Hit & Run 4

[I apologize for the formatting of this -- can't find where the erroneous html is.]

More on embarrassing side effects

I've mentioned this before, but another commercial really makes me wonder. Is it really better to take any number of different drugs for some minor ailment which cause more side effects than the actual problem? And why do these drugs effects, more often than not, have to cause not just problems, but embarrassing problems?

Dittos Daze

I'd recently felt nostalgic. OK. I'm nostalgic about a lot of things lately. But I was thinking about the wonderful way Dittos Jeans fit women. Well, I mostly saw them on high school girls, as I was a high school boy at the time they were popular. In any case, I just found this short interview: 

(Published without the slightest attempt to gain permission).

3/30/04 Interview Dittos Jeans. (thislondon) Remember Ditto's Jeans for girls? Here is an interview I did recently with Richard Leff, one of the makers of these hot pants. 

 

Xeno: Hello Richard, It is fun to have found you and thanks for answering some questions. How did you become involved in the design of the Dittos line of pants and how did you start the craze that made them must-haves for girls in the 1970's?

 

Richard: I was one of the founders of Dittos. Prior to Dittos there really were no jeans for women/girls. The ladies had started to buy men/boys jeans. We were lucky enough to see the need and hence Dittos became the leading female jean.

 

Xeno: With all the nostalgia such as "that 70's show" do you know why the haven't been re-released?

Richard: Legal Reasons... But we may be back if these issues can be resolved.

Xeno: Do you have a secret cache of Dittos pants?

Richard: Sorry, No cache.

Xeno: Do you still have the patterns that someone could buy or do you know where they are now? (Funny, a month or two ago I was asking NASA if they still had the plans to the Saturn V rocket. Answer: yes, they do, despite a major news story that says they are lost.)

Richard: Yes we do.

Xeno: Do you have any photos or sketches of the different styles, you working in the early days, models, etc. that I could use for the article? 

 

Richard: Nothing I would be willing to let out of my sight.

Xeno: Anything else that might be interesting to people who wore or admired Dittos pants? 

 

Richard: The interesting thing is that over twenty years later Dittos still has a significant following!

Xeno: Thanks very much for your time.

A few weeks after I posted this article, 

I had the following email:

"...I am the current owner to the DITTOS trademark, and yes, we are planning a relaunch. We are shooting for Holiday 2004 season, but it may be Spring 2005 before we actually have them back in the department stores. We are very excited about bringing the sexy curves of DITTOS back to today's youth! I sincerely appreciate your interest in the nostalgia of our brand. I would be happy to answer any further questions for you, or to send you some DITTOS when the first line is launched.

Great website!!

Thank you,
[Name removed intentionally]
President
Dittos Inc.

Any chance that roullout might happen...?

Did I miss it? Maybe do it again before I leave 

the country?

 

Newsworthy? Let me decide.

There is rioting in the streets of Santiago Chile, but do the news media tell us anything about it? I watch both the local & world news every evening, but there's been nothing about anything happening anywhere but in Iraq. Oh, except for all the touching stories happening here. Nothing important is happening anywhere but with our own government & the war.

I don't subscribe to any news papers just now, so I search the Web. The Seattle Times has only one article concerning Santiago dated October 2006. Gee, you'd think something must have happened there more recently than that. But I look on GoogleNews & find that the Associated Press isn't, as our local media would have us believe, oblivious to unrest in other parts of the world.

Here:

March 30, 2007 - 10:46AM

Police have used tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of rock-throwing high school students who repeatedly blocked traffic on Santiago's main avenue.

 

Scattered clashes continued at dusk on Thursday night and the government said 264 demonstrators had been detained.

 

Most shops were closing by mid-afternoon and many offices let their employees leave earlier as bus drivers closed their routes fearing attacks.

 

The students' motives for protesting were not clear. One protester, who identified himself as Simon his face covered by a white handkerchief, said only that they were demonstrating "for the situation and for our rights".

 

The protest, however, was far smaller than the well-organised marches of May 2006, when up to 700,000 high school students took to the streets to demand improved schools, lower public transportation fares and educational reforms in Chile.

 

The latest protest came on a date often marked by violence by far-left groups commemorating what they call "The Day of the Young Combatant", honouring two young brothers killed by police in a 1985 protest against the 1973-90 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

 

The judge investigating the killing of Eduardo and Rafael Vergara filed homicide charges against one active and three retired police officers on Thursday.

 

A lawyer for the retired officers, Mauricio Unda, said that they acted in self defence during the protest.

AP ©

Why do I have to turn to the Web to learn this -- despite AP hadn't actually learned why these students are rioting? The Canadian Press gives us a little more in an article which appears to be a more fleshed out version of the AP release above. They make a connection to the significance of the date:

The latest protest came on a date often marked by violence by far-left groups commemorating what they call "The Day of the Young Combatant," honouring two young brothers killed by police in a 1985 protest against the 1973-90 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. 

The night protests were typical of the date.

I'm not so sure that these, which occurred 

a little over twenty & thirty years ago are 

more than a symbolic connection. 

Is it just me? I've studied journalism -- 

I even hold a certificate from an unknown 

(& likely gone) school of journalism -- & I 

know that investigation requires a bit more 

than this. Why the AP -- long a highly 

respected news source -- & all news media 

can't be bothered to tell us more than the 

struggle a home owner has in our region 

has experienced in attempting to retrieve 

a cat from a tree, or these glossings of real, 

news worthy events just boggles my mind.

Where are the journalists of the past? Where 

is the investigative integrity? Where is the news?