Denis Leary is just stupid. Or lazy. Or both.

NBC makes the following report:

In the book, "Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide To Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid," (Denis) Leary makes light of autism and says it's an excuse used by "inattentive mothers and competitive dads" to explain why their "kids can't compete academically." In an excerpt of the book published in the New York Post, Leary writes: "I don't give a [bleep] what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you -- yer kid is NOT autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both."


Denis Leary is a complete ass. I'm sorry, I can't say it in a gentler way. I have three nephews who struggle with autism-spectrum disorders, and I can promise you, none of them can blame their inattentive mothers and competitive dads. Denis Leary should come meet these three wonderful young men - and my siblings. He wouldn't have the gall to say those things to my face, or theirs.

No one understands the rapid rise of autism, but I think every autism researcher in the country would agree that Denis Leary is just stupid. Or lazy. Or both. What an ass.

The Rockville Post Office Mural

Word comes that the General Services Administration has donated the old Rockville Post Office to the city government for use as the Rockville Police Department headquarters. According to Gazette.net, the renovation will cost $7.9 million while "retaining the historic nature of the building, specifically the exterior facades facing South Washington Street and West Montgomery Avenue and the lobby."

That's cool. But what's more interesting to me is that this historic building houses yet another WPA mural. (I wrote about the Silver Spring mural recently.) Painted in 1940 by Judson Dejonge Smith, the Rockville mural features Sugarloaf Mountain. Fortunately, the city will preserve the mural as part of the renovation process.

I love the mural in part because it looks like it could have been painted today. Owned and preserved by the Strong Foundation, Sugarloaf Mountain looks just as it did nearly 70 years ago - unlike the rest of Montgomery County. Yes, some new McMansions scar the bucolic beauty, but the region has escaped the biggest banes of suburbia: way too many Bradford pear trees, way too many houses on way too tiny lots, and worst of all, way too many strip malls and big-box stores.

Judson Smith painted at least two other murals in a similar simple and naturalistic style. This mural, entitled "Along the Barge Canal," hangs in the Albion, NY, post office. Smith painted it in 1939, a year before painting "Sugarloaf Mountain" for Rockville's post office.

And here is his painting of the beautiful Lake George for the post office there. He finished this work in 1942. It reminds me very much of the "Sugarloaf Mountain" mural.


Born in Michigan in 1880, Judson has been described as a "businessman turned painter." A painter, teacher and muralist, Judson Smith lived both in Michigan and Woodstock, New York, where he was the Director of the Woodstock School of Painting. He is recognized as one of the best New Deal painters.

As our nation's leaders attempt to pull our country from the brink of depression, perhaps they will commission new artwork for our public spaces. Hopefully not yet another ugly abstract metal sculpture! But more naturalistic paintings inspired by Judson Dejonge Smith's fine work.

Less than a dollar a day

Today is Blog Action Day when literally thousands of bloggers are taking up the issue of poverty to "raise awareness, initiate action and to shake the web." Great idea. I'll weigh in.

I originally thought I'd write about how terrible the economy is and my worry that we'll soon be starring in "Great Depression - The Sequel." I've personally lost over $100,000 in 401K savings, and after my divorce and the recession, I am broke. I even borrowed "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck from the library; I figured I'd better start boning up on how to survive the very worst of financial disasters. (Fortunately, I feel absolutely zero compulsion to load everything I own into my VW Beetle and drive across country to pick peaches. Apparently, I would make a lousy Joad.)

Anyway, as I was ramping up to whine, I saw a map that changed my mind. Since a picture paints a thousand words, I'll let you look at how many people in this world live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $1 a day:

I don't know about you, but the only way I can live on less than a dollar a day is to stay home and not turn on the computer. The downturn has revived any notion I ever had of frugality, but this is different. We're lucky; very few in the US live in extreme poverty. Western Europe, Russia, and Australia are also faring well. But look at South America and China. Six to 20% of these folks are living on less than a buck a day. And compared to Africa, the South Americans and Chinese are living like overfed royalty.

So even as we fret over lost retirement funds and increasing unemployment, let us remember how much we have here in America - and how we have a responsibility to others much less fortunate than ourselves. This puts a whole new spin into the old Hollies record, "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother."

Is there anything we can do to fight hunger and poverty in this world? Here are a few ideas:

• Provide microloans to the poor via OptInNow. As the organization's website says, "You give a gift that funds a loan. That loan builds a business. And that business helps hard working families out of poverty. When the loan is repaid, it’s recycled, and loaned again and again. It’s giving that keeps going." As an entrepreneur, I like this idea a lot. Giving as little as $25 to start a business? Priceless.
  


• Knit something for Afghans For Afghans. The organization "sends hand-knit and crocheted blankets and sweaters, vests, hats, mittens, and socks to the beleaguered people of Afghanistan." I've knitted several pairs of mittens for this non-profit. It really warms my heart to know that I am keeping someone warm in one of the least fortunate countries in the world.
  


• Stop buying your daily latte or Diet Coke and donate that money to charity. You might put Starbucks out of business, but you could make a real difference to a family in the Third World.

I'll close this Steinbeck quote: "How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him - he has known a fear beyond every other." Do what you can to quell that fear, to feed those wretched bellies. It is our obligation to each other - and to ourselves, too.

Brad rocks

Forgive my bragging… but my brother’s son, Brad, won a soon-to-be-televised match on It’s Academic, a long-running, DC area, high school, TV quiz show. This is even more of an achievement for Brad because he is the only sophomore selected for the team; usually only seniors win the honor to be on TV. But Brad is simply a freaking genius – and he’s handsome and sweet as can be, too. Plus he’s like 6’3”! If I weren’t his aunt and 35 years too old, I’d date Brad in a minute.

I’m very proud, as you can tell. :-) Brad is the dude on the left (which won’t be surprising if you’ve ever met my brother!).

Branding the Bailout

Today we wait for Congress to stop screwing around with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's $70 billion bailout plan and just pass the damn thing so we can sidestep financial armageddon. John McCain's Mighty Mouse imitation last week - "here I am to save the day!!!" - is just the latest symbol of our elected leaders inability to do a single reasonable thing. I'm scared and everyone else is, too. I wrote back in March that I feared the Next Great Depression, and sadly, I was right.


But I'm not here today to add my incredibly meager voice to the populace's outrage over this debacle. I want to focus on the marketing - or lack thereof - of Paulson's plan and how it should be rebranded to make the bailout more palatable to the American people. This is the USA, after all - we are all victims of marketing.

CNBC's Jim Cramer has been lobbying to call the plan "The Investment in America Plan" - and he's right. Paulson's plan is not a bailout or a donation to those greedy tycoons on Wall Street. It's a cash infusion into the American economy. It is an investment. The USA is getting a ton of crappy mortgages - all of which represent property soon to be owned by the United States of America. After the world stops panicking (which admittedly could take some time), property values will rise and the USA may actually make money. That's what Cramer says - and again, I think he's right.

The American people have invested in their country before. FDR led our nation out of depression 80 years ago by investing in America. You remember all those acronyms from the 30s: the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), the WPA (Works Projects Administration), the CWA (Civil Works Administration), and many more. Those agencies plowed tax dollars back into the USA by establishing or improving our nation's infrastructure, creating public artwork, revolutionizing farming, and much more. I remember the post office mural at the Silver Spring post office (which has been moved to the library), and from a genealogy perspective, I've benefitted from the hard work of WPA staff members who transcribed the country's censuses. We invested in the nation once and we need to do it again (without participating in World War III though).

So I second Paulson's plan and even more strongly support Cramer's suggestion that we rebrand the plan "The Investment in America." God willing, this investment will pay off. If it doesn't, I'm moving to Southern Maryland with my boyfriend. He has three acres of land where we can plant crops and keep a chicken or two. I won't tell you where it is... I don't want you showing up for free food if worse comes to worst!

Giant's Project Refresh

My brother called yesterday morning. "I've got a blog suggestion for you. Comment on the new Giant logo. I read the Post article about it and it sounds like a load of crap to me." While I respect my brother's opinion, I disagree.

I had seen the new branding; in fact, a postcard urging "Come celebrate our fresh new look!" was propped up against my monitor. Frankly, the coupons on the back are what caught my eye. Like everyone else, my food budget is stretched thin and I was drawn by the coupon for $1.00 off Rotisserie Chicken. But I had also read the Washington Post article, "Giant Puts on a Fresh Face For Its Supermarket Upgrades," that describes the rebranding.

I think Royal Ahold deserves high praise for reworking this tired brand. I grew up at the White Oak Giant Food; my mother hauled me there every Saturday to buy the family's groceries. Giant was THE place to shop for food in the DC area - until a few years ago when the house that Izzy Cohen built was sold to the international conglomerate, Royal Ahold. The store's venerable brand then slipped because of lackluster customer service, higher prices, poorly laid out stores, and more.


This serves as another reminder that a brand is NOT a logo. A brand is the feeling customers or clients have about your product or service. To use a very hackneyed analogy, creating a new logo for a mediocre company is like putting lipstick on a pig. Royal Ahold knows this and "is planning to expand its selection of prepared foods and private-label offerings. It also is instituting a family checkout lane that bans tabloids and candy in favor of yogurt, animal crackers and bottled water. Hand-held scanners soon will be available for shoppers to ring up groceries while they browse the store." New logo + improved service and products = renovated and resurrected brand. Smart, too.

The old Giant logo is just that: old. As the Post article states, the brand was created in 1963. Just like me, it needed a facelift (just kidding - in my case anyway). Royal Ahold needed to breathe life back into the stores, and in a market that includes exceptionally well-branded companies like Bloom and Trader Joe's, Giant needs to be able to compete.

My nomination for the next brand that needs refreshing? Safeway. It's looking a wee bit weary and boring in the now-more-vibrant grocers industry. It will interesting to see how the company reintreprets this household-name brand.

Before and After: TSpec

Julie & Company has just finished up a website for a long-time client, Technical Specialties, otherwise known as TSpec. The good folks there have been good to us for years; we first started working with them in 2001 when we rebranded and renamed the company. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the original logo, but as I remember it was pretty lame. Everyone was happy with the updated logo and website when it debuted seven years ago.

Fast forward to 2008. A lot has happened since then - especially on the web. What was an innovative site in 2001 now looked, well, nearly ridiculous. It was difficult to navigate, impossible to optimize for search engines, and was just plain old worn out.

BEFORE


So Patrick Carter, TSpec VP, called me to the rescue again. We've just launched the revised site and once again, everyone is happy with the face lift. We kept the logo as it is because it still looks fresh; this also allowed the company to avoid reprinting everything in its marketing arsenel. But Julie & Company greatly updated the homepage, adding a Flash animation, rollovers, and pop-up navigation. We also created sections for TSpec's major markets, allowing the company to provide a targeted message to a targeted audience.

AFTERAll's well that ends well - for now anyway. It's likely that within a decade TSpec will be hiring Julie & Company for another new website design. Why? Because the web will have continued to evolve and grow, and what looks great today will again look obsolete.

However, if we're lucky, both Patrick and I will have won the lottery, paid off all our bills, and be living like royalty someplace warm. From my lips to God's ears! Until that time, thank you, TSpec for being such a great and loyal client.