I feel sorry for the poor child
who would stab someone because their shoes told them to.
Nike pulls Air Stab trainers
Nike has decided to withdraw its "Air Stab" range of trainers in the UK in response to "horrified reactions" from consumers and anti-knife charities, the Times reports. Nike's Air Stab trainer So far this year, 53 people have been stabbed to death in London alone, the Times notes, and last year "over 5,000 people across …
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Thursday 17th July 2008 11:15 GMT Stefan
Oh dear - the PC brigade are back.
Kona have been making mountain bikes for some time and have not (so far as I'm aware) had any complaints about the naming of their Stab model (which is quite a nice bike).
I'm guessing this is another case of mass hysteria; people who just cannot avoid flapping their gums on the assumption that they have to in order to prove to other people that they are keeping up with the "what to be offended by" zeitgeist.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 11:32 GMT bluesxman
"Airstab"
Hearing the name didn't make me want to shank someone (with the possible exception of the individual who named them), but it did instantly make me think "what a SHIT name for a pair of trainers".
Then, on seeing the image, my first thought was "what a SHIT looking pair of trainers". So I guess the name is appropriate -- maybe they can try to justify it like that to the overreacting mob.
The "Pocket Knife" shoes are no great shakes either (name+looks)... Iif there a whole "blade" theme coming through here?
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:43 GMT Graham Dawson
Simple solution to knife crime
Make guns legal.
It works like this. They'll still attack each other but instead of wounding they'll just kill each other, which means fewer injured idiots straining the A&E department, which in turn leads to less money being used up to save idiots who'll just be in again next week. Reduced strain on limited funding means that it can be more effectively distributed, saving money, reducing the costs and letting the NHS fund more livfe-saving treatments for cancer patients and so on. I just saved the NHS! Where's my consultancy fee?
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Ban the word 'Stab'
Not only should Nike 'Air Stab' trainers be banned, but also the word 'stab' should be deleted from the dictionary, and forcibly removed from everyday lingo. Similar sanctions should be imposed upon the words 'Hack', 'Slash' and 'Gouge'. In addition, we should also take serious action against anyone moving their hand in a jerky forwards motion, as it may be construed as 'stabbing practice'.
Only when all of this has been achieved will we have protected our children and our children's children from getting an almighty stabbing. I blame a pair of shoes for all of society's ills.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
meh
Knife crime will continue to increase becouse as a nation we are incompetent.
Why do children commit crime?
They are bored. Get home from school, nobodies about, nothing to do, bored of their games, bored of school, bored of the humdrum pointlessness of it all. Nothing to do.
They go hang out with their mate. It's a laugh.
They and their mates become bored. They make some fun.
They drink, take drugs and come up with ways to make things more interesting, berating passers by, acting tough.
This behaviour ups the ante, other groups of bored teens looking to look tough go around looking for groups to have a barny with. Verbal starts, violence breaks out, people get a kicking, people go home.
Groups of kids get home, bit hurt, bit bruised, want some payback, want some protection, want a penis extension. They get weapons, next time they're out they're tooled up. Run into another group again, this time the weapons scare the other guys a way, someone takes a thrashing from a bike chain.
The other group gets tooled up, now you're looking at full grown parties, seige mentality kicks in, people protecting their turf, the kid and their mates are well full of themselves by now, harrasing folk, being tough, smashing windows, doing their thing. One day some guy f--ks them off, he fights back or doesn't hand over his junk. Guy gets killed. That's that. Or tehy meet another group and it all gets out of hand.
Society stopped taking responsibility. Locking folk up wont stop that cycle, but it's the only way for many, their too deep into the mentality, the siege and terretorial mentality, it's a base instinct after all and infects the mind pretty quick. You go from a normal person to a predatory pack member in days.
The problem? Nothing to do.
The biggest solutions would be after school clubs (as they have in Japan and to an extent in the states - where you are expected to join a club, the clubs are run by students and mentored by a teacher) but in Britain we'd never give students that kind of freedom or responsibility and schools just a dungeon anyway. Western society presses the idea that being good and intelligent are undesirable traits, it stresses that aggression and rebellion are the ways to get what you want.
The second solution is more out of school clubs and facilities, but the problem here is 2 fold, cost - our government would sooner spend 20 billion on ID cards then 4 billion on after school and weekend activities.
The second problem being that we have become obsessed with the notion of sex offenders, nobody wants to work with children accept people who have little credibility with them and think very much inside the box and government requirments makes those who may be interested in helping unable to do so. As someone mentioned on another thread about a village judo school.
A general problem is the media and society being willing to be retarded - as this article once again proves.
People need hobbies, obsessions, distractions - sports, science, litrature, games, technology. They need like minded people, but it's too late for most teenagers, for our school system, for the future.
When Tony Blair said "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" we believed him, but it seems his concept of cause was freedom not opportunity.
O well, what ever.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:43 GMT Jesse
Personally
Personally, I hadn't even noticed these were on the market. I was looking forward to the Air Rape model. My running partner is still deciding between Air Pillage and Air Murder.
The atrocity here is not that stab reflects violence and death. The problem is that some (payed) jackass has the imagination to pair "stab" with shoes to form a sort of marketing ploy and Nike followed through with it!
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:44 GMT Stuart Van Onselen
High Rate?
56 fatal stabbings in London alone?
While it's obviously horrific to the families of the deceased, the truth is, Britain is still a very safe place, if you're in such a tizz about that figure.
56 dead sounds like a bad (yet not uncommon) Friday night at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital (Johannesburg, South Africa). One night, one hospital. And half of those would have been gunshots, not knives.
One of my paramedic friends told me of the exchange program they had with an English hospital. The paramedic they got was very fearful/excited when they were called out to a GSW on his first trip. He'd only ever attended to one of these in all his years in England.
By the end of the first evening, he'd seen so many that he became as blasé as the South African paramedics.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:44 GMT add
Nike range
I think its a good name, its quite hard to stab someone with a trainer. It could be worse, they could have released a Nike Knife called Stab - that would at least be justified hysteria.
Besides, why not use other name, like Nike Rape, Nike Murder or better still Nike Kidnap'n'torture.. i mean, if your going to start something, you may aswell go all the way and have a general theme. You could sell a few hundred before they get banned by public pressure.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Air Stabs would be short for?
Air Stabilisers, when I was a kid I had a pair of stabs on my bike and had the piss taken out of me. But when I was a kid I had the piss taken out of me for my bacon 2.99 trainers with the authentic hard plastic on tarmac slap. I think Mothercare should re-brand their toddler walkabout as deluxe child stabilisers, maybe something a bit shorter.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:44 GMT Reptar
Fact Check
"With the current gun and knife epidemic that is sweeping our country we would expect retailers to be taking a more sensitive approach to promoting products to a young and impressionable market.”
Actually, there aren't any statistics for knife crime that show such a trend, since police only started recording "knife crime" last year. And today was the first time such figures have been released.
"Because this is the first time we have such data this says nothing about the trend in such crime," said the Home Office's Scientific Advisor Paul Wiles.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL1754092020080717
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:44 GMT kissingthecarpet
@AC "given etc...
Three cheers to you sir, for stating what should be bleedin' obvious to anyone with the power of rational thought. The papers & TV have huge self-fulfilling prophecy power - house prices rising/falling, panic buying, knife crime, you name it, they hype it to fuck, then away we go. When did people start believing TV was more real than their own experience? I think that for many people the television has become their main experience of life....
Mines the one with the handbasket with the "To Hell" address label
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
The media
"With the current gun and knife epidemic that is sweeping our country"
There is no 'epidemic', just as the previous problem was pedophiles and before that immigrants, the modern media has latched on to knife crime as the current 'problem' as it sells papers.
Apparently, according to the media, your going to get mugged, stabbed or abducted the second you step out your door these days, despite the fact that statistically your safer than you've ever been.
It's the idiot peoples own fault though, stop reading dreck and the red tops and feeding this hysteria cycle that does more damage than good.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
The missing angle
I presume that this means the end to blade servers and the Motorola RAZR too. To be on the safe side, I've deleted /etc/fstab before the thought police get here.
Anyway, if 'air stab' is anything like 'air guitar', it will just involve miming without the knives, so is absolutely harmless.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:46 GMT Steve Evans
Oh dear...
Political correctness goes mad once again (did it ever return to sanity)?
I wonder how long it is before they spot some very dubious phrases in sport...
Brace yourself for...
He shots, he scores -> He kicks the ball at the goal, he scores
Jeeez...
And what will become of moving through the opposition like a knife through butter?
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:46 GMT Iain
Ban them
I am disgusted at Nike's insensitive naming policy. With global warming and rising atmospheric pollutants a major concern I consider it completely unacceptable that a responsible multinational organisation should even consider using the name "Air" on any product. They should take fair warning that I will never be buying another Nike branded product again because of my outrage. And neither will anyone else from Tunbridge Wells.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:47 GMT goggyturk
The name sounds Quixotic
Isn't Air Stabbing what Don Quixote did when he went off to vandalise some windmills? THIS BOOK ENCOURAGES KNIFE CRIME!!!!! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
I hope all copies of this, as well as the Three Musketeers and any stories involving pirates are banned from sale and our school libraries immediately!
I also hope that the consumption of Body Shots are also banned from Mexican restaurants as these obviously encourage gun crime.
PS under proposed EU legislation, won't Cervantes be able to retroactively sue Nike for infringement of intellectual property?
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Quick the government must fix this!
Jacqui, one of your demographic (screaming hysterical women) needs you! You must save them from stuff that has a loose correlation to other stuff!
Remember "Tough on stuff, tough on stuff that has a loose correlation to other stuff!" The Home Office motto???
And perhaps some sort of compulsory insurance? You know '3rd party stab' insurance, that way if you find yourself stabbing someone else your insurance pays out for your gratuitous stabbing! You have to pay an excess the next year depending on how many stabbings you've done.
Everyone of those knife criminals did NOT have '3rd party stab' insurance, ergo it is the cause of stabbings! We need to crack down on this lack of stab insurance immediately!
Perhaps ban people looking at stabbing incase they're inspired to go on a stabbing spree.. Extreme stabbing videos (alien is just a total stabathon) we could ban, make it a crime to even discuss stabbings, cartoons of people discussing stabbings even! Tough on crime, tough on Garfield knife wielding lasagne killer!
Ohhhh Jacqui please save us.... daytime television tells us the world is soooo scary.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 15:47 GMT Adrian
IT companies are even more offensive
All this fuss over a simple consumer product yet I don't recall any outrage and demands for withdrawing Proxim's Tsunami wireless router?
Hundred's of thousands of people have died as the result of Tsunamis across the world yet this product is still on the market and and I have yet to see a scandalized tabloid headline!
I think it's time to ban any product with a name connected to the cause of death of any one anywhere on the planet. Think of the grieving children!
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This post has been deleted by its author
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Thursday 17th July 2008 17:23 GMT Henry Cobb
@HP Fluffy Kittens
I can just imagine the horror when HP talks about how many Fluffy Kittens they can squeeze into a rack and that's before they mention applying electricity to them.
"But these are virtualized kitten images. No actual animals where harmed (other than the poor dumb BOFHs) in the construction of this data center."
"Sorry mate, but you should have read the new Internet porn ban law. Virtual images are illegal."
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Thursday 17th July 2008 18:26 GMT WRMartin
Not funny?
Oh but it is. It’s frickin’ hilarious Ms. Fatima – maybe you need to lift your burka and look closer. And who knows, maybe one day someone will be saved by stabbing someone with their shoe. Maxwell Smart swore by (and at) his.
On the other hand, the Nike Cut Your Head Off And Piss Down Your Neck And Use Your Skull As An Ashtray line of trainers was deemed officially Not Funny At All.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 19:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
But surely ...
Cars kill far more people each year than random knife attacks, so why are we not demanding the banning and withdrawal from sale of cars? All motor vehicles?
More people than this are killed falling down their own stairs. This is just ridiculous.
Actually though, MY trainers are in fact deadly offensive weapons.
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Thursday 17th July 2008 19:22 GMT Snert Lee
Alternate Approach
One way to curb the number of knife stabbing, pass out hand guns. Don't just allow people to carry guns, require that they do.
Yes, there will be a few rough edges during the first year or so as the terminally stupid and/or clumsy off themselves and/or each other, but at the end of that time you'd have one very polite and orderly society.
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Friday 18th July 2008 07:51 GMT Steve Roper
Has anyone else noticed this tendency?
Human-rights supporters: "We're offended by the way you exploit cheap third-world labour in sweatshop conditions and we're going to boycott your product."
Big corporation: "Meh. We don't care, because millions of people still buy our product and we make billions in profits, so boycott us all you want. It won't affect our bottom line."
...
PC-nannies: "We're offended by the way you use a commonplace word in your product name and we're going to boycott your product."
Big corporation: "Oh no! We're very sorry for our ill-considered and offensive advertising campaign and will spend millions withdrawing it and rebranding. Please forgive us, we'll do everything we can to make sure it never happens again!"
Considering that human-rights supporters seem quite common (I know quite a lot of them) and PC-nannies seem quite rare (does ANYONE here actually know one personally?), is it not strange that a corporation that cares only about its bottom line would actually pander to such a minority? What's the real agenda here?
Black helicopter because I get the feeling I just spotted something I shouldn't and they'll be coming to take me away real soon...
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Friday 18th July 2008 08:15 GMT Mr Larrington
I demand...
...the immediate withdrawal from sale and destruction of all stocks of the latest Half Man Half Biscuit album, CSI: Ambleside. "Petty Sessions" end with the line "Kill, kill kill, stab, murder and despatch". Obviously anyone hearing this will immediately go to the High Street and slice up everyone in sight.
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Friday 18th July 2008 09:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Timing, statistics and media
So, generally we're just ignoring the fact that they're a re-launched version of the 80's trainer of the same name - so named due to them being a "stability trainer".
The last stats I saw on knife crime said we were averaging the same levels of last year. It's not a sudden epidemic, it's just reported more. Had this been released last year (with the same knife-crime levels) there wouldn't have been an outcry - see above for the well made point about the Motorola RAZR.
NB - I'm not trying to take away from the seriousness of knife-crime. It's something that needs to be sorted, but not by banning shoes with weird names. I'd lay money that the chavs of today no longer refer to it as "stabbing" someone. Back when I was relatively hip and happenin' (ha!), it was "cutting" someone.
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Friday 18th July 2008 10:01 GMT Matthew Hale
What a fantastic...
...piece of marketing, bravo Nike. Let's fuel the fire!
Not sure how it's naive to get all this free publicity?!
And since when did Nike ever pretend to be interested in `the children` (other than `third world` children, in an cheap labour sense, of course)?
Next up, the Blackstab-Spaedo CO2 swimshorts range.... woohoo.... Come join us on the moral panic bandwagon! There's not much room left, so be quick!
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Friday 18th July 2008 10:10 GMT pctechxp
@Adrian
Yeah suppose it should be renamed the warm and fuzzy router.
Just think though of the blade server form factor, that'll have to go too, but what could you call them instead without offending some section of society? skinnies? anorexics?
Well, thats the female of the species alienated.
As per my earlier comment, this is frankly a storm in a teacup and reflects that said outraged people have very empty lives indeed.
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Friday 18th July 2008 14:03 GMT Glenn Charles
okay, guys, so clue me
I'm American. '"Somebody please, think of the children!"
By Richard
Posted Thursday 17th July 2008 11:07 GMT
This is just stupid. It just adds to the bile I've already built up over the beeb's report on banning sharp knives in kitchens.'
...The BBC WHAT?
--Glenn
oregonnerd
gmail
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Friday 18th July 2008 19:13 GMT Rachel
@ meh (AC)
Well said, old bean.
There's some interesting Aldous Huxley stuff on anti-snobbery in the early 20th century, the idea that universal education of a mediocre standard produced generations of people who, having awareness of cultural ideals but not knowledge and understanding of them, became mocking of these existing precepts and thus became 'anti-snobs'.
I also read an interesting book recently, or an interesting couple of chapters in quite a dull book, about Outlaws and Highwaymen, which detailed the British obsession with robbers and thieves (Robin Hood, Dick Turpin etc). It made it very clear through numerous quotations and references that there has always been an unusual fascination with the rebel and the outlaw in Britain which is not mirrored in other similar cultures or even dissimilar ones. We have always had an idea in this country for example that it is better to steal than to beg, where other peoples might believe that it is better to die than to steal.
The point about after school clubs etc is salient. I believe there are a few problems with our attitude to this. First, teachers rebel whenever they are told to do anything more, perhaps because they have too much paperwork to do now. Both of my parents were teachers before this current age of bureaucracy, and they were able to work spontaneously and take the pupils on local history walks and many other activities. Now an event like this takes months of planning and clearances. Recently, the government reminded schools of the need to teach citizenship provoking an uproar from the teachers. But these teachers are the same people who say that the parents are pointless, and so where do they expect the children to acquire these principles from?
I am particularly annoyed with the parents who move house to gain better catchment areas for their children, rather than committing to their local community. Parents too can get involved in children's education, and so can businesses, although I know that the idea is abhorrent to many.
There is a scheme in London, something to do with Breakin' Convention, which encourages street arts - graffiti, hip hop, breakdancing etc, which I think is the right way to do things. Kids have a whole load of passion and energy to bring to things if they are interested in them. Another good example would be programming/gaming. Schools should get great computing guys to inspire kids about what is going on in technology, instead they provide kids with teachers that generally know less than they do, and IT is dealt with as a kind of business studies.
Rant over.
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Saturday 19th July 2008 09:29 GMT Rob
@ Rachel
"We have always had an idea in this country for example that it is better to steal than to beg, where other peoples might believe that it is better to die than to steal."
Speak for yourself, you thieving pikey bastard. Nobody in the UK, today, is so poor that they need to steal to eat.
"I am particularly annoyed with the parents who move house to gain better catchment areas for their children, rather than committing to their local community."
Well, I hope that those heartless bastards feel properly chastised by you. I mean, how dare they try to better the lot of their kids?
Are you real? Or am I feeding a troll?
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Thursday 24th July 2008 09:02 GMT tony trolle
56 knifed in london
its about 200 dead in a year in L.A. (Though 2006 was 262 dead) and about 160 in London
However aggravated assault (unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury) runs at 6000 pa.
If you look at the stats you have a great risk of rape but less chance of being killed in Hollywood.
Population is : 4.2 Million in LA and only 7.2M in Greater London
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
