At Least 14.3 Years Too Early
The World Wildlife Fund made an ad showing hundreds of planes zeroing in on the World Trade Center to highlight...um...I'm not sure what. Somehow this is linked with tsunamis and pandas, but most of the world has just linked it with the WWF being idiots. Print and video ad shown at the link.
The post title refers to this.
Michael:
I saw this and thought this must be the same mindset that thought buzzing NYC with Air Force 1 was a good idea. But I've heard media references to the right wing terrorists at town hall meeting trying to stop health care. Maybe there are people at WWF that see the development of NYC and carbon using planes as the tools of planet wide terrorism. The reference to events related to plate tectonics is beyond me.
September 2, 2009, 10:37 pmIan Random:
What does the World Wrestling Federation have to do with pandas?
September 3, 2009, 4:39 amFred from Canuckistan . . .:
The WWF Private Jet World Tour to let Rich People feel good about doing what the WWF tells us we shouldn't do.
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/009779.html
September 3, 2009, 5:43 amtraderpaul:
I believe the World Wrestling Federation changed their name to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) a number of years ago. Apparently WWE was worried that sharing the acronym WWF would hurt their reputation, and from this story rightfully so!
September 3, 2009, 5:50 amJohn Anderson:
Video has been removed.
September 3, 2009, 6:09 amJon:
Did anyone else see Olbermann "condemn" the ad? He started out well but saying it's poor taste to exploit such a tragedy, but then he turns around and read the WWF statement verbatim and spent a minute or so defending them. Makes me sick.
I'll believe WWF when I see the lawsuit filed.
September 3, 2009, 7:29 amCaptain Obviousness:
You would think if the number of deaths in the Boxing Day tsunami was the punchline of the commercial, that they would get the year right. It was in 2004, not 2005.
September 3, 2009, 9:21 amMichael:
From my understanding, the WWF sued the WWF over using WWF's trademark. The trial judge ruled for the WWF and against the WWF. The WWF decided to change their name to WWE rather than continue the suit against the WWF.
September 3, 2009, 1:44 pmTheAP:
The ad is awkward but I think the message (respect the planet) is valid. However, I'm not sure that respecting the planet would have made the tsunami any less deadly. Unless WWF is advocating thinking about where we locate cities/large populations.
I also took another slant on the message...
9/11 was bad, no doubt, but there are things that happen that are far worse in terms of human loss. How many foreign terrorist attacks have there been against the US in our country? You could take this as saying hey don't forgot about other bad things besides terrorists and try to put things in perspective.
There is value in getting past a negative emotional reaction to this ad. The underlying message could be think for yourself and try to wade through emotional buzzwords like terrorists and 9/11.
I'm sure if special interests could profit billions off govt contracts by hunting tsunami's like we "hunted" "terrorists" after 9/11, we would be led to think that tsunamis posed a huge threat to our country as well. The tsunami threat is red today.
In the long run, "disrespecting" the planet/nature has caused/will cause more harm to the human race than any group of people engaged in violent acts towards another group of people. Outside of
Bottom line- People are sheep. Sheep don't like that ad.
September 4, 2009, 2:52 pmMichael:
Yellow Stone National Park is nothing more than a 45 mile wide caldera and on the geological clock, it's d-day for it to erupt. Nature can do things to this planet that man can't even begin to compete with. The fate of the human race rests in the hands of the whims of nature, not the type of car an American drives.
September 4, 2009, 11:15 pm