Luke Ford | No sacred cows.

The Movie I Most Want To See – Charlie Wilson’s War

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Luke Ford

IT sounds like a surefire hit for the Christmas movie season: bosomy showgirls snorting cocaine in a Las Vegas hot tub. A rowdy, Scotch-guzzling hedonist splashing in there with them. Oh, he’s also a congressman. Then there’s a rogue C.I.A. operative. Big names on the marquee: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman. All this, and the story is true.
…“Charlie Wilson’s War” is not as didactic as many of the others and is set in a pre-9/11 world. Based on the late George Crile’s best seller, it is about a square-jawed Democratic congressman from Texas who used his seat on a military appropriations subcommittee during the 1980s to secretly steer more than a billion dollars to finance the mujahadeen rebellion in Afghanistan against the invading Soviet army.
…“Lions for Lambs,” despite Mr. Cruise, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, has brought in only $14.8 million so far domestically. And the box office for “Rendition” has stalled at less than $10 million. Meanwhile “In the Valley of Elah,” from Paul Haggis, the director of the Oscar-winning “Crash,” has made a paltry $6.8 million. And Brian De Palma’s “Redacted,” though just in a handful of theaters for three and a half weeks, has still made less than $63,000. (That’s not a misprint.)
The one movie that wrapped any of its political messages in a more conventional exterior, “The Kingdom,” performed much better. Yet this action-adventure buddy movie, with a budget of $70 million and starring Jamie Foxx, has captured less than $50 million at the domestic box office.

Here’s the true story behind the movie.

Posted in Hollywood, Movie Reviews | Comments Off

Strippers and Business Tactics

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Luke Ford

From Dr. Rob Oliver:

While doing "research" looking for a picture to frame this post with, I stumbled across something funny about how strippers and business tactics. It made me reflect that cosmetic surgery/medicine and strippers are alike in how sales are done.

From the Wise Camel Blog

Sales Technique #1 – Give them something for nothing One of the first things a stripper will do is come up to you and flirt with you. She will likely sit on your lap or do something to raise your excitement level. For this, you have to do nothing. But you do get a sample of the service and if it is a good one, your chances of buying the service increases. This also applies to the dances they do on the stage.
Sales Technique #2 – Understand your customers Strippers get to know their customers by asking questions. This allows them to develop a rapport and tailor the sales pitch…
Sales Technique #3 – Tailor the Sales Pitch Strippers will try different sales pitches to different people based on what she thinks they like. “I like to get dirty” or “Have you seen my great ass?” or “My tits are real”. Each pitch may be the one thing that converts the potential customer into a buyer. (Pointing out a tight ass works well for me). And she revises her pitch based on experience.
Sales Technique #4 – Make sure you are selling a great product/serviceShe knows she has to have a great product. If she put on 30 pounds or hadn’t showered for the past 4 days, she would likely not get as many customers. Regardless of how great of a salesperson you are, you can’t do much with a crappy product/service.
Sales Technique #5 – Provide Good Customer ServiceShe will make sure you are happy on your first dance or she won’t get repeat business or won’t be able to do what she ultimately set out to do…Upsell.
Sales Technique #6 – Upsell She sells the customer on a relatively cheap service, a lapdance, but then markets her other services to them. She tries to get them to the “champagne room” and sell an upgraded service, which is where the money is at. However, without the first sale, she would never get the larger sale. Customer acquisition is tough. Once she does it, she needs to get as much business as she can.
Sales Technique #7 – Closing Techniques. She will use a variety of closing techniques to get you to buy her services. There are a variety of closing techniques, but two popular ones used by strippers are the compliment close (usually flirting with you) and companion close (getting your buddies to push you into closing the deal).
Sales Technique #8 – Target your audience Strippers market to individuals that are interested in her service. First, she works in a strip club where guys go specifically for her service, that is obvious. But she also knows which guys to go after within a group or which groups will likely spend the most money. Spending time with cheap-asses only wanting to pay a dollar for a dance will not be a wise use of he precious time.
Sales Technique #9 – Persistence Even though the audience is qualified, she knows she will get rejections. Even so, she will go up to every guy and ask if they need a lap dance. She also knows that the more guys she asks, the more yes’s she will get.
Sales Technique #10 – Branding I don’t know any strippers that are named Ethel, Mildred or Agnus. Instead, you will get the pleasure to do business with Cookie, Destiny, Candy, or Raven.

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Blogging for Truth and Beauty

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Luke Ford

Natasha Singer writes:

MOST bloggers have never met a beauty product or treatment they didn’t love. The fill their columns with wildly enthusiastic prose about the latest blush, the newest procedure or research that they laud as cutting-edge.

Then there is Dr. Robert Oliver Jr.

Dr. Oliver, a plastic surgeon in Birmingham, Ala., started his blog plasticsurgery101.blogspot in December 2005, and he has used it to question everything from so-called fat-melting injections to the propriety of surgeons who give in when patients demand outsize breast implants even when it is against the doctor’s better judgment.

In one recent post, he described the result of an actress’s botched breast surgery as “Franken-nipple.” In another, he criticized doctors who advertise procedures and are not even surgeons, much less certified plastic surgeons.

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1 Week Until Heebonism, Strip Dreidel

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Luke Ford

Heeb Magazine presents:

This year, our annual post-Chinese food calorie-burner happens in New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago and Portland.

Heebonism Los Angeles will take place at the Clothing of the American Mind Headquarters in Echo Park (1284 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026) and run from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. The night will feature DJ Lillyanne of FUTUREHOUSE fame and, yes, Strip Dreidel. Tickets are $15 at the door with proceeds to benefit Clothing of the American Mind’s 2008 Cross Country Voter Registration Campaign.

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Study Suggests That a Need for Physical Perfection May Reveal Emotional Flaws

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Luke Ford

Here’s a study that reflects common sense.

Natasha Singer writes:

IN the first season of the television drama ”Nip/Tuck,” two plastic surgeons named Dr. Sean McNamara and Dr. Christian Troy hire a staff psychologist to determine whether their patients are psychologically equipped to handle cosmetic procedures. In one episode, the psychologist denies treatment to a severely depressed patient who later commits suicide.

In real life, although plastic surgeons sometimes refer patients for counseling, they typically do not have a psychologist on staff. But new research may prompt doctors to consider it.

A study published this month in Annals of Plastic Surgery found that among women with cosmetic breast implants, there was a threefold increase in suicide and in deaths related to alcohol or substance abuse compared with the expected death rates of women who did not have implants.

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Jewish Observer Warns About Blogs

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Luke Ford

Rabbi Asher Meir writes:

Gil brought my attention to a recent article by Zvi Frankel in the Jewish Observer warning about the dangers of blogs, and asked if I could make some comments (Zvi Frankel, "Blogs: Transgressing a Major Sin ‘In the Name of Heaven’: Possibly a Lack of Chinuch?" available online [with permission] here [PDF]). I think the author made a number of valid points, which I hope to use as a starting point for discussion of some of the unique dangers as well as benefits of blogging.
…While it is possible to spread a rumor secretly, it is impossible to denigrate someone on a blog secretly. Transparency and universal availability are the defining characteristics of blogs. Any responsible blog, like any medium of communication, must give a right of response to anyone whose reputation may be damaged by its content. But the truth is that due to the large number of blogs, even someone who is denied "equal time" on a blog which attacked him (or her) has ready access to equally public forums to present his/her side of the story.
So while blogs are an ideal medium to spread lashon hara, they are an even more ideal medium to refute lashon hara. When rumors are spread furtively they have tendency to be vague, rapidly exaggerated, difficult to track down and nearly impossible to refute. But when they can be precisely tracked down to a public blog post, there is a full opportunity to make a proper refutation.
I think that we can all think of instances where blogs, including Hirhuim, have been instrumental in publicizing pertinent and reliable information defending people against hurtful and unfounded accusations.
Another important point is that blogs are not only a vehicle for discussing people. They are at least important as a forum to discuss ideas.

I love this Jewish Observer piece. It calls on the Orthodox community to have a "zero tolerance" policy for blogs.

Posted in Blogging, Orthodoxy | Comments Off

Give me a skull-lift

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Luke Ford

From the Times of London:

Facelifts may never be the same again. Scientists have found that sagging skin is not itself to blame for making us look older – it’s our sagging skulls.

A head-scanning study of 100 patients by Duke University, in North Carolina, over three years reports that as we age, our skulls change shape. Our foreheads get bigger, our lovely cheekbones become less prominent and our facial bones tilt forward. “This causes our facial bones to lose support for the overlying soft tissues,” says the researcher, Dr Michael Richard. “That results in more sagging and drooping.”

The study overturns the idea that our facial bones, along with the rest of our skeletons, tend to stay stable after puberty. Dr Richard says the research also shows that facial bone changes seem far more dramatic in women, perhaps due to the same hormonal shifts that cause osteoporosis. “It’s not fair, it’s not fair,” he adds. Dr Richard told the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive surgeons that his discovery may mean that facelifts have been tackling the wrong problem: “Our focus has always been on tightening and lifting soft tissues, skin and muscle. It might be better to restore the underlying bony framework of the face to its youthful proportions.”

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Butt plugs please, we’re British

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Luke Ford

From Style PS:

Our friends at Sam Roddick’s sex deli, Coco de Mer, reveal some most interesting news.
"British women are the most naughty in Europe." Well, well, well – who’d have thought. Store manager Sarah-Louise tells Style: "I get lots of different nationalities coming into the store [in Covent Garden, in London]. The Americans are the most prudish. French women are quite too. British women, though, are really into spanky anal sex toys." And Coco de Mer’s best-seller? This glass butt plug. The small one is £59, the big one £69 (no sniggering). And why is it selling so well? Well… for her: it pushes against the back wall of her "ladylair"; for him: it tightens said lair and he can also feel its hardness through the wall. No sniggering, I said. Praise hallelujah for internet shopping.

Benzo says: "That’s one in the eye for the traditionalists…"

Chris the Canuck comments: "At one time "Great Britain" took pride in an empire on which the sun never set. Now it makes the news because its women stuff more glass items where the sun never shines. I’m sure Victoria would not be amused."

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Oh please, you lard-butt British frumps have got off too lightly

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Luke Ford

Tad Safran writes:

…[B]y far the most common point the humourless drones want to make is that they’d rather be frumpy with wonderful personalities than Barbie dolls with nothing between their ears.

This argument is so patently absurd that I can hardly believe it. It is not binary: you can have a personality and an arse that doesn’t take up two seats on the bus. If you can retain your wonderful, cheerful, sweet, fun personality and be beautiful is that not better? Or, Anna L from Kent, is your sweet personality inextricably tied to your being a size 16 … like Samson’s strength is to his hair?

…I can’t help feeling I’ve let British women off lightly. It’s not just the Americans you don’t compare to: British women don’t have the curves of the Italians, the simmering sexuality of the Spanish, the sophistication of the French or the openness of the Scandinavians.

So what do British women have? Top spot in the European obesity table. Top spot in the European teen pregnancy table. And the only spots (besides Denmark) in the chart showing rising alcohol consumption among women in western Europe.

Well done, Britain. If what women are striving for is the ability to get hammered and fall over in the street, Britain is a feminist paradise from coast to coast.

Posted in Dating | Comments Off

Who Pays For Sex?

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Luke Ford

Clare Spurrell writes for the Times of London:

"There are lots of whorehouses in Macau,” Tom confided to me under his breath in a crowded bar in Islington one Thursday night. “It was my first time in Hong Kong and I remember getting a ferry to one of the brothels where there was a madam and a security guard. On that occasion I didn’t have full sex with the girl, but all my friends did.”

Tom was 23 when he jetted out to Hong Kong to visit friends in 2001, but even then he was no stranger to brothels: it was the fourth time that he had sought the services of a prostitute. He is the sort of young man of whom most mothers would approve, a 29-year-old teacher who is good-looking, well educated and respectful. Yet on his worldwide travels he has paid for sex in several countries, including Australia, the Netherlands and Thailand.

The stereotypical “John” who uses prostitutes is a middle-aged, empty soul whom you might spot slinking around red-light districts in an outsized mac and stained trousers. The uncomfortable truth, though, is that most men who pay for sex are just “regular guys” — colleagues, brothers, fathers, sons and lovers.

Volumes of research have been published on trends among sex workers across the globe — studies on drug use, on the spread of STDs, on the impact of prostitution on society. Yet as a study published in the British Medical Journal in 2005 pointed out, “far less is known about the men who pay for sex”. That study found that the proportion of British men who reported paying for heterosexual sex had increased from 5.6 per cent in 1990 to 9 per cent in 2000. Of these, the largest group were in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties, living in London and either single or divorced.

I realised that, as a single woman in her late twenties living in London, I am surrounded by this demographic. And given that a small but significant proportion of the men identified in the study were apparently upstanding types who slept with prostitutes in secret, I decided to see if I could persuade a few of them to confess.

It took some digging — and a fair amount of tongue-loosening lager — but I found that in some cases the kind of man whom I’d be happy to take to tea with my mother was also the type capable of paying for sex.

Posted in Dating, Sex | Comments Off