Superhype

Ok. I assigned my students to watch the superbowl and to be able to discuss everything surrounding the game but the game itself: the Rolling Stones, the hype, the coverage, and especially the commercials. We don't really care about the game. That's incidental. That being the case I figure it's important for me to write about it here and say something superlative, so here goes.

I liked the Burger King ad.

That's about it.

One of my students had the best thing to say about it, thying in with a discussion we were having about the Jim Carey version of *Fun With Dick And Jane*, (the original was a political statement on corporate greed and American materialsim, while this one is just a screwball comedy), when asked why the ads have become a bigger event then the game itself, one of my students said "I think it's all about vanity."

Ah yes! All is vanity; or, as Al Pacino once said "definitely my favorite!" Just to keep them on their toes I told them to name all seven deadly sins. They forgot wrath. Just like Bashful. They always forget one.

As I pointed out to my students we are in a media event frenzy for the next few weeks--which, of course, is what the marketeers want us to experience, especially in winter when we're watching more TV. The Superbowl just ended, the Grammy's are tomorrow, the Winter Olympics start on Friday and then run right through to the day of the Daytona 500. Nobody will even watch the Pro Bowl. Then the Oscars step up a couple of weeks after that. It is a marketting bonanza!

On the political front, President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld have answered the question I posed awhile back. President Bush has said he will not deal with Hammas until they renounce terrorism and recognize Isreal's right to exist. I mostly agree- I say mostly because cutting Hammas off completely will only de-stabalize the region even further, and because if you are going to promote democracy around the world then you have to deal with the consequences and figure out a better way then to simply take your ball (or in this case your wallet) and go home when you don't like the party that gets elected. But we can't be dealing with terrorists. It's a connundrum. Then Rumsfeld came along and said the populist movements in South America are "troubling." Right. As if we really can't put up with a government of, by, and for *their* people.

Look, either you believe in democracy or you don't. It's beginning to seem like these guys only believe in democracy that gives them the results they want.