What in the World?

Monday, October 23rd, 2006


Fear?

BBC is reporting this morning that Britain is becoming a nation that is afraid of its youth.

“The report says 65% of Germans, 52% of Spanish and 50% of Italians would be willing to intervene if they saw a group of 14-year-old boys vandalising a bus shelter, compared with just 34% of Britons. The 200-page report says that last year more than 1.5 million Britons thought about moving away from their local area due to young people hanging around. About 1.7 million admitted to avoiding going out after dark as a direct result of youths gathering. ”

Britons were also three times more likely to cite young people “hanging around” as a problem than they were to complain about noisy neighbours.

Pink?

A story from West Bend Daily News begins:

If you’re seeing pink lately, you’re not seeing things.

With October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, many products are packaged in pink to show the parent company’s support of breast cancer research. Many of these companies donate part of their products’ sales proceeds to the cause.

Just who buys these products, and why, is the source of many studies by marketers and psychologists.

When a company chooses to align itself with breast cancer research, “there is the risk that people may feel it’s being exploitive,” said Lars Perner, assistant professor of clinical marketing at the University of Southern California’s Department of Marketing. “Consumers may wonder if the companies are profiting off a tragedy, especially if the product is making a minimal contribution to breast cancer.”

“People say to themselves, ‘If I buy something bad for me, I need to do something good too,’” he said. “People are more likely to donate to a cause with guilt-ridden products.”

Judgment?

Dutch transportation planner Hans Monderman has been pushing his innovative plans for improving traffic, and several towns in the Netherlands and Germany have already signed on, according to an August report by the German news organization Deutsche Welle. His proposals include eliminating traffic signs and street markings, which he believes will force drivers to be careful as they hunt for their destinations, and building children’s playgrounds in median strips of roads, figuring that drivers would surely slow down.