BAM Monthly Newsletter: April 2025
Lively's hairy donuts; Booker's dry speech; Mississippi's typo tax bill
Welcome to Issue 2 of BAM Monthly, a newsletter covering recent news, trends and observations in the world of communications, presented by BAM Communications Services, LLC.
In this month’s edition:
Blake Lively makes waves with hairy PR stunt
Cory Booker breaks filibuster record with “dry” 25-hour speech
Typos are no laughing matter, except perhaps in Mississippi
Blake Lively makes waves with hairy PR stunt
Details matter in staging a publicity stunt, as Blake Lively discovered during her recent visit to a friend’s Connecticut donut shop. Hoping to garner positive press amidst a legal dispute with actor Justin Baldoni, the 37-year-old actress handed out treats to customers.
Instead, she was excoriated online for failing to wear a hairnet. Photos meant to show a smiling, happy and lively Lively were instead used as evidence that her long locks dangled dangerously close to the donuts.
The incident prompted scrutiny of older photos showing shop staff also without hairnets. Negative Yelp reviews followed, and while the health department briefly investigated, no penalties were imposed.
Is Hollywood full of elitist snobs who deserve more scorn than respect? Of course. But meeting a famous actress remains an exciting prospect. And I wouldn’t want her to be wearing a hairnet, even if that is what’s expected of us plebeians. So I’ll give Lively - and the store - the benefit of the doubt here.
Hopefully the Internet Busybody Society (IBS) enjoyed their time and can now move on to more constructive endeavors.
If you are in need of communications assistance, please reach out today!
Cory Booker breaks filibuster record with “dry” 25-hour speech
The most physically impressive feat by any communicator over the past month came from New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who broke the U.S. record for longest filibuster.
Here is a detailed, point-by-point breakdown of Booker’s 25-hour marathon speech on the Senate floor:
Busted! I, like the rest of the country, did not watch, hear or read about what he said.
That’s not to diminish the achievement. The point was to draw attention, and for a couple of days, it worked. Kudos.
Now onto something more interesting. How did he go 25 hours without a bathroom break? I’d have to sip plenty of water to even speak for two hours, and it wouldn’t be long before my body’s parole board granted that water an early release.
Turns out I was not alone in my curiosity. Rumors quickly spread that Booker had used a performance-enhancing device, such as a diaper or catheter. His team denied it, claiming he fasted for three days and stopped drinking fluids 24 hours before the speech.
Impressive commitment.
Following Booker’s oratorical tour de force, I now know what to say whenever someone tells a seemingly interminable, meandering story with no point or punch line: “Are you wearing a diaper?”
Typos are no laughing matter, except perhaps in Mississippi
I’ve spent my professional life believing that typos, though inevitable, are serious infractions. One should be diligent during the editing process to avoid them at all costs.
That attitude, evidently, is not shared by Mississippi lawmakers. Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill in late March that would put the Magnolia State on the path to zero income tax within the next 15 years, with gradual reductions until the tax is phased out.
Those gradual reductions are conditioned, though, on hitting certain revenue targets along the way. I’ll let the Wall Street Journal take it from here:
That’s where the typos come in. What the cautious Senate intended, according to local press accounts, was to ratchet down the rate on income each year, as long as state revenue beat planned spending by at least 85% of the cost of a certain baseline tax cut. But lawmakers unintentionally wrote 0.85%. Oops. The result is that the targets will be much easier to meet, though they still might be a brake if the economy spirals or appropriators go wild.
I will reluctantly admit that I’ve also made typos. But never one that directly impacted a state’s tax policy. Nevertheless, state leaders in Mississippi didn’t seem too worried about the mistake:
“I’d use the biblical analogy, let he who has not had a typo cast the first stone,” said Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who leads the state Senate. He also joked that his chamber’s future bills would look like run-on sentences, “because I have removed the period from the legislative drafting community, and it’ll stay removed.”
I’ll continue to treat typos like Raid on a wasp nest. But if one occasionally saves taxpayers money, then maybe they’re not all bad.