Another gloomy sunday

Ho hum, another gloomy, slow, overcast, uneventual day at Sandhill. I know I should be grateful for a "day of rest," but, being retired, everyday is a day of rest. It gets boring, especially this time of year as there is not much doing in the garden or outside, and my tolerance for the internet and television grows dim. The only bright spot was when my neighbor stopped by to give us some delicious oyster mushrooms that he grows on logs. But then we had a long conversation, mostly political, which of course put me in such a foul state of mind I couldn't think of much else for the rest of the day. It's not that we disagree about the state of the union, quite the contrary, it's because we do agree that makes it so depressing. Will Bush/Cheney ultimately escape responsibility for their war crimes? I sincerely hope not but it doesn't look too promising. One other thing I don't like about sunday is there is no mail. Not that I get much mail, but I do look forward to it every day. You never know what might come in the mail.

Anyway, watching a bit of television stimulated me once again to reflect on tv ads. I don't know much of anything about advertising in general or tv advertising in particular, but I know what I don't like (actually, I don't like tv ads, period, but that is another story). I notice that tv advertising seems to go through phases. Like a month or so ago they were using children for most ads. Children to tell you about health care, how great the coal industry is, what Congress should do, and so on. I don't really think they ought to use children in ads at all, especially when they have them repeating things they almost certainly don't understand. This phase doesn't seem to be completely over but it is slowly diminishing as near as I can tell. Unfortunately it has been replaced by the latest fad, dressing adults up in various costumes, like vitamins (who talk to each other about how they've been improved and such), or like fruit (today I saw a talking banana but I have no idea what he has advertising, but it wasn't bananas). A few days ago it was a guy dressed like a carrot being interviewed for something-or-other. Perhaps the worst ad is one in which they have men dressed as hamburgers. Hamburgers! There are many variations on these kinds of ads. Personally, I don't know how they get anyone to agree to be in one. I can think of few things more humiliating that to be dressed up like a hamburger. But I guess aspiring actors and actresses are willing to do most anything for exposure and money. I hope this phase will pass soon. Perhaps we can have people dressed up like ping pong balls and bat them back and forth over the Grand Canyon.

I am still pondering the great Mukasy maneuver. As you know he was recommended for Attorney General and doubtless will achieve that elevated status. It reminds me of a tale they used to tell about electricity. It seems this physics professor was lecturing about electricity and he asked if anyone knew what it was. When no one offered an answer he deliberately asked a student who was asleep. Startled, the boy replied, "I knew what it was, but I forgot." The Professor, chastising him sarcastically and drawing a laugh, said, "fine, you're the only person on earth who knew what it was, and you forgot." That's the way it is with Mukasey. It seems that virtually everyone on earth knows that waterboarding is torture. It has been known as torture for hundreds of years. People have been found guilty of it in various parts of the world. Most American jurists agree that it is torture. Military people that have seen it, or actually employed it, agree that it is torture. John McCain has said it was torture. In short, virtually everyone on earth knows it is torture - except Mukasy. How can that be? Do you believe he truly doesn't know that it is torture? Or can he just not say so because that would make Bush/Cheney automatically guilty of a war crime? I suspect the latter. But if he had any decency he would have simply given up being Attorney General and told the truth (after all, it's not as if he needs a job). Schumer and Feinstein, spineless wonders that they are, supported him, reportedly saying he was the best we could expect. A man who doesn't know torture when it slaps him across the face, and who believes the President is above the law, is the best we can expect? Morality, along with common sense and decency, have disappeared in these first nightmare years of the twenty-first century. Reality itself seem to have gone out of fashion. Like I say, just another gloomy sunday.

LKBIQ:
"It is probably not to much too say that the hope of progress -- moral and intellectual as well as material -- in the future is bound up with the fortunes of science, and that every obstacle placed in the way of scientific discovery is a wrong to humanity."
Sir James George Frazer