I spent this past weekend sightseeing in Washington DC. Had a blast, but let me spare you the tourism and skip right to something interesting. Being in marketing, one thing I always notice when I travel is the advertising, and how it changes from location to location, and gathering place to gathering place. In DC, I saw a lot of ads for seemingly indestructible Panasonic “Toughbook” laptops targeted to the military sector, with witty block letter press conference messaging such as “Legally, we cannot say it can take a bullet” and “Legally, we cannot say it knows where Navy SEAL team three is.” Meanwhile, venture into Philadelphia or Detroit, and Pepsi’s multi-million dollar ad campaign for whatever new color Mountain Dew comes in presents its sell messaging encoded in street lingo, spraypainted on a brick wall. Consider yourself profiled by marketing, based on where you’re standing, at all times.

The most interesting ad campaign I encountered in DC was an anonymous one asking a compelling question: “Do you own a US oil company?”

In addition to the rapidly climbing death toll brought on by Cyclone Nargis nearly two weeks ago, more than 2 million people in the region have fallen into a state of homelessness and famine. Rather than die of thirst, refugees are drinking water contaminated by the floating bodies of between 63,000 and 100,000 (according to the U.N.) of their friends, families, and fellow countrymen. As a result, disease is running rampant and unchecked. As many as a million Nargis victims remain at risk of death from disease and hunger because the ruling military junta will only let a sliver of foreign aid through. That which it does allow is pillaged by authorities and sold for profit.