From: sherw@ocf.berkeley.edu (Gregory Sherwin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney
Subject: Re: Why I love Disney, Part 47
Keywords: hotels, voicemail
Date: 5 Sep 92 00:47:41 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: sandstorm.berkeley.edu

In article <71323@apple.Apple.COM> winter@Apple.COM (Patty Winter) writes:
>This is *class*, gang.
>
>What a great idea! Way to go, Disney 
>folks!
>
>p.s. No, you haven't missed 46 previous postings. I was just being
>facetious. But it probably wouldn't be hard to come up with 46 other
>things that Disney does really right.


Well, Patty - hope this doesn't come as a shocker as I'd hate to burst
your Disney balloon, but I think in all fairness I had to add a list
of "Why I think Disney represents everything that's wrong with America,
part 47".  Okay - I am being a little facetious here, but I don't think
you know the real story about Disney - at least both sides.

Fact #207: In 1990, Disney was forced by the Environmental Protection
Agency to pay $500,000 in fines for illegal toxic chemical dumping
-- it turns out all those paint thinners used to make Disneyland look
so pretty for its 35th anniversary somehow wound up in some pit in 
Colorado.

Fact #426: In 1991, Walt Disney World was taken to court over alleged
abuse of animals by the Wildlife Defense Fund and lost.  The charges?
Walt Disney World, not having any respect for the native vultures to
the area, decided that the vultures were "too smelly", "too noisy",
and too much of a problem at their wild birds exhibit, so they sent
employees with cages and clubs to the nests of these vultures.  You
know Disney - image is everything, even at the mere cost of a few
vultures lives.  The result?  13 vultures were killed, many more
were wounded, had their wings broken, and were shot at by Disney
employees.  The sentencing in the Florida state courts required Disney
to make reparations by performing several public services to aid wildlife
preservation in the area.  Furthermore they were fined thousands of
dollars, to which today they still have not paid one cent towards.

Fact #602: In 1990, a preschool in the Midwest had painted Mickey
Mouse's face on a playroom wall.  Disney, not taking kidly to unauthorized
use of their trademarks, threatened to sue the nursey school over it -
to which Warner Brother's was kind enough to step in and painted their
characters (Bugs Bunny, etc - you know, the FUNNY ones, unlike Mickey) over
them, free of charge, so that the lawsuit could be avoided.

Fact #723: In 1990, a long-time crew member of the Queen Mary was fired
by Disney from his tourist position at the Long Beach attraction for
the most heinous of reasons - image.  Disney's policy of "no facial hair"
resulted in the firing of the old man with a trademark handlebar moustache.
Image is everything.  Do I smell a faint air of facism here?  Conform
or be expelled?

Well - I could go on here, but I think you get the point - AND I have
work to do.  The fact is that Disney isn't necessarily any worse than
your Exxon's, your Drexel Burnham Lamberts, etc. - but they are no bette
either.  Disney is a corporation, whose sole purpose is to make money -
to perform research on how best to present a corporate image - whether
through cute, wholesome family entertainment, a research team that
plans out the most effective way to map out lines for rides at their
theme parks to minimize the perception of how long they really are,
whether to deny admission to people because of their haircut - because
their image sells.  People shell out $30 a ticket, and Disney puts on
the grand illusion to think that the world is beautiful, everyone is
nice, and Disney is doing you a favor by letting you pay the $30 to
get in.  Buy it up.  Eat it up.  that's what they have always planned.
Disney isn't on this planet to make everyone happy and nice, it is here
so they can tell their stockholders that the public believes Disney
is here on the planet to make everyone happy and nice - and that means
more profit dollars.

I wish the public wasn't so naive - that we weren't all looking for something
to hold onto in this world that we can say is there just to make us happy
(be it religion or Disney or a significant other or whatever) - but that's
part of being human.  We often WISH for those things, even if they aren't
true.  Believe in your Santa Clauses, your Easter Bunnies - if it makes
you smile, great.  Maybe it's a lot easier to look the other way when
something bad happens than to face up to the fact that institutions
like Disney are merely an illusion, and an illusion perpetrated to
take your cash.  Love from within yourself is the only thing you can
trust, don't misplace it on a corporation.

Greg Sherwin