Weird News Thread ....

[Jolie Rouge]

Parents Who Sent Kids to Progressive ‘No Books, No Tests’ School Founded By Cerulean Theater Troupe Shocked Kids Not Learning to Read

By Doug Powers • June 14, 2012 02:50 PM

Today’s offering for subsequent filing under “What did you expect?” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1594496.html

The $32,000 per-year progressive school founded by the Blue Man Group has come under scrutiny by parents, who claim their kids are barely learning to read, the New York Post reports. The Blue School, a private school located in New York City’s Financial District, has no books and no tests and is facing an exodus of students and teachers.

One mother complained to the Post that the school is “unstructured.” She is pulling her son at the end of the school year, as are the parents of four of her son’s first-grade classmates. Parents also claim that their children are not prepared to take tests and are bored with nothing to do in school.

I had a similar problem after I started sending my kids to Mummenschanz Elementary and then noticing they were seriously lacking in verbal communication skills. What’s up with that? ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummenschanz )

From the Post’s article: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/m...q0GUDCGusUYmcK

One mother, who is yanking her son at the end of the school year, complained that the school is “unstructured.”

“It’s true,” she said when asked if her kid was struggling to read.

In all, she added, four of her son’s first-grade classmates are leaving the Financial District institution. Another parent who dropped her first-grade son off yesterday said he’s not coming back next year — because he’s got nothing to do. “When a 6-year-old says they’re bored, there’s a problem,” the mother said. “I think they bit off more than they can chew.”
[...]
School officials say students decide their own curriculum, and have no set arrival time. Grades run from kindergarten to third grade. A fourth grade is being added next year.

In other words it sounds as if parents are paying $32,000 a year for prog daycare.

The school’s website says “our mission is to cultivate creative, joyful and compassionate enquirers who use creative and innovative thinking to build a harmonious and sustainable world.” http://blueschool.org/ In the school’s defense, their mission statement says nothing about teaching kids how to read, or for that matter imparting on them any other skills that will result in the child becoming anything except possibly an obedient Gorebot.

**Written by Doug Powers http://michellemalkin.com/2012/06/14/no-books-no-tests/

comments

Why wait til the end of the school year, yank the student out now. Gee, those ever so smart libs took a long time to determine that their kids learned little. Guess they are not so smart after all. So they wasted their 32 grand. I fee the same way when I pay my property taxes and know that the local schools are doing the same thing…… spending money and getting no results.

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making a school that does not teach how to read and write is a liberals dream. then no matter what they say, their minions won’t know the difference.

this is why martin luther printed the bible in german, so the people could read the bible, instead of trusting the church to tell them the actual words in the bible.... then they started schools so kids could read the bible. Try reading one of those in any school these days!

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You gotta love it. Turning over selection of the curriculum to a kindergartner or first or second grader. Like, they can’t read the syllabus yet, now can they? Those people so deserved to lose their money, but the kids did not deserve to be intellectually abused. Of course, in NYC what are their choices?

[Advertisement]

[Jolie Rouge]

LA museum unveils artist's big rock work
Associated Press – 6 hrs ago


Artist Michael Heizer walks past his sculpture "Levitated Mass" prior to a dedication ceremony featuring a 340-ton granite boulder sitting above a 456-foot-long concrete slot at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, on Sunday June 24, 2012. Thousands showed up under sunny skies as the gigantic work titled "Levitated Mass" was unveiled Sunday on the museum’s rear lawn, where it is intended to remain forever.
(AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The rock was the star as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art pulled the covers off artist Michael Heizer's latest creation — a 340-ton boulder positioned to appear as though it's floating in midair.

About a thousand people showed up under sunny skies in Los Angeles as the gigantic work titled "Levitated Mass" was unveiled Sunday on LACMA's backyard, where it is intended to remain forever.

Its centerpiece is the two-story-tall chunk of granite that was hauled 105 miles from a Riverside rock quarry earlier this year. Since then, the rock has been carefully positioned above a 465-foot-long trench that museum visitors can stroll.

From the trench, the rock appears to be hovering overhead.

The 67-year-old Heizer, who rarely appears in public, was on hand for the ribbon-cutting ceremony and led the first procession under the big rock. Along the way he waved and shook hands with museum officials and art enthusiasts.

Also Sunday, the museum opened "Michael Heizer: Actual Size," an exhibition of more than a dozen gigantic photographs showing other works by the artist. Heizer may be best known for "Double Negative," a 1,500-foot-long land sculpture cut into a desert mesa in southern Nevada.

Heizer has planned for more than 40 years to create "Levitated Mass," but had to locate the perfect rock. He finally found one in a quarry on the outskirts of Riverside about seven years ago. It took dozens of people and a specially built trailer to haul it over the surface streets of 22 cities. The trip lasted nearly two weeks, with the rock traveling only at night and rarely faster than 5 mph. Thousands of people turned out to cheer it on.

To thank those who put up with road closures and other delays, the museum is granting free admission for a week to people who live in zip code areas traversed by the rock.

http://news.yahoo.com/la-museum-unve...221155267.html


Visitors view Michael Heizer’s "Levitated Mass" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, on Sunday June 24,2012. Thousands showed up as the gigantic work was unveiled on the museum’s rear lawn, where it is intended to remain forever.
(AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

comments

".... where it is intended to remain forever."

I guess they don't get earthquakes in Los Angeles!

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I dont understand how it looks as if its floating in mid air, When you walk under it you can see the supports and when you walk past it its sitting on a concrete slab....

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SCAM.......a 10 Million dollar scam. People in L.A. going hungry! Think people..... :smoking:

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Forgot to mention... you have to visit local pot clinic and smoke some serious weed to "float in air" :weed:

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Falcrest.. the company that was highly paid for moving this rock mad out pretty good themselves. I've seen heavier and bigger things moved in the oil industry for a fraction of what they charged

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"Artist" or con-man? He is a marketing / promotions specialist.

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I see a Wile E. Coyote moment in the making.......

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That? THAT?! That is what they spent millions of dollars on, and months of set up, work, transportation and placement? And from no angle does it even resemble levitation? This isn't art, it's a joke. An intentional one at that. A joke to see how much money a man could bilk out of morons to move a big freaking rock from one place to another for no reason.

(Sidebar: I apologize in advance. I didn't mean to insult actual morons by comparing the idiot backers of this "Art" to them.)

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Looks like it fell down off a hill and got wedged in a crevice. Doesnt even remotely look levitated.

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Art is great but this is #ucking stupid; a huge boulder set atop walls in an earthquake zone. :

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I'm an artist, and it makes my blood boil the way some of my colleagues will come up with a fleeting idea and then have money thrown at them for being so innovative. This Michael Heizer person planned this piece for 40 years? It's a giant boulder he hauled out of the desert and placed atop two supports. He had to wait that long in order to find the perfect boulder??? A true artist would have grabbed a hammer and chisel and actually done some work to create a work of art. What this bozo did was merely erect a rock on two supports -- I do not admire that, and I do not consider this to be art.

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Boulder Dam is Art. This is just a big rock that got plunked down with HUUUUUUGE crane.

It stretches the boundaries of the definition of Art to the breaking point.

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Art is in the eye of the beboulder.

[Jolie Rouge]

Heizer may be best known for "Double Negative," a 1,500-foot-long land sculpture cut into a desert mesa in southern Nevada.

Double Negative is a piece of land art located in the Moapa Valley on Mormon Mesa (or Virgin River Mesa) near Overton, Nevada. Double Negative was completed in 1969 by the artist Michael Heizer.

The work consists of a long trench in the earth, 30 feet (9 m) wide, 50 feet (15 m) deep, and 1500 feet (457 m) long, created by the displacement of 240,000 tons of rock, mostly rhyolite and sandstone. Two trenches straddle either side of a natural canyon (into which the excavated material was dumped). The "negative" in the title thus refers in part to both the natural and man-made negative space that constitutes the work. The work essentially consists of what is not there, what has been displaced.

The work is currently owned by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) and is accessible by four-wheel drive vehicle or motorcycle

Directions

From Overton, NV follow Mormon Mesa Road to the top of the mesa eastward. As you come to the top of the mesa, you will pass a cattle guard. Continue east across the mesa for 2.7 miles. Do NOT leave the mesa. Just before you come to a second cattle guard at the east edge of the mesa, there will be a less-traveled road/path that extends along the rim of the mesa. Turn left onto this rim trail and follow it north 1.3 miles.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Negative_(artwork)



See also : http://doublenegative.tarasen.net/double_negative.html

Double Negative was among the first "earthworks," artworks created as part of a movement known as "land art" or "earth art." Earthworks are contemporary artworks that use as their canvas or medium the earth itself. In keeping with the mission of modern art, Double Negative blurs the distinction between sculpture ("art") and normal objects such as rocks ("not art"), and encourage viewers to consider how the earth relates to art. The sheer size of Double Negative also invites contemplation of the scale of art, and the relation of the viewer the earth and to art itself. How does art change when it can't fit in a museum? How does one observe an artwork that's a quarter-mile long?

Double Negative, though a notable piece of art, is essentially no more than a big trench (and even then, not a complete trench, as it crosses empty space). In that, it consists more of what was than what currently is. Constructing Double Negative was an act of construction only inasmuch as something was taken away, and that this removal constituted a creative act. In that the artwork is itself negative space (and when it crosses empty space, it is doubly negative space, as the title suggests), it begs meditation on the principle of art as creation, when Heizer has not in fact added but substracted.

[Jolie Rouge]

Girl dies during round of miniature golf
Updated Jun 28, 2012 4:04 AM ET

An 11-year-old girl from New York died in mysterious circumstances Wednesday afternoon while playing miniature golf at a resort near Orlando.

A statement from the Orange County Sheriff's Office said deputies responded to the incident at the Orange Lake Resort shortly after 2 p.m. local time. "During her game [of miniature golf], the victim's golf ball fell into a small pond that is located inside the golf area. When the victim attempted to retrieve her ball from the pond, she screamed as if she was in distress," the statement said.

"Another guest, Christopher Burges, who was also in the golf area heard the screaming and attempted to rescue her. Mr. Burges was unable to rescue the child as he suffered an injury as well."

The victim, identified by deputies as Ashton Jojo of New York, died after being transported to Celebration Hospital. The cause of death is still under investigation.

http://msn.foxsports.com/golf/story/...re-golf-062712

Snake in the water ?? Electrical short charging the water ??

[Jolie Rouge]

Lisa and Gerard Triche rescued after being trapped by alligator
by Katie Maassen 2:56 PM, Jun 26, 2012

Video : http://www.ksdk.com/video/default.as...=1708141930001

(WVLA) -- Sunday around noon, Lisa and Gerard Triche took off from Bayou Corne boat launch for an afternoon filled with fishing and fun. Then just before five, the couple's boat began acting up. "The next thing you know, we couldn't get enough speed up on the boat. It was like a great storm the wave came over the boat and within 20 seconds it was sunk," said Gerard Triche.

As the boat began to sink, Lisa did something that would end up saving their lives. "I got out my cell phone out of my purse and sent my mother a text. I hit send on the phone and 15 seconds later the boat was all the way capsized," Lisa Triche said.

The pair made it to the shoreline for shelter. As the sun began to set, something caught Lisa's attention: an alligator. "I didn't see his body, I just saw his eyes and he was looking at me and I was looking at him he started swimming," Lisa Triche said.

The couple began to climb, going as high off the ground as they could, trying to avoid the beast. "I met the devil and God at the same time, but I found out God is a whole lot stronger. Because you really meet him when you're out there in a situation like that," said Lisa Triche.

Later that night, family members called the Assumption Parish sheriff's office, worried the couple never made it home. Just before ten thirty, the family saw Lisa's text message, and a little under two hours later, a team of area law enforcement agents found the couple fifteen feet in the air clinging to a tree. Deputies helped the couple down and brought them pack to safety, unharmed and thankful to be alive.

Both Lisa and Gerard say they won't step into another boat anytime soon.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/325...d-by-alligator

Not only an interesting story ... but Gerald is an old friend from hs...

[Jolie Rouge]

Girl dies during round of miniature golf
Updated Jun 28, 2012 4:04 AM ET

An 11-year-old girl from New York died in mysterious circumstances Wednesday afternoon while playing miniature golf at a resort near Orlando. A statement from the Orange County Sheriff's Office said deputies responded to the incident at the Orange Lake Resort shortly after 2 p.m. local time. "During her game [of miniature golf], the victim's golf ball fell into a small pond that is located inside the golf area. When the victim attempted to retrieve her ball from the pond, she screamed as if she was in distress," the statement said. "Another guest, Christopher Burges, who was also in the golf area heard the screaming and attempted to rescue her. Mr. Burges was unable to rescue the child as he suffered an injury as well."

The victim, identified by deputies as Ashton Jojo of New York, died after being transported to Celebration Hospital. The cause of death is still under investigation.

http://msn.foxsports.com/golf/story/...re-golf-062712

Snake in the water ?? Electrical short charging the water ??

Resort: 11-year-old girl electrocuted at mini-golf course in Florida
By Andrew Mach, msnbc.com

An 11-year-old girl vacationing with her family was electrocuted and died Wednesday at a miniature golf course in Florida as she tried to retrieve her ball from a a small pond, according to a statement from the resort. Orange Lake Resort cited the Orange County Medical Examiner's office as confirming the cause of death as electrocution by accident.

Ashton Jojo was trying to find her lost golf ball when she fell into in a 2-foot-deep pond around 2 p.m. at the mini-golf course in Kissimmee, Fla. Witnesses said they heard the girl scream out in distress. Deputies said another resort guest, Christopher Burges, tried pulling her out of the water but was injured in the process. Jojo was taken to Celebration Hospital where she later died.

“Orange Lake Resort holds the safety and well-being of our guests and employees as our top priority and concern,” the resort said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the guests, their families and friends during this time.”

The miniature golf course is closed and will not re-open until further notice pending a police investigation, resort officials said.

An Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson told msnbc.com that police are trying to determine what made the pond water unsafe. Deputies said Jojo was in town just days after her birthday on vacation with her parents and a brother from New York.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...rse-in-florida

[Jolie Rouge]

Century-Old Whiskey Bottles Found in Missouri Man's Attic
By ALON HARISH | Good Morning America – 6 hours ago



To save money on the installation of central air-conditioning in his St. Joseph, Mo., home, Bryan Fite began replacing the wires in his attic, prying up the floor boards on the rafters. Along with possible savings, he found a treasure beneath the floorboards: 13 bottles of century-old whiskey.

Fite, 40, grew up in St. Joseph, and after working in Kansas City for several years, he returned to settle in his hometown in September 2011. The house he and his wife Emily Fite chose was built in the 1850s and needed work, Fite said. The cost of installing central A/C and heat was prohibitive, he said, so he got to work in his attic. What first appeared to Fite as a set of strangely shaped insulated pipes turned out to be the secret whiskey stash of one of the house's former owners — or so goes Fite's main theory of how the liquor ended up there.

When they purchased the house, the Fites received a paper abstract detailing the history of its ownership. One of the owners, Fite said, had to give up the house when he was consigned to a sanitarium "for alcohol reasons." Fite hypothesizes that this alcoholic hid the bottles in the attic for some future occasion. "Unfortunately, he never got the chance," Fite said.

All the whiskey in Fite's attic was bottled in 1917 and distilled between 1912 and 1913. Fite, a self-proclaimed history buff, said the four bottles of Hellman's Celebrated Old Crow whiskey he found may have been among the last of their kind. In 1918, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Edson Bradley, the maker of the still-popular Old Crow whiskey bottled by the makers of Jim Beam, allowing him exclusive rights to the "Old Crow" label. In addition to the Old Crow bottles, Fite's attic was keeping cool a few bottles of Guckenheimer, the erstwhile Pennsylvania rye whiskey, and W. H. McBrayer's Cedar Brook whiskey.

In 2017, when the bottles turn 100, Fite and his friends will pop them open, he said. But for now, they are simply antiques. "Part of the allure for me is having them in their original state," said Fite, who identified bourbon as his drink of choice. "I have high expectations of what they'll taste like, and I'm afraid if I open them I'll be disappointed."

The quality of Fite's findings depend largely on the liquid level of the whiskey in the bottles, said Lew Bryson, managing editor of WhiskyAdvocate.com. If enough whiskey has evaporated, oxygen will enter the bottle and begin rusting the whiskey, and its "off flavors" will be concentrated in what remains, according to Bryson. "Unfortunately, the good stuff leaves first," he said.

But unlike wine, in which yeast continues fermenting in the bottle, whiskey's alcohol content is too high to support any organisms. As long as the cap or cork is secure enough not to let in much oxygen, the age of the bottle will not affect the quality or taste of its contents.

Bryson said Fite could likely sell the bottles for several hundred dollars apiece. Pre-prohibition whiskeys are of historical interest, he said, adding that as a Pennsylvania rye enthusiast, he would be interested in buying one of Fite's Guckenheimers. The value of antique whiskey is influenced by factors such as rarity and the reputation of the brand, he said, but it is not easy to predict, he said. An extremely rare single-malt whiskey from the 1930s recently sold for $100,000. "You don't know until you try to sell it," he said.

http://gma.yahoo.com/century-old-whi...opstories.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Zombie Apocalypse Theme Park Could Take Over Abandoned Neighborhood In Detroit
Posted: 07/02/2012 4:48 pm Updated: 07/02/2012

Why wait for the zombie apocalypse? One man wants customers to experience the terror now.

With soaring budget deficits and population on the decline, Detroit has become a laboratory for testing out creative solutions for cities, like urban farming and pedestrian-friendly greenway trails.

Mark Siwak says he has his own idea for bettering the city -- a live-action zombie theme park set in one of Detroit's abandoned neighborhoods.

Paying customers would be chased by a growing horde of zombies (all professionals) through a cordoned-off, desolate section of the city, seeking shelter in abandoned homes and factories and businesses.

Z World creator Siwak, who has launched a fundraiser on IndieGoGo (he's raised $2,200 of the $140,000 needed to meet his goal), says that the city of Detroit needs to consider creative solutions to areas of urban blight.

Mayor Dave Bing's long-touted campaign promise was the implementation of the Detroit Works Project, which could ultimately relocate residents from blighted districts to more populated areas in an attempt to centralize city services. Spread across 140 square miles, Detroit proper is so large that the entire cities of San Francisco and Boston, plus the borough of Manhattan, can fit inside its borders.

And Siwak says, with all that land, there's room in the Motor City for a zombie theme park. He even compares his idea to the city's famed Heidelberg Project, in which artist Tyree Guyton transformed the empty homes of his neighborhood into a large-scale art installation.




But some critics have shrugged off "Z World" as an exploitative and insensitive ploy to profit off the glamorization of Detroit's problems. Curbed Detroit blogger Sarah Cox wrote that Siwak's plan "sounds a lot like all that fun we had during the 1960s race riots. It is nice to know that Z Land is finally going to capitalize on our love of adrenaline rushes and nostalgia. Now even visitors from the 'burbs can 'wonder if they will make it through the night.'"

Siwak told CBS Detroit that "the city can only have so many urban farms or similar uses for vacant plots.'

And while he's far away from his funding goals, not to mention permission from the City of Detroit, he says he's already getting resumes from Detroiters who'd like their next 9-to-5 to focus on eating brains and staggering through the streets.

On his site, Siwak assured, "while zombies are great, the real neat thing about this project is the potential to inject some life into a forgotten neighborhood - with the opportunity to work with neighborhood groups and organization."

This wouldn't be the world's first live-action zombie role-play game, though Detroit's proposal is almost certainly the most expansive. In Atlanta, thrill-seekers wielding paint ball guns will pay as much as $30 to play hide-and-seek with undead zombies in a formerly abandoned truck stop rechristened as the Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse, opening Sept. 28. Over on the other side of the pond, wish.co.uk offers zombie combat mission experiences with training from military veterans and movie-grade special effects.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1644298.html

Quick PollShould Detroit Turn An Abandoned Neighborhood Into A Zombie Theme Park?

YES, do something with all that vacant land! ~~ 56.98%

NO, it's a terrible idea. ~~ 11.35%

YES, but do it on private property. ~~ 9.71%

I am actually a zombie, so this is a terrific idea. ~~ 21.96%

comments

Zombies may be hot now, but this is a fad that will go belly up in a few months or, at most, a few years. If someone can do it on private land with private money, ok it is worth a try. However, I hope the city government isn't fooled into footing any part of this bill. It sounds like the kind of thing that will make some private investor rich and stick the government with a big bill for infa-structure changes. No taxpayer money or public land should be involved. It needs to be viewed as a short term private investment only. The public shouldn't be stuck with any part of the huge downside risk.

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ok people really need to stop over analyzing this. "exploitative and insensitive ploy to profit off the glamorization of Detroit's problems."??? Detroit is empty... its big.... A zombie theme park would attract the majority of people under 30 and their friends. horror movies and zombie games are a huge part of youth culture now. It would be a real life video game (who wouldn't want to do that) its not exploitative, its a smart and creative solution, just like Disney land, just like universal studio park. its awesome, its almost guaranteed to be successful. and Detroit needs help and is no position to be picky about it. It will bring tourism and money so there is really no down side. except becoming the coolest city ever.

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Why does appealing to the masses mean appealing to the lowest common denominator? The lack of education and culture, the lack of appreciation for anything having to do with beauty, art, and a better way of living is what drove Detroit into the ground and I don't think this project would help Detroit in the long run...Sure let's gross them out, scare the crap out of them, have cannibalist themed restaurants, let's encourage and celebrate the basest of human behavior, all to make some money...

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And what happens when one crazy actually kills a zombie or one of the visitors? Oh, I forgot, this is in Detroit, the crime capital of the US for how many years??? Here's a better idea, let Disney build a theme park there, it would save us folks living in the northern parts of the US from trekking to FL or CA for a Disney vacation.

[Jolie Rouge]

Message in Bottle Found after 35 Years
By Mia Trovato | Trending Now – 7 hrs ago

Note to self, if you're thinking about putting a message in a bottle and sending it down a river, put your name and telephone number on it -- you just might see it again. Thirty-five years after Sean Keown set afloat a glass bottle stuffed with a handwritten note at a favorite swimming hole along the White River in Rochester, Vermont, 14-year-old Justin Shepard found it, 75 miles away. Even though the bottle was uncorked when he found it near the Bellows Falls dam, the soggy note was still readable. Sheppard called the phone number to no avail. He turned to the Internet instead, where he was able to track down the note's writer. Shepard mailed a copy of the note to Keown, and it arrived last week.

Keown, then in elementary school, had promised the finder a reward. He may have had a candy bar or perhaps a soda in mind when he wrote those words. Luckily for Shepard, Keown is now thinking cash.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending...195905537.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Woman known as ‘Sea Hag’ accused of fatally shooting man who refused to give her a beer
By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News The Sideshow – 5 hrs ago


A Florida Keys woman known as "Sea Hag" has been charged with fatally shooting a man who refused to give her a beer. Carolyn Dukeshire, 62, was arrested late Sunday, charged with first-degree murder.

According to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, Dukeshire shot 64-year-old Martin Mazur five times after Mazur denied her a beer. Casey Whippo, who was with Mazur at the time of the shooting told police they had just returned from dinner to Mazur's house in Conch Key, were sitting outside and had just opened a beer. Dukeshire walked around the side of the house and asked if she could have one, the witness told investigators. When Mazur refused, he said, she opened fire, shooting him in the abdomen, twice in the back and once in the wrist.

After a struggle, she tossed the gun into a canal and sat down before police arrived. Mazur was rushed to Fisherman's Hospital in Marathon, Fla., where he later died.

According to KeysNews.com, Dukeshire, a fisherwoman, is being held without bond in the Monroe County Detention Center.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow...155110197.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Aug 8, 2012 2:50pm
Condom Maker Passes Out 10,000 Vibrators on Streets



In an effort to create buzz for its line of Vibrations vibrators, condom maker Trojan is giving away 10,000 of the pleasure devices Wednesday and Thursday on the streets of New York City. Tourists and residents alike can pick up their free vibrators at Trojan Vibrations Pleasure Carts — modeled after New York’s ubiquitous hot dog carts – parked at specific locations around town. The two vibrator styles, Trojan Tri-Phoria Intimate Massager and Trojan Pulse Intimate Massager, which first launched in 2010, usually retail for $30 and $40 apiece. “We’re always looking for ways to advance this effort by fostering an open dialogue about sexual health and creating unique moments that get people ‘buzzing’ about sex and pleasure,” Bruce Weiss, Trojan’s vice president for marketing, said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for the company said the publicity generated through these giveaways might help remove the social stigma associated with talking about or using the devices. “What we’re doing is taking something like a hot dog cart that is so everyday and so mainstream,” Weiss told the New York Times, “and we’re showing people that vibrators are mainstream.”

Although Trojan advertises on television, giveaway campaigns like this are probably a better way to spread the word, said Brian Steinberg, TV editor at Advertising Age. “For things you can’t talk about in polite circles, you’re better off doing a guerilla campaign so people can get a hold of the product themselves,” Steinberg said. ”It’s probably better to distribute them on the street and let people make their own decision about it.”

And the Trojan Vibrations Pleasure Carts are likely to rouse interest. In a news release Weiss pointed to a study from the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2009, that found 53 percent of women and 45 percent of men have used a vibrator in their lifetime. In a separate promotion, the company distributed 4,000 vibrators at the annual BlogHer conference for female bloggers last week.

Trojan is owned by Church & Dwight Co. Inc., which also owns Arm & Hammer baking soda, First Response pregnancy test kids, and Nair hair removal products, and is located in Princeton, N.J.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business...rs-on-streets/