Confessions of a Political Junkie ? Family Planning with Planned Parenthood:
This one just about pegged my irony meter. It seems that the condoms handed out by Planned Parenthood are the least reliable. Some pundits theorize that this is to encourage people avail themselves of PP's "other services". Not me. I suspect this is simply a case of the lowest bidder winning the contract. In my admittedly limited contact with PP and their propents I've found they view the mere distribution of contraceptives as an end. That they might not be reliable is beside the point. Providing them for free is the point.
When I was in college, some students were running for student government, they decided to use free condoms as a marketing gimmick. (Keep in mind I attended a Jesuit school.) They stumbled upon this idea and the nearest PP office provided them with the two biggest boxes of jimmy hats I've ever seen. They were about the size of bankers box. Each one must have held 5000. (To put this in perspective, the total student body was about 2,500 and my class was about 600.) Either PP didn't realize how small my school was or they had heard of my legendary prowess and assumed I was the benchmark for my peers.
Much of this was done for shock value which I suppose is the type of antics that can be expected of college students. However, these geniuses decided to staple their names to the condoms with a message about how they "cared" about you. Nice going. After about 500 were punctured with their galactically ironic message attached. I happened upon them busily destroying the remaining batch as fast as they could. I pointed out that condoms were more effective if they haven't been punctured in several places and that the message of caring could be undermined by giving someone a defective birth control device. They stared, agape, at their "progress".
"Now we have to start over. Thanks a lot." said #1
"We tried using tape but it takes too long, this is faster." said #2
In the end they went back to tape.
On election day, I was heading to the polling place. I had to cut my way through the various candidates and their supporters. (No FEC laws to violate I guess)
One of the friends of #1 and #2 handed me one of the aformentioned items (a taped one) and admonished. "Don't use this, it will break. Trust me."
This one just about pegged my irony meter. It seems that the condoms handed out by Planned Parenthood are the least reliable. Some pundits theorize that this is to encourage people avail themselves of PP's "other services". Not me. I suspect this is simply a case of the lowest bidder winning the contract. In my admittedly limited contact with PP and their propents I've found they view the mere distribution of contraceptives as an end. That they might not be reliable is beside the point. Providing them for free is the point.
When I was in college, some students were running for student government, they decided to use free condoms as a marketing gimmick. (Keep in mind I attended a Jesuit school.) They stumbled upon this idea and the nearest PP office provided them with the two biggest boxes of jimmy hats I've ever seen. They were about the size of bankers box. Each one must have held 5000. (To put this in perspective, the total student body was about 2,500 and my class was about 600.) Either PP didn't realize how small my school was or they had heard of my legendary prowess and assumed I was the benchmark for my peers.
Much of this was done for shock value which I suppose is the type of antics that can be expected of college students. However, these geniuses decided to staple their names to the condoms with a message about how they "cared" about you. Nice going. After about 500 were punctured with their galactically ironic message attached. I happened upon them busily destroying the remaining batch as fast as they could. I pointed out that condoms were more effective if they haven't been punctured in several places and that the message of caring could be undermined by giving someone a defective birth control device. They stared, agape, at their "progress".
"Now we have to start over. Thanks a lot." said #1
"We tried using tape but it takes too long, this is faster." said #2
In the end they went back to tape.
On election day, I was heading to the polling place. I had to cut my way through the various candidates and their supporters. (No FEC laws to violate I guess)
One of the friends of #1 and #2 handed me one of the aformentioned items (a taped one) and admonished. "Don't use this, it will break. Trust me."