That, And Howard Wolfson Has The Shittiest Job In The City These Days

Clyde Haberman takes the City to task for the “Photochop” (Post headline) debacle by asking if what the Health Department did crossed an ethical line:

Legally, there was no problem with altering the actor’s picture; he had signed a release permitting it. But did the ad agency — and thus its employer, the city — act ethically? Doesn’t a photo so heavily doctored amount to cheating?

. . .

Sunday night, in an exchange of messages with me on Twitter, Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson rejected any suggestion of cheating. The poster’s claims about the perils of diabetes are “100% accurate,” he wrote. As for relying on an actor, Mr. Wolfson said, “many institutions, including your own, feature actors in ads.”

The problem for me is that the actor’s image goes way beyond a simple portrayal of the perils of diabetes. When you see ads like that, the idea is that you’re supposed to be scared straight to change your eating habits. Seeing a relatively young man who looks otherwise healthy — except that he’s fat and his leg was Photoshopped out — makes you really freak out that you’re going to lose a limb or whatnot.

Here’s another example: If the Health Department showed a 28-year-old bedridden and hooked up to a hospital doodad with the caption, “Stop Smoking Or You’ll Die Of Lung Cancer” you’d think you should probably stop smoking because there’s a young person who is very sick from lung cancer — or whatever. Seeing that image is what sends the message. Imagine if the fellow without the voicebox in the anti-smoking ads wasn’t actually without his voicebox — it’s misleading, mostly because it undermines the idea that this is an actual person.

Repeat the thought experiment with other diseases and you’ll see what I mean . . .

All of which is to say that the Health Department is wasting a lot of money hectoring us about cutting back on soda pop, and it should make us rethink what we’re paying them to do. That, and Howard Wolfson has the shittiest job in the city these days when he has to run debate club interference for crappy decisions made by city agencies.

And Then You Become The Fatass Whose Image Is Photoshopped To Illustrate The Horrific Ravages Of Diabetes

Which is when I would start to question my modeling career:

But it turns out that the person shown in the advertisement did not need crutches because his legs were intact. The health department confirmed on Tuesday that its advertising agency had removed the lower half of the man’s leg from the picture to make its point: the headline over the image reads “Portions have grown. So has Type 2 diabetes, which can lead to amputations.”

When city officials announced the campaign on Jan. 9, they did not let on that the man shown — whose photo came from a company that supplies stock images to advertising firms and others — was not an amputee and may not have had diabetes. The city did not identify the man, and efforts to reach the agency that supplied the photo were unsuccessful. The photographer who took the picture [. . .] said he did not know the man’s name.

So If The Health Department Raises Blood Pressure, The Health Department Is Bad For The City’s Health And Should Clearly Be Curbed

If the administration did less “brainstorming,” the Post would have less copy and we’d all have lower blood pressure:

Mayor Bloomberg yesterday scuttled a controversial city proposal to slash the number of booze establishments to curb excessive and underage drinking.

. . .

Asked if the mayor now backed the effort to limit businesses that can serve alcohol, Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser answered, “No.”

“One reason the mayor has been successful in office is because we think there are no bad ideas in brainstorming — and then we weigh them against other concerns. We’re deeply committed to encouraging entrepreneurs to start and expand small businesses in the city,” Loeser said.

Somehow Principles Survived

Though I think they could have just as easily justified it as a sort of Robin Hood deal:

The location scout knew just the spot — a sweeping spiral with marble steps, filigreed wrought-iron railwork and a mural depicting the triumph of man over adversity running up its length, culminating in gold-crowned columns of fluted mahogany.

The money would be good — somewhere approaching five figures for a day’s shoot, the scout told the owners of the location, who, as fortune would have it, could definitely use the cash these days.

There was just one catch: the location was the Midtown administrative headquarters of Daytop Village, the famed drug and alcohol rehabilitation program.

And the advertising client was a prominent purveyor of hard liquor.

But you have to like the location scout’s response:

“It was one of those situations where you call and then you realize in the middle of the sentence, ‘This thing just won’t work.'”

It’s A Shame About Ray

Funny, because a while back I thought I read that this was the “original” Ray’s. I only learned back in September that was not the case. But apparently it’s not even the original “original” one:

The Ray’s Pizza that sued Famous Ray’s Pizza on Sixth Avenue and West 11th Street earlier this year for copyright infringement says it will soon take over its rival’s former restaurant.

Famous Original Ray’s Pizza, which has eight locations citywide, will move into the the 465 Sixth Ave. space, the former home to Famous Ray’s Pizza, according to Famous Original Ray’s Facebook page.