Friday Tribune

by Dave on Sep 28, 2007 9:57 AM PDT in News

Kerry Eggers comes through with a marvelous article this morning with the aid of one Kevin Pritchard. It's absolutely worth a read.

Also Dwight Jaynes weighs in on the logo/school issue. I realize that the small bit of controversy is what's fueling the latter story but I hope we all remember a couple things:

The bigger story is that the Blazers are donating the floors. YES! That is exactly what they should be doing.
I hope the no-logo folks remember that for years I stared at a Pepsi machine every day, at least twice a day, when I went to high school. And college. Also I drank name-branded orange juice out of little containers there. Also they sold world-famous candy bars and chips. Their logos were all over that lunch room. It didn't hurt me a bit. I still don't like Pepsi that much. I think I'd object to the "About.com Chalkboard" and perfume inserts in every third page of the math book but this doesn't meet those criteria.

--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)

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You also, I imagine,...

had to pay for the privilege of seeing the Pepsi logo, while the Blazers logo would be donated.

by ken @ Blazer's Edge on Sep 28, 2007 10:04 AM PDT reply actions

No indeed

It was front and center on a huge vending machine right in the middle of the hallway. It assaulted my eyes with its evil logocity(?!?) every time I passed.

--Dave

by Dave on Sep 28, 2007 10:51 AM PDT up reply actions

i think

he meant that you had to pay for the pepsi, unlike using the basketball court....

just a thought. also no one complained when nike refinished the outdoor basketball courts at most public parks outside of high schools like grant and laurelhurst park and wallace park and irving park. i'm sure many others especially in ne and se Portland. Maybe we should take the logos off of the basketballs and baseballs and volleyballs and bats and gloves and pads and absolutely no gatorade logos on drink containers and no logos on shoes or hats and backpacks or folders and pencils or anything. just black print on white backgrounds that say "milk" or "ball" or "soda pop".

Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'. -the shawshank redemption.

by pdxborn on Sep 28, 2007 11:23 AM PDT up reply actions

as PDXborn points out...

I worded that slightly wrong. I should have said Pepsi was being paid while they were putting their logo in front of you, while the Blazers would be the ones doing the paying.

It's amazing how screwed up our value systems are.

by ken @ Blazer's Edge on Sep 28, 2007 11:46 AM PDT up reply actions

Heh

As someone that has recently graduated from high school (whoa, has it been 2 and a half years already?), I have one thing to say...

This is not a "should religion be taught at school" type of issue.

This is not about individualism or "tainting your child at an impressionable age."

This is a sports team.

Wanting a logo in a sports facility.

This is not putting Pepsi machines in the cafeteria going head to head with the "Got Milk?" ads. This is about promoting sports in a, guess what, a sports environment.

What are the kids going to think if they see the Blazers logo on the basketball court... while playing basketball?

Get real.

The PPS has been rundown to crap the past few years, with torn text books, squeaky gyms, and over-crowded classrooms. The $600K they don't have to spend on remodeling a gym can be spent to hire more teachers and buy better books.

Just do it you morons. This is not an ethical issue. Those kids deserve the best equipment they can get their hands on.

ROTUNDITYDOTNET

by damir on Sep 28, 2007 11:09 AM PDT reply actions

It makes me mad

that a donation to a school system which has sucked for 10+ years can become a "controversy". Get real. Seriously, people have the time to complain and yet look at the system.

The Blazers don't sell merchandise at school, that simply made a goodwill gesture and you'd think that they were going to coat the floor with broken glass. Ridiculous. Absurd. And we wonder why are children have poor educations.

We allow corporations into the lunchroom to make a profit and ruin the diet and health of our children, yet when an upstanding local sports team wants to help with the wellbeing of the system we have the same people that do nothing to stop the terrible conditions of our schools complaining about a logo??

Go to Madison High School, look around. Trash, needles, condoms, coke, oops "pop" cans, broken glass, garbage strewn around like a hurricane just hit. No school pride unless its bashing some other school or throwing racial slurs at other players.

I could go on for days and years, myself and 4 brothers went through school systems here and in AZ. This system in Portland is broken and has been and when someone tries to help it out, it's users do nothing but complain that a blazer pinwheel is going to take over the minds of our youth. Please.

Don't we all have bigger problems? If the home depot came to my house and told me that they would remodel my house for me if I'd allow a small logo to be placed on the outside of the home or heck, in each room, I think I just might let them do it. Anyone who says they wouldn't is a straight up liar.

Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'. -the shawshank redemption.

by pdxborn on Sep 28, 2007 11:41 AM PDT reply actions

correction

"The Blazers don't sell merchandise at school, (that) simply made a goodwill gesture and you'd think that they were going to coat the floor with broken glass. Ridiculous. Absurd. And we wonder why +are+ children have poor educations."

(that) would be "they", and +are+ would be "our".

don't want to look uneducated....

Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'. -the shawshank redemption.

by pdxborn on Sep 28, 2007 2:36 PM PDT up reply actions

Windows

A guy came to our house and offered to replace all of our windows (and they really needed it). When negotiating the price he said that we could save 25% of of the price of the new windows if we allowed them to put a small sign in our yard for 6 months. We thought about it for about a nanosecond and then let him take the $1200 off our invoice. I think you can tell where I stand on this issue.

by 92wastheyear on Sep 28, 2007 5:13 PM PDT up reply actions

I don't know if this applies to PPS

but a large number of school districts signed agreements with fast food coporations to provide food in their cafeterias, in exchange for a "product placement" type fee paid to the school district. They apparently didn't have a problem with corporate logos or more importantly, feeding kids junk food, so long as there was money involved.

To be fair, I've heard that several of these districts have revisited that policy and are rescinding those deals.

by timg56 on Sep 28, 2007 3:20 PM PDT reply actions

Heh

PPS has an agreement with Coca Cola to only sell Coke products. We had vending machines all around with junk food.

ROTUNDITYDOTNET

by damir on Sep 28, 2007 6:00 PM PDT up reply actions

Oh

Forgot to mention:

THOSE AIN'T [go away Dave, I know it's not a real word] FREE!

They have to give back a percentage of the sales to Coke.

ROTUNDITYDOTNET

by damir on Sep 28, 2007 6:02 PM PDT up reply actions

I own a small business and I am often approached

by everyone from basket and softball teams to high school dance teams looking for sponsors. In return I am usually offered an advertisement in their brouchure or a sign in the outfield. It is always a trade of sorts. And as previously stated this is in a sports complex and Portland is the only team in town. In this trade the TB are not asking for much. Those folks need to get over themselves and delve into reality. Everything is a trade.

by jferg on Sep 28, 2007 11:42 PM PDT reply actions

Hmm

I went to a rich high school in the Beaverton School District, but when I was in high school I would consider it an honor to play on a court with the Blazer logo. It seems like a really good present. But hey, if they'd rather pump their kids with sugar water, more power to the parents of the Portland School District.

by robrun2 on Sep 29, 2007 1:33 PM PDT reply actions

Goes to show the IQ...

of the people in this area.

Anyone ever seen the movie Idiocracy? If you havent, I highly recomend it. Highly.

If people are trying to shelter their kids from corporate branding, take them out of PUBLIC SCHOOL. It seems like this is more of an issue of people once again trying to shelter their kids. And yes I am a parent, and yes, I have caught myself with the urge to shelter. But this is just crazy talk.

If anything my question would be, why arent Buisnesses more involved with High Schools then they are? You see it in College level classes from time to time. Why not in High School? Why arent companies held accountable to some degree in helping mold the future?

If a Business wants to get involved with helping out our schools, so be it. And yes, let them advertise "Hey, look what we did! We are promoting education, come work for us!"

Hearing this is like hearing something along the lines of my engineering class turning down a CNC machine due to the fact it had a giant logo from the manufacturer on the side.

WTF is wrong with some people?

by Blazer on Sep 30, 2007 5:13 AM PDT reply actions

They are doing it here at UH too

The US Navy wants to give UH a bunch of money for a sonar thingamajig or something like that and all the students are throwing a fit because they don't want the military on campus. Everyone is more than happy to complain but very unwilling to help.

Bricken fracken, dag nabbit, hootinany, flrarfenal, barfuglesnaps!

by tominhawaii on Oct 1, 2007 11:27 AM PDT reply actions

yeah

reminds me of when the ducks shot down phil knight's donations/equipment. so he just donated 100 million.

http://www.uoregon.edu/newsstory.php?a=8.20.07-Knights-give-100Mil.html

looks like that education at the college level is finally paying off for u of o. the students suddenly realize its not good to scare off finacial support.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_24_16/ai_63257818

like you said, everyone wants to complain, but not willing to accept help.

don't figure.

Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'. -the shawshank redemption.

by pdxborn on Oct 2, 2007 10:52 AM PDT up reply actions