The commercialisation of ANZAC Day

With the centenary of the landings at the start of the Gallipoli campaign in just a few days time it seems everyone is leaping on the bandwagon.



Big media is as always attempting to make as large an audience boost as possible from its "coverage" of set-piece events while the RSA is doing its best to stop the worst commercial exploitation. It seems that the RSA is allowing some limited use, e.g. allowing milk tankers to display poppies



In an Article on Stuff.co.nz we read

University of Auckland senior marketing lecturer Michael Lee said the RSA needed to be careful not to have too many commercial partners.



"You don't want to cheapen it and turn it into Valentine's Day, or even Christmas [which] has become very commercialised," Lee said.

"Anzac Day could risk going that way if it's just seen as another hook for marketers to put a spin on things."

It was not just the corporates that put Anzac Day at risk of commercialisation, Lee said.

"Some of those tours to Gallipoli are more likely to be cashing in on this sort of thing," he said..

"If you're not an official tour guide, or company associated with the RSA or anything, and you're just trying to cash in on all the Australians and New Zealanders going to Gallipoli, then that is an even more cynical viewpoint [than the corporations]."

Full article

I'm sure that whatever the reasons New Zealanders and Australians fought, making money for corporations and big media weren't among them.

Zimbabwe's Sex Workers Switch to Mobile Phone Payment Systems

We're getting TV adverts extolling the benefits of using our phones to pay for baby sitters or lawn mowing services.



In Zimbabwe, they seem to have haven it to the next level.

 Sex workers in Harare are now demanding that clients pay for services through mobile platforms to avoid being duped with most now moving around with at least two mobile phones to facilitate transactions.

Full Article: allAfrica.com

Zimbabwe, of course, has a collapsed economy & has abandonned having its own currency, so it doesn't seem that unreasonable for them to have done this.

Mobility scooter rider murdered on pedestrian crossing by truckie

¿Que? knows New Zealand has an arrogance problem by road users and while cyclists(*) and young children are notorious for making risky turns, or darting onto pedestrian crossings this one really takes the biscuit.

An 88 year old elderly man injured when a light truck struck a mobility scooter in Otago has died. he was struck by a truck while using a pedestrian crossing on his mobility scooter. More on Stuff.co.nz.

88 year olds might still be risk takers but mobility scooters travel at a slow walking pace and if he was on the pedestrian crossing this is nothing less than gross negligence by the truck driver.

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(*)The owner of this article on ¿Que? is a cyclist.