SuperBowl commercials: Best [Chrysler’s hymn to Detroit] and Worst [Groupon’s tasteless humor]

My personal favorite: American industry, American workers, and the power of a great American city, by Chrysler—

Groupon easily wins for the worst ad. Unless you agree that saving $15 at a Tibetan restaurant in Chicago is the equal of the cultural annihilation and genocide that’s been underway in Tibet, you might even call it creepy. What will they think of next — equating the Holocaust with one of the Second Avenue Deli’s incomparable hot pastrami sandwiches? All this proves is that having a company valued at $6-billion doesn’t mean you have a dime’s worth of common sense or an ounce of sensitivity.

Twitter exploded last night with instant revilement over Groupon’s commercials. This morning, there were plenty of angry posts by bloggers and newspaper writers. Time asks: “Did they merely push the envelope, or did they cross a line?” The NY Times wondered “whether the start-up has burned through a lot of good will.” Groupon’s hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, said the company “cheapened itself” when it “trivialized the oppression of the people of Tibet.”

Meanwhile, the Chinese — oppressors of Tibet — were also not happy about the spot (but, obviously, for other reasons).

In addition to the Tibet spot, Groupon prepared two other commercials:

In a bid to illustrate that it understands that the problems of Tibet, the Brazilian rainforest, and high seas whaling are indeed serious, Groupon created a web page that invites viewers to contribute money to aid these causes. But even here, Groupon is on slippery ground. Under Cuba Gooding Jr’s video about whaling, there’s a “urgent message” and a “donate” button in which viewers are urged to donate $15 to Greenpeace — and get a $15 Groupon credit in exchange: “Your essentially free donation will go to help end commercial whaling.” Greenpeace is hardly a universally admired advocate. Meanwhile, no kickbacks are offered for contributions to Tibet, the rainforest, or building schools “in some of the world’s poorest villages” (the schools video was not yet up).

The attitude conveyed by last night’s commercials might have been predictable — it’s reflected in this commercial that was prepared by Groupon when it was just getting started, in early 2009 [WARNING: the following video may not be suitable for young children] :

You’ll find all of the SuperBowl commercials through a link at YouTube.

My son is gay

This is not what you’d expect.

Whether or not the statement applies to the boy pictured here is, in fact, irrelevant. He’s just 5 years old, for heaven’s sake!

What counts is that his mom won’t stand for him being bullied … bullied by his classmates’ moms (who should know better) or by another else!

This is an exceptional post, by “Cop’s Wife does not remain silent” at NerdyAppleBottom .com.

Nerdy Apple Bottom’s post has drawn (to this hour) nearly 30,000 comments (not “likes” — actual comments!), including about 10,000 comments added in the last 24 hours. [UPDATE: By Nov. 10, there were over 43,000 comments.]

Read it — and pass it along.

I’m back from BlogWorld NewMedia Expo

This is what it’s all about:

… As we celebrate mediocrity, all the boys upstairs want to see, how much you’ll pay for what you used to get for free …

… Can’t turn him into a company man, can’t turn him into a whore, and the boys upstairs just don’t understand anymore …

‘Curse of Joe Biden’ … or editors stuck in their sophomore year

Vice President Biden’s barely audible use of the “F” word was newsworthy, made-for-the-Internet flash. But front page play in four of New York’s five newspapers?!?

New York media’s fixation with the “F” word exploded yesterday ahead of the Biden story. Someone protesting a massive Brooklyn redevelopment project hacked into an electronic traffic sign and inserted “F— Ratner,” spelling out the four-letter word and directing it at the developer, Bruce Ratner.

We reported yesterday how online editors were divided on using a photo of the “F” sign in its natural versus an edited state. Bloggers went au natural, as did The Brooklyn Paper.

However, the Times, Post and NY1 obliterated three of the word’s four letters.

Who were they protecting? The children who’d see today’s front pages — or hear the buzz on TV or the interent — and easily guess what was left out? Or readers who still have a sense of propriety — certainly, they would not be offended by Metro’s giant f****g. Give me a F—ing break!

Although both the Times and Post yesterday prominently featured the traffic sign online —  edited — neither referenced it in their print editions today.

As for Biden, the Times was alone is not running a big story on his stumble, covering it instead at the end of a bill-signing sidebar on A19:

Mr. Biden introduced Mr. Obama, lauding the president’s “perseverance” and “clarity of purpose.” But in a remark that he clearly did not intend to be heard, Mr. Biden used a vulgarity in his private congratulations to the president that, while not audible inside the room, was picked up by a broadcast microphone and spread quickly across the Internet.

“Mr. President, this is a big [expletive] deal,” Mr. Biden whispered, inserting an adjective not used in polite conversation. Later, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, sent out a message over Twitter: “And yes, Mr. Vice President, you’re right.”

Subway tragedy: Everything changed in a New York minute

A woman going about her work-a-day routine dropped her gym bag onto a subway track at the start of Thursday night’s rush hour. Then she did what every New Yorker knows instinctively not to do: She jumped onto the track to retrieve it.

On the 11 o’clock news, we saw transit workers washing away her blood.

Within minutes, bloggers were on it … even the New York Times’ City Room was updating, and in this case the Times drew ahead of the pack.

When something like this happens, people want to know about it now. Not in an hour, not on the six o’clock or 11 o’clock news — now. In New York, particularly when it involves the city’s lifeline — the subways — and even more so when it happens at a station filled with youngsters heading home from school, people — included worried parents — want information immediately.

Chad Rachman shot the dropped bag that led to a 48-year-old woman's death. The picture ran on page one of the NY Post.

With that in mind … what’s left for next day print?

Friday morning’s papers covered the story in grizzly detail, and there’d be more on Saturday. A 48-year-old woman (initially reported as a school-age girl) died as she attempted to scramble back onto the platform, squeezed between the train and the platform.

From the Daily News:

“The train hit her and her head was stuck between the platform and the train,” said Katy Liang, 12, a seventh-grader at Robert Wagner Middle School.

“A woman was screaming ‘La cabeza! La cabeza!” said Katy, saying the Spanish word for “head.

The NY Post (pictured) carried the day. Instead of joining the Times and News in featuring shots of emergency workers on the station platform, it zeroed in on the bag the woman was attempted to recover. Inside, gym clothes and toiletries. Nothing worth dying for. Kudos to photographer Chad Rachman who waited for that shot.

From the Post account:

“You could see some woman with her head stuck in between the train [and the platform] and her arms sticking out,” recalled witness Andrew Pistella, 30. “Some guy was screaming, ‘Is this real? Is this real?’ It looked like a mannequin.”

It was bedlam on the platform, with children, teenagers and old ladies shrieking hysterically, witnesses said.

“Who drops their [bag] down there, then jumps down there to get it?” Pistella asked.

The money quote’s in the Times’ follow-up account one day later:

Her father, Robert Mankos, 82, said Friday that he had hardly begun to process his daughter’s death and that he already felt stretched past his limit from caring for his wife, who has Parkinson’s disease and diabetes.

“I felt like 60 before,” he said in a phone interview from his home in North Bergen, N.J. “I feel like 105 now.”

Ms. Mankos lived by herself and had never married, her father said. He said she often visited her mother at a nursing home in New Jersey.

Mr. Mankos said he could not fathom why his daughter had jumped onto the subway tracks. “I guess she dropped her purse,” he said. “Except you never do that. Never.”

The family was planning a small private service in the coming days.

“It’s too late now,” Mr. Mankos said. “I’ll be praying for the rest of my life, until I die.”