Let’s see. There’s the iPhone. Granted, that’s almost entirely Apple, but they did need a carrier for the first version, and Ma Bell stepped up. Then there’s AT&T Park, one of the most picturesque ballparks in America, in spite of being home of the woeful San Francisco Giants. And now there’s a fresh batch of Wes Anderson directed commercials, thanks to goldenfiddle from kottke for the tip.
I heard one of them in the background yesterday, but didn’t catch the video, only the story-line and absurd amalgamation of cities and places at the end. All in all, very clever, but nothing without the trademark Wes Anderson seamless movement from scene to scene to pull it all together. Roll the tape:
Typical Wes Anderson brilliance.
As for the dark side of AT&T, see the inimitable emptywheel Marcy Wheeler, at The Next Hurrah for a quick rundown:
Back in June, the Bush Administration invited one of AT&T’s key lobbyists, Ed Gillespie, to serve as White House counselor. A few weeks after that, BushCo expanded AT&T’s resident lobbyist’s role to include most of Karl Rove’s portfolio. Just days after Gillespie took over that role, the DOJ made an unusual intervention into the FCC’s request for comments on Net Neutrality, weighing against Net Neutrality.
Well today, one of AT&T’s former key attorneys, Peter Keisler, just took over the Department of Justice.
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Basically, Bush just gave AT&T the ability to have its long-time lawyer give it legal authority to collaborate with the government to spy on citizens.
And in case you’re worried that AT&T is stuck with no good legal representation, having lost Keisler, rest assured. You see, former Associate White House Counsel Brad Berenson (who also happens to be Kyle Sampson and Susan Ralston’s lawyer) has taken over for Keisler and is working on the AT&T case, among other things.
Reaching back a week for this gem, on the matter of our esteemed former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his desperate attempts to bury the warrantless domestic spying fiasco:
And finally, it adds another reason why telecom companies are anxious to get immunity for their work on the Administration’s warrantless wiretap program. That’s because some of that wiretapping was based on analysis the telecom companies are already doing on us.
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You see, when these lawsuits go forward, we’ll have a sense not just of how the telecom companies are complicit in the government’s spying on us—but how much they’re already spying on us, anyway.
Luckily, all of AT&T’s and the Bush administration’s “alleged” efforts to spy on their customers and citizens takes place just right outside my front door at 611 Folsom Street. Thanks, fellas. I feel much safer already.
I don’t see much television these days, and when it is on I’m usually distracted by ‘my blooogs’ (inside joke). I happened to catch the tail end of the Cavs debacle tonight, which normally would have gone unnoticed, but I bring it up only to mention this absolutely brilliant commercial…
I should tell you that I grew up on Filet-O’-Fish. In fact, my brother, father and I would only eat Filet-O’-Fish when we ate at McDonalds. Of course, if you know my father you won’t be surprised to find out that he hated that obscene amount of tartar sauce they throw on it, so we always had them specially made without it. It was painful but well worth the wait, perhaps because McDonalds was always such a treat back then…
At any rate, I remember when they tore down Dr. Bob’s (our dentist) office building around the corner from where I grew up in Columbus. (No word on what happened to the giant clown face covering the children’s play room, but that thing always kinda creeped me out so maybe it’s best not to think about it.) In its place went what I considered to be my very own McDonalds. I ate there three times on the first day and was bummed I couldn’t make it four (couldn’t sneak out for lunch back in my freshman year of high school so I had to make do with breakfast with Dad on the way to school, an after school meal, and then dinner with my family later that night). I remember not feeling so well that night.
I suppose that was the beginning of the end for me. Over the next ten years I slowly moved away from my beloved Filet-O’-Fish and its ‘food-flavored food’ kin toward more authentic and higher quality (and by this I mean real) foods.
I haven’t been to a MacDonald in over ten years now, though I often wish I could eat there regularly again. Not for the dining experience of course, but because I would save so much money on meals. I could never do it, but for a second tonight the thought crossed my mind: I wanted a Filet O Fish so badly I could taste it. And that brought back some wonderful memories for me, so much so that I just had to share them.
More soon.
LMAO!! Saw this for the first time yesterday afternoon during the Ohio State v. Memphis game (such a great game). btw, I even had all of the elite eight teams picked correctly, though stupid Kansas ruined my final four…
I never realized that Errol Morris did the previous round of High Life commercials. Not enough to make me want to drink the beer, but I always loved the way he framed the story.