King is particularly proud of a recent project, Stacy Peralta?s big-wave surfing documentary Riding Giants, which this year became the first documentary ever to open the Sundance Film Festival. The film features King?s footage of tow-in avatar Hamilton surfing sixty-foot beasts at Jaws. “It was one of the best swells there ever,” King remembers. “Perfect, perfect waves, and super huge. Riding Giants is a really entertaining, well-made film, and the stuff we shot that day is some of the most amazing surfing I?ve ever been part of. It still takes my breath away.”
Daily Archives: December 26, 2004
Big Farms & Farm Subsidies
For despite the fact that farm income has doubled in two years, federal subsidies have also gone up nearly 40 percent over the same period – projected at $15.7 billion this year, and $130 billion over the last nine years. And that bounty is drawing fire from people who say that at this moment of farm prosperity, the nation’s subsidy system has never made less sense.
Even those deeply steeped in the system acknowledge it seems counterintuitive. “I struggle with the same question: how the hell can you have such high government payments if farmers had such a great year?” said Keith Collins, the chief economist for the Agriculture Department
Timothy Egan reviews a topic that SHOULD be discussed and acted upon in Washington.
An Identity Crisis at Lands End?
“Lands’ End was one of the most brilliant brands of the 20th century, and under Sears, one of the most irrelevant brands of the 21st century,” said Burt Flickinger III, managing partner at the Strategic Resource Group, a retail consultant in New York. “Lands’ End in the Sears stores is poorly positioned in between men’s suits, snow blowers, tools, denim and work clothes.”
As for bringing Lands’ End products into the Kmart stores, Mr. Flickinger said: “J. Crew, Eddie Bauer and Abercrombie & Fitch would never stand to have their brand image eroded by going down-market to Kmart. Kmart is associated more with a rough-and-tumble blue-collar consumer.”
It seems obvious that Lands End will be spun off or sold at some point.