Proposed "Museum of Women’s History" ends up cashing in on Jack The Ripper

Via Wikimedia Commons

Imagine if Montreal promised to open a museum of women's history, and instead dedicated it to Marc Lépine.

Something similar has happened in London. A museum that was promised to be “the only dedicated resource in the East End to women’s history” opened last week, opened to reveal this:

Via Alamy Live News

A document  sent by the museum's architects to Tower Hamlets council last summer,  to get permission to convert an empty Victorian shop into a museum,  "included pictures of suffragettes and equal pay campaigners and designs for a museum called the Museum of Women’s History," reports the Guardian.

Instead, they got a place dedicated to an anonymous serial killer who targeted women sex workers and mutilated their reproductive organs.

The businessman behind the tourist trap, Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, told the Standard:

“We did plan to do a museum about social history of women but as the project developed we decided a more interesting angle was from the perspective of the victims of Jack the Ripper. It is absolutely not celebrating the crime of Jack the Ripper but looking at why and how the women got in that situation in the first place.”

And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean? More shockingly, the Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe quoted is a diversity and corporate social responsibility expert who has worked with Google, Barclays, and the Global Diversity List, (associated with The Economist).

His LinkedIn profile reads, "I am passionate about all aspects of diversity and corporate social responsibility and believe that all individuals should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential. For me diversity and CSR are key business issues that I am adept in utilising to add financial, commercial and reputational benefits to organisations - as well as creating a great company for employees and customers."

He also mentions that he was voted to  the top 25 most influential LGBT people Globally by the World Pride / Guardian Powerlist in 2012, and that he is the Chairman of Board of Trustees at The Inclusive Foundation "a UK based Charitable Foundation aimed at helping young people to realise their full potential."

Is this really the same person? What the hell is going on over there?

(Thanks to Patrick for the tip)

Paddy Power provokes with "Oscar" ad, succeeds

It's not easy to be a more insensitive and offensive advertiser that PETA, but online betting outfit Paddy Power does it on a regular basis.

This time, it's an "Oscars" ad that features accused murderer and elite athlete Oscar Pistorius. And oh, did they get what they wanted:

Paddy Power's controversial ad campaign featuring Oscar Pistorius, which offers "money back if he walks", is to be investigated by the UK's advertising watchdog after receiving nearly 50 complaints. 

The adverts, which offer refunds for losing bets if the South African Paralympian is found not guilty of the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, has been criticised for being in bad taste. 

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) received 46 complaints in two days and has now decided to launch a formal investigation.

Now there's a Change.org petition to "please remove your offensive betting on the outcome of the Oscar Pistorius trial and donate any profits so far to a women's charity fighting violence against women." It has, of this writing, 122,610 digital signatures.

Not that any of the offended are in Paddy Power's target market. In fact, I wonder if they actually get more business from stunts like this (and this, and this) than they ever had the potential to lose.

It's a cynical adworld out there.

Bushmaster promotes assault rifles with a "man card"

This is most certainly part of the problem. As Salon reports, Bushmaster Firearms (yes, that Bushmaster) has been promoting its  AR15- and M16- type rifles by providing a "man card" to its fans.

Proof of Your Manhood – The Man Card ... Do you have what it takes? 

Inspired by the overwhelming response to Bushmaster’s “Consider Your Man Card Reissued” sweepstakes, today Bushmaster Firearms announces the latest part in the series; the Man Card online promotion. 

To become a card-carrying man, visitors of bushmaster.com will have to prove they’re a man by answering a series of manhood questions. Upon successful completion, they will be issued a temporary Man Card to proudly display to friends and family. The Man Card is valid for one year. 

Visitors can also call into question or even revoke the Man Card of friends they feel have betrayed their manhood. The man in question will then have to defend himself, and their Man Card, by answering a series of questions geared towards proving indeed, they are worthy of retaining their card. 

Bushmaster invites you to visit www.bushmaster.com/mancard to earn your Man Card and have some fun. If you decide to revoke the Man Card of a friend or two along the way, that is entirely up to you.

The man card quiz link is no longer active, but Salon gives a synopsis:

Most of the quiz questions are pretty predictable and harmless, if dumb — Do you eat tofu? Can you change a tire? Have you ever watched figured skating “on purpose”? — but others are more challenging. One question gives you four possible options of how to respond if a car full of the rival team’s fans cuts you off on the way to the championship game. The correct answer, it turns out, is to commit arson: “Skip the game, find the other car in the parking lot, and render it unrecognizable with a conflagration of shoe polish and empty food containers.”

Somewhat ironically, it was not the male Newtown mass murderer who owned the Bushmaster he allegedly used to kill his innocent victims. The gun belonged to his mother.

Nonetheless, I find the easy sexism and dumb machismo of this brand extremely troubling. Equating agression, violence and lack of empathy with masculinity, and positioning a military-grade assault weapon as an essential part of that role, is both a reflection — and a reinforcement — of the American gun culture. And while this culture may not specifically cause killers to kill, it gives them the means to do so very efficiently while also providing a fantasy of violent power to the otherwise powerless.

On a side note, I think the Bushmaster company is in the process of changing its web site:

Hopefully, they'll tone down the bullshit. Who am I kidding? I hope their products, and all like them, are eventually prohibited to civilian ownership.

For photographer Jonathan Hobin, tragedy is child's play

In the artist's own words:

In the Playroom is a metaphor for the impossibility of a protective space safe from the reach of modern media. The quizzical disposition of youth and the pervasive nature of the media are symbolically represented in Hobin’s images through tableau-vivant re-enactments of the very current events that adults might wish to keep out of their child’s world. Just as children make a game of pretending to be adults as a way to prepare and ultimately take on these roles in later life, so too do they explore things that they hear or see, whether or not they completely understand the magnitude of the event or the implications of their play.

 Okay, I get it. But I was eight when Jim Jones served that Guyana Kool-Aid to more than 900 men, women and children, and I don't recall wanting to re-enact it...

The 1981 Reagan assassination attempt, however, we did pantomime in the schoolyard. But mostly just because we were boys and, you know, guns. (Although the Lennon assassination was off bounds because we were such Beatles fans...)

See the whole series at Petapixel. (Mr. Hobin's site is presently offline.)

Metro should win an award for Worst Contextual Front Page Layout Ever

As seen on Copyranter.

It's still there, as of 12:20 EDT. If you missed it, Magnotta is the Canadian (assumed) psychopath who is accused of killing and dismembering Lin Jun, a Chinese international student, and sending his left foot to the Prime Minister's Office. He was caught in Germany (reading about himself in an internet café) and has been extradited home.

Nice one, Metro. Very sensitive.

Tip via Twitter

The saddest GIS image theft ever #FdAdFriday

In the age of Google, it's not uncommon to find personal or news photos stolen and used for ads in other countries. But what those unethical adpeople don't realize is that the same internet that gives them access to "free" visuals can also make their thefts very public.

Copyranter shared this billboard from India, for overseas study and job placement firm Jubeerich Consultancy.

"The trusted name since 1999"

Whoever designed the ad was obviously looking for a pretty, smiling, fair-complexioned face to represent the West. But they didn't check the story behind the image.

Eve Carson, the woman pictured, was a student at the University of North Carolina who was brutally murdered by Demario James Atwater (and possibly his teen accomplice) on March 5, 2008. In what was apparently a random act of violence, she was killed by repeated shotgun blasts and her car and ATM card stolen.

This act of image theft was not only unforgivably cruel to Ms. Carson's family and friends. There is also a painful irony in using the picture of a murdered American student in an ad for study abroad.

Shame on them.