Here I am again...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Sharing Time
Recent tunes on my iPod..."Ackee 123" by the English Beat (lines: "All of this taking things as they come/tends to make you forget to put anything in" and "Someone just smiled for no special reason/Looks like the smile just came back in season/It's eaaaasssy/Doesn't have to be a nice day/just the only one you got/and it's coming ready or not!) and "Being Drunk's a Lot Like Loving You" by Kenny Chesney (lines: "I loved til I stumbled, I loved til I fell/when the lovin' was over, it hurt me like hell/Well I know of the taste of the wrong love can do/Being drunk's a lot like lovin' you.")

Cooking tip...if it calls for two cloves or garlic...ah, what the hell, throw in four!

Recent movie..."Goonies". Early Spielberg film starring a very young Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) and young Josh Brolin. I'd never seen it and the guys on Scene/Unseen kept going on about it. So I got it for the kids...Okay, so our idea of acceptable (PG) language was different in the early 80s. Good Anne Ramsey role (pre-tongue cancer/"Throw Mama From the Train" role). Sorry, Chris and Jimmy, I say skip it.

Three questions:

• I learned that Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, was born in either Scotland, England, Wales or France, but definitely not Ireland. He was brought to the Emerald Isle in slavery. Given name was not Patrick but Maewyn or Succat. Generally believed to have been named a saint for having driven the snakes from Ireland with a hilltop sermon, though more likely the serpent was a symbol for his having driven paganism from Ireland. He had nothing to do with green food and beer, or leprechauns -- the latter might well fall under the classification of the pagans he's credited with driving out of Ireland. The shamrock can be associated with him as he used it to educate followers about the Holy Trinity. Here's an interesting page on St. Patrick as well as, of course, the Wikipedia reference to him.
• I'm proud of my wife for cooking corned beef and cabbage tonight for the first time and doing a hell of a job with it, and of my kids for eating something new.
• My happy moment today was when my daughter said "uh-oh" at the beginning of dinner tonight and held out her tooth, like she'd get in trouble for losing it. You can't buy moments like that.
  

Something about communications...
David Murray posted an interesting blog item on Shades of Gray today about a Wal-Mart discount prescription program. His point was about how $1B means nothing today, but I found it more interesting, in the light of recent Wal-Mart PR blunders ("Wal-Marting Across America" and the "Wal-Mart Price Dot Runs for Office"), that here's a positive PR story for the company, and David slammed "useless corporate press releases." I think it's likely that the story was generated from a Wal-Mart press release, touting a legitimately admirable program (though the $1B is probably questionable accounting). What I'd like to know is if the release and the pitching was done by Wal-Mart corporate, an Edelman agency rep on their behalf (Edelman having been responsible that was the "Wal-Marting Across America" blogging debacle), or another PR firm on their behalf.

I'd also like to know is if Wal-Mart PR contributed to the strategic decision to pursue the program to begin with? What was the business value to Wal-Mart in pursuing it? Are they still making money or are they knowingly losing money on the program doing the socially responsible thing (realist in me says they're still making money and I don't fault 'em for it).

Love to hear from you all...