China's Communist Youth League has a new partner: the New York advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide. In an "unlikely marketing joint venture" called Red Force, "programs organized by the 70 million-member league are coaching young people in today's paramount ideology: capitalism. ... At a Beijing session last month, Ogilvy staff taught the entire two-day seminar, beginning with a lecture on communication and personality style, as well as an overview of mantras of Ogilvy corporate culture: 'Deliver your brand to the last mile,' repeated Ogilvy executive Jeffrey Wu." Hong Kong Disneyland hired Red Force "to hold six storytelling sessions with children in southern China," in preparation for China's first theme park.

The "top three advertisers of packaged-foods to children," General Mills, Kellogg and Kraft Foods, along with the Grocery Manufacturers of America and several advertising associations, "have created a lobbying group to defend the right to advertise to kids." The new group, the Alliance for American Advertising, states, "There is not a correlation between advertising trends and recent childhood obesity trends." The Alliance hopes to avoid federal regulation, using tactics that echo "earlier efforts by the tobacco and alcohol industries." In other food news, a "U.S. appeals court ruled that McDonald's must face a suit by New York teenagers" who blame the fast food giant for their obesity and health problems.

Syndicated columnist and Institute for Marriage and Public Policy president Maggie Gallagher received $41,500 from the Bush administration in 2002 and 2003, to promote Bush's $300 million initiative encouraging poor couples to marry. Although Gallagher repeatedly praised the initiative in her columns and during interviews and television appearances, she never mentioned receiving government funds. After being questioned by the Washington Post, Gallagher filed a column saying she "had no special obligation to disclose this information" but would have done so anyway, "if I had remembered." One contract with the Department of Health and Human Services was for conducting briefings, writing brochures and ghostwriting articles for officials. Another with the Justice Department was for writing a report titled "Can Government Strengthen Marriage?" President Bush reacted by ordering his Cabinet secretaries not to hire commentators, saying, "Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet."