Essay 1689

Taking heat with a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Turner Broadcasting officials allegedly pressured Cartoon Network GM Jim Samples to resign in response to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force guerilla marketing campaign that blew up in Boston. Samples stated, “I deeply regret the negative publicity and expense caused to our company … I feel compelled to step down, effective immediately, in recognition of the gravity of the situation that occurred under my watch.” From now on, Cartoon Network’s guerilla tactics will only involve Magilla and Mister Peebles.

• GM has agreed to re-edit its Super Bowl commercial starring a suicidal auto factory robot after complaints from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The automaker will probably revise the spot to end with two robots kissing over a Snickers bar.

• MTV is poised to terminate about 500 employees next week. The leaders of parent company Viacom have apparently lost patience with the struggling performance of the iconic brand. Time to pimp my MTV.

• Nobel Peace laureate and Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel was dragged from a hotel elevator and assaulted by a man that investigators believe may be a Holocaust denier. The attacker fled when Wiesel began to scream. Ironically, Wiesel was in San Francisco attending a peace conference.

• Harvard University is poised to name its first woman president. Drew Gilpin Faust, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and a leading historian on the American South, may be officially appointed president as soon as this weekend. Faust (pictured below) follows a parade of 27 White men who have led the university since 1636. You’ve come a long way, baby.