commercial interest

With the flu season in full swing I decide to tuck a box of kleenex under my arm and take a few moments to reconnect with my couch.

It's been a while since I've sat in front of the TV and I must say I'm completely reclined at the absurdity of what's fed to me every time my program takes a time out

What is this slop they've slipped into the IV.

An ad for lawyer services follows a mother as she follows her teenaged son around the house. “this is the last time she will make lunch for him”, “this is the last time she will pick up after him”, “this is the last time she will say good-bye”. A drunk driver will kill him on his way to school.  Now she's gonna have to call --- services.

Are you kidding me?

Next, an ad shows a pre-teen child walking away from a crowd and laying down in a field on her back. A white sheet is placed over her body and pulled up over her head. She is dead. A warning about driving drunk.

For pete's sake people.

Is this really necessary, with all the real life violence and sadness we experience on a daily basis that we need to be hammered with violent images during the down time too? Is that what it takes to extend our attention span so we'll buy an idea?

Then there're those lame ass Lotto 6/49 commercials poking at people struggling “some people have to deal with tragedy blah blah blah... well this (winning scads of $$) is my scorching desert” or the one where the guy buys, buys, buys all the cars and toys.

Lay around and buy...

That's all those lame ass script writers at the Lotto lab can come up with. Well someone certainly won the lottery with that job.

And then there are the Boatshow commercials. Yah, that's really funny when the old man psyches his grandson up for a day of fishing with gramps in a boat, and then there's no boat. That's just sad, not to mention mean. What a loser.

Violence with a hammer, to make sure the message sinks in, greed and consumption, insensitivity and callousness. 

But surely they insult our intelligence with those assumptions...yes?...  only, no one is saying anything, are they. No one seems to be disagreeing. The ads still run. We watch them without disruption.  Man it's embarrassing being human.

moot or hooey?

humans will relate much quicker and easier to something negative than something positive, and respond likewise.

Obama drama

now that Guantanamo is obsolete, where are they going to store all those orange suits?

moot or hooey?

Cuba has never cashed any of the rent cheques from the USA for the use of the base.

if the shoe fits...

Shoes can say a lot about a person, especially when they're hurled at the head of the president of the United States.

When Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes (yes he managed to remove and hurl both before being pounced upon), President Bush responded by joking they were, “size ten”.

He told the people in the room “don't worry about it. Calm down” and even chuckled as Mr. al-Zaidi was tacked, beaten, and dragged from the room.

Bush didn't appear to give the incident much thought. He gave a short speech then quickly circled back to the conversation at hand. “In terms of the agreements, this is a major achievement...”

Mr. al-Zaidi was whisked away to jail and charged with assaulting a foreign president, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Apparently he later wrote a (secret and confidential and therefore unable to be disclosed) letter of apology to Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki stating that a known (un-named) militant had induced him to throw the shoes.

His trial has recently been postponed for appeal, his lawyer Mr. Dhiya'a al-Sa'adi asking that the charges be shifted from “assault” to “insult”, which carries a lesser maximum of two years in prison and could quite likely result in al-Zaidi being released on bail.

Mr. al-Sa'adi claims it was someone “exercising their freedom of expression”.

According to his aforementioned speech, it seems Bush agrees.

“It's one way to gain attention. It's like going to a political rally and have people yell at you. It's like driving down the street and have people not gesturing with all five fingers. It's a way for people to draw attenti... I don't know what the guy's cause is. But one thing is for certain, he caused you to ask me a question about him.”

“... that's what happens in free societies when people try to draw attention to themselves. So, I guess he was affected 'cause he caused you to say something about it now.”

So Bush can't guess what al-Zaidi's cause was. Knowing what we know about Bush, that's not entirely unbelievable. But even a clued out, pretentious, fear mongering, nut-ball has a built in fight or flight response, so if Bush can calmly state “I didn't feel the least bit threatened by it” shouldn't we at least hear him out and give al-Zaidi a break?  Surely the “bag 'o hammers” thingy doesn't apply to animal instinct, after all, he did duck.

Besides, like al-Sa'adi says “has anyone ever died from a shoe?”

... I guess we'll find out

moot or hooey?

All claims from al-Zaidi's family and lawyer that he's been tortured, resulting in a missing tooth, stitches on his nose, injury to his jaw, cigarette burns on his ears, and has been beaten with metal instruments have been denied.