My baby rocks, y'all

Okay, folks, my sweetie's hit the big time. I've written before about Kathy's cool web organizing project mixing animation, podcasting and e-activism to promote prescription drug reform for Consumers Union. Here's a fun frame:

Titled, The Drugs I Need, the project features terrific Austin artists: the Austin Lounge Lizards and the Animation Farm. On Friday morning the Today Show ran the entire song and animation. On Sunday, the New York Times ran their second story in a week about the project. Then on Monday she moderated a panel at SXSW on e-activism with a bunch of national hotshots. Now this comes from the 3-15 London Financial Times (via email, no link) with a great update on the campaign, and an analysis that it may have catapulted prescription-drug-reform politics into a whole new level. I especially like the story's lead:

In any fall from grace in American life, the descent towards ignominy is marked first by criticism, then ridicule, writes Christopher Bowe. Just ask Bill Clinton. Or the French.

Now the pharmaceuticals industry appears to have entered that ring of hell. An internet cartoon called The Drugs I Need, which mocks the companies' feel-good television advertising and blasts their high prices, has caught the public imagination. Produced for Consumers Union, a watchdog, the campaign has triggered 60,000 letters to Congress in little over a week. In the process, It has been picked up by internet political cartoonists Jibjab.com, where it is the first external animation to appear on its site.

The advert features a paisley-pattern pill character strutting through a sunflower-filled landscape, singing: "They've spent billions to convince me, so now I realise Progenitorivox beats diet and exercise... But I want Progenitorivox, because I saw it on TV. Those families look so functional,
that paisley pill's for me."

That's pretty good for a bunch of Texas yokels, huh?