infomercials and didn't distinguish his literary allowances.
Trudeau continues to spin his career as a struggle against the censorship of a vengeful FTC and the tyranny of legal groups that won't let him lie in commercials or bilk consumers. But now, Trudeau is shooting even higher than emulating Ralph Nader. He recently told BrandWeek, "Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez and Gandhi and Martin Luther King" are the figures he looks to for inspiration. We can only hope he has less success than those civil rights heroes.
Contact: Editor, Rev. Art