Nalpalm

We got this offer sheet from Claud Butler today at the shop today. It contains the phrase 'Nalpalm the competition with these hot prices'. I don't want to stereotype people but the cycling community as a whole tends to come off a little liberal, leftish, chilled and even overly moral. So I can't really see why CB have used the mental imagery of 'napalming the competition' to advertise their bikes.
The physical act of napalming anything tends to be messy. When napalm was used in the Vietnam war skin was burnt from the backs of children, whole villages of innocent women and children were burnt away, kids were disfigured and disabled, adults were left with debilitating and painful injuries and could no longer work or provide for their families.

If it were me, I might have taken a step back at the CB board meeting and said hang on a minute there Claud, don't you think the phrase 'nalpalm the competition' is a little strong?

Claud Butler obviously have no qualms about using terrifying weapons to advertise lower end alloy 'mountain style' bikes. I'm now wondering how far they would go? What's next, are they going to H-Bomb Santa Claus and his reindeers at the north pole with a series of seasonal reductions later in the year, or use the human centipede to run an Easter special on tandems?

By buying into the 'Nalpalm the competiion' thing does that mean when we order the bikes from CB that they will literally dump a truck full of napalm on Edinburgh Bikes up the road, dissolving and burning away not just the bikes, the accessories and the brick work of the establishment but also the flesh of the employees working there? I have friends up there, what about Billy and Murphy? I like those dudes. On paper I guess you could call them the competition, will they be destroyed by the napalm wielding Claud Butler corporation? Do we suffer a napalming if they order the bikes instead?

I'd like to see one of the CB employees be made to ride through a Vietnam jungle on one of these bikes in the early seventies and see how well the bike actually performed. Are they as 'ALL' terrain as they claim? Could they handle a jungle full of flame throwers, pungee pits, hand grenades, land mines and AK 47 wielding guerrilla fighters all while being soaked in buckets of agent orange. How funny would the use of napalm be then when the riders aluminium Ravana frame dissolved away to nothing and they were left running for their lives?

I think of families that lost loved ones in the war on both sides, napalm is a terrible weapon with terrible consequences for its victims, don't romanticise it, don't have disrespect for those people who died in napalm associated atrocities and don't use a hideous weapon as a promotional tool for the so called green ethics of the cycling world. At the very least it's glaringly inappropriate and I'm sure I don't stand alone working as one of the many dealers who find it offensive.

Not that funny really.