Lisa Williams writes in to direct our attention to this Romenesko snippet about the ASME’s reaction to the Target controversy/non-controversy. Thanks, Lisa! She also notes that she backs up often, which I didn’t mind at all because she preceded it with “Love the blog.” That makes everything OK. The Philadelphia Inquirer mentioned the Target business in a recent story about single-issue sponsors and unorthodox ad design, too. (Admirably, the lede cites an example from the Inquirer itself.) And in the Boston Herald, David Carey speaks his mind:

“‘We’ve had people who say the New Yorker shouldn’t do things like this,” Carey, The New Yorker’s publisher, told the Herald in an interview. “I don’t agree with them. We’re a commercial business.”

My friend Heather, whose charming, articulate child I’m helping take care of in coastal Massachusetts this week, just strolled over to tell me that, speaking of sponsors, Jack White is writing a song for Coke. Indeed, he’s seriously considering it:

“They want a new ‘I’d Like To Buy The World A Coke’ and believe Jack is the only artist who can deliver them something that will be equally timeless,” the source explained.

It’s seems unlikely that White or The White Stripes will perform or even appear in any new campaign, but with the band’s traditional and authentic approach and Coca Cola’s multinational status, a commercial could raise eyebrows amongst the group’s fanbase.

In 2001 the band declined the offer of appearing in a Gap commercial, hinting that doing so would mean selling out. “The Gap wanted us to be in a commercial and we said ‘no’ and everyone said, ‘why not’? It’s almost as if, if people are willing to give you that much money, you are insulting everyone you know by turning it down,” said White at the time. “People’s opinions about selling out seem to have changed over the years.”

Commodify your dissent from the commodification of dissent! I still don’t care about the Target ads, not because I’m a slavish loyalist but because I think you’d have to be from Mars to confuse them with New Yorker content. The only real objection I had to them was that they made the ads, and hence the margins, of the magazine too visually consistent, bland even in their groovy garishness. What’s charming about New Yorker ads is their smallness and oddness, the juxtaposition of improbable animal pins and lap pools and homey hats and retirement communities and missing forks and Galapagos nature expeditions and small-publisher books and cheery newcomer websites and other stuff, all in tiny typefaces with distinctive and elegant yet unobtrusive graphics. The Target ads may be heralding that all this, like multiple-artist spots, may be a thing of the magazine’s past, but I think it would be a mistake to junk the old model altogether. Attracting larger advertisers is good, with some exceptions, but sameness of pages—even with different artists—is not The New Yorker, and I think they know that.

I don’t like to go on rampages that aren’t rampages of delirious endorsement (for Donald Antrim, Michael Apted’s UP series DVDs, The Queen’s Gambit, marzipan, etc.), because, as Satchel Paige would say, it angries up the blood. The Chicago Sun-Times‘ Lewis Lazare is on a rampage about those Target ads in the magazine recently, and that’s OK. I don’t agree with him—the ads, if mildly distracting, are clearly commercial art (Milton Glaser, for goodness’ sake!) and very unlikely to confuse readers even passingly familiar with New Yorker design and content—and some of the Sun-Times readers don’t, either. But if you want to set my blood on Whip, mention Wal-Mart as a “classy” advertiser for Vogue, an above-board alternative to the Target-and-New Yorker calumny. Lazare writes:

It’s a leap that, quite frankly, boggles our mind. And one that many consumers may look agog at. Especially coming as it does in Vogue, whose somewhat elitist image seems at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from hugely populist Wal-Mart.
Here’s the good news, though: The Wal-Mart ad insert is a stunningly classy effort. And thankfully one that couldn’t be confused with Vogue‘s editorial content.
The insert’s overarching concept is to introduce Wal-Mart as an outpost where fashion-savvy types may find items of apparel that can be mixed and matched with elements from shoppers’ existing wardrobes to create fresh, unstuffy fashion statements. Each ad page features a smartly attired real-world woman with copy explaining what’s from Wal-Mart and what’s from the photo subject’s clothes closet.

Sounds like someone here has let advertising and reality blur together like this season’s violet eyeshadows. As documented by my old friend Liza Featherstone and many others, Wal-Mart has marked its place in history not as an ethical business leader but as a defiant bastion of discrimination and shameful labor practices. That it continues to set the standard, in many ways, for both the national and international business communities is a disgrace. Neither Wal-Mart’s blitz, since women sued the company on behalf of 1.6 million of their colleagues for discrimination, of Midwestern-accented, we’re-the-good-guys ads nor hiring a more stylish ad agency make it “classy.” Remember those skeletons Tina Brown outfitted for a fashion spread back in the magazine’s uneasy ’90s? You can drape rotting bones in as much couture as you want, but they still won’t have souls. If Vogue cared about women, real-world or otherwise, it wouldn’t take advertising from a company that would be happy if they just went away. In the words of Wal-Mart Watch spokesperson Tracy Sefl,

Wal-Mart thinks educated women will be so excited about the prospect of cheap merchandise that they will forget about how Wal-Mart does business. Wal-Mart is facing the nation’s biggest class action gender discrimination suit. They must hope working women care more about clothes, shoes, and purses and less about equal pay, promotions, and fair treatment in the workplace. Moreover, we look forward to a Wal-Mart ad that declares, “Better Health Care For Our Employees is The New Black.”

Wal-Mart Stumbles Onto the Runway [Wal-Mart Watch]
Wake Up Wal-Mart [“Always high costs. Always.”]

Malcolm Gladwell, that good Canadian, is on Leonard Lopate (Kenji Jasper is guest-hosting) talking about single-payer healthcare systems. He’s making some excellent points about using incentives other than insurance for encouraging people to take better care of themselves; the collective danger, expense, and inefficiency of forcing uninsured people to use the emergency room for their basic healthcare; and about how single-payer won’t change our relationships to our doctors, just the way we pay the bills. Here’s the story he’s discussing, “The Moral-Hazard Myth: The Bad Idea Behind Our Failed Health-Care System.” But really, I don’t think Gladwell should be taken aback at Jasper’s request for predictions about the likelihood that the United States will adopt a single-payer model someday. “You’re asking me to read the future,” Gladwell is saying. Well, yes! You have Big Theories! The least you can do is have a little Faith Popcorn in your own abstract assessments. It’s the modest thing to say, of course, but I really don’t think it’s necessary.