The Foundation for a Bitter Life, Pt. I

Several years ago, Philip Anschutz's Foundation for a Better Life opened the Pandora's Box of non-sectarian positivity by launching a billboard campaign in the best (i.e., the worst) tradition of Norman Vincent Peale. Somehow, and no doubt inadvertently, most of the billboards were only mildly nauseating. (A few--no doubt even more inadvertently--were even educational [See http://www.values.com/inspirational-sayings-billboards].)

But some of them cried out to have their sentimental cheeriness spanked right out of them with a good, old-fashioned parody paddle, thus making necessary the establishment of the Foundation for a Bitter Life--and its own line of billboards.

The For a Better Life original that got it all started . . .

And its tongue-out-of-cheek For a Bitter Life parody . . .

(The in-high-school-Einstein-was-no-Einstein story, by the way, is an urban legend; other than being a bit slow to start speaking, Einstein was precociously brilliant.)

Admittedly, the parody of this For a Better Life billboard . . .

. . . might disturb the lactose intolerant, but still . . .

Now, for a hard swerve into tastelessness, here's another For a Better Life original . . .

. . . and its For a Bitter Life doppelganger:

And second-to-last but not second-to-least, a little fun at the expense of our sixteenth white president: For a Better Life . . .

For a Bitter Life . . .

This last pairing requires some explaining. Apparently, the comedienne Whoopi Goldberg suffers from dyslexia, hence the misspelling of overcame in the following For a Better Life poster . . .

We here at the For a Bitter Life foundation, however, noticed that the point of Goldberg's billboard could be driven home more unambiguously by rearranging the letters of dyslexia instead . . .

For Part II: http://teacherinamerica2.blogspot.com/2010/05/foundation-for-bitter-life-saw-best-in.html

Foundation for a Bitter Life, Pt. II: "Saw the Best in Us"

Several years ago, Philip Anschutz's Foundation for a Better Life opened the Pandora's Box of non-sectarian positivity by launching a billboard campaign in the best (i.e., the worst) tradition of Norman Vincent Peale. Somehow, and no doubt inadvertently, most of the billboards were only mildly nauseating. (A few--no doubt even more inadvertently--were even educational [See http://www.values.com/inspirational-sayings-billboards].)

But some of them cried out to have their sentimental cheeriness spanked out of them with a good, old-fashioned parody paddle, thus making necessary the establishment of the Foundation for a Bitter Life--and its own line of billboards.

The For a Better Life original:

The For a Bitter Life Versions:

Common Writing Errors: Literally!

The following is an excerpt from a May 18, 2010, AP news article by Larry Neumeister headlined "Ex-Obama pastor: 'Obama threw me under the bus.'" (The entire article is available here: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100518/D9FP4JRG0.html.)

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's controversial former pastor, said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press that he is "toxic" to the Obama administration and that the president "threw me under the bus."

In his strongest language to date about the administration's two-year-old rift with the Chicago pastor, Wright told a group raising money for African relief that his pleas to release frozen funds for use in earthquake-ravaged Haiti would likely be ignored. [...] "I am 'radioactive,' Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!' he wrote. 'Any advice that I offer is going to be taken as something to be avoided. Please understand that!'

Obviously, Barack Obama did not literally throw the Reverend Jeremiah Wright under a bus. First, unless then-Senator Obama had access to a private bus depot, such an act would most likely have taken place in public and would therefore have drawn the attention of passersby (some of whom would surely have been Republicans or supporters of Hillary Clinton and therefore unwilling to hush the incident up) and maybe the attention of the police. Second, Rev. Wright is a rather solidly built man; it is unlikely that anyone as wiry as (and whose lungs are as polluted with tar as those of) Barack Obama could literally throw him anywhere.

What Rev. Wright means is that Obama figuratively threw him under the bus. And, as figuratively is the opposite of literally, Wright actually meant the opposite of what he wrote.

One wonders whether saying the opposite of what he means is a pattern with Rev. Wright, a kind of verbal tic as it were.

Maybe he has wanted God to bless America all along.