Tuesday, 10/20/15
Our Lord’s warning against our falling asleep, gives me an
opening to speak about something that is causing us to lose awareness. We hate the way that advertizing is enslaving our minds.
We older people had no resentment against the single
sponsors of favorite shows. Bob Hope was sponsored by Pepsodent, Jack Benny by
Jello, and we used those products to deepen our friendship with Bob and Jack.
Now, the single sponsor has given way to strings of eleven
or more sales pitches. The ads for banks, for ambulance chasers, for genital
enhancers, come tumbling over one another in numbers we can rightly call infestations. With that, we come to see individual product plugs as so many cockroaches.
The sad thing is that the advertisers know that their ads
bring in profit. They would not do away with all good taste if they were not
sure that it brought in money. They can show you figures that prove that if you
throw enough mud some of it will stick.
The finals in golf’s President’s Cup the week before last
were something. This year’s decision came down to the final hole between Bill Haas, our
captain’s son, and Sangmoon Bae, Korea’s darling. With us lovers of golf glued to the TV, the ads people didn’t
let a drive, approach shot or putt go by without its own infestation.
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