Sunday, February 05, 2006

Super Bowl

In the words of Lewis Black, "I watched the Super Bowl again this year. Why? Because I'm an idiot." There was a time when I thoroughly enjoyed professional football and looked forward to the Super Bowl. My interest has been slowly waning, and while my Packers abysmal performance this season certainly didn't help matters, my apathy is for an altogether different reason. Emphasis is placed on advertisements during the Super Bowl more especially than any other time. In fact, a large number of Americans watch the game explicitly for these ads.

Ordinarily, I cannot stand television. The mediocre content coupled with my neurotic inability to let go of the fact that, yes, corporations are trying to get me to buy things. Thus, even if a good show is on I spend a very large portion of the time yelling at the TV. It does wonders for stress levels.

Then it dawned on me why I watch the game. Acually I am lying. I still don't know why I watch the game, except that I can't think of a reason to be such a spoilsport that I'd rather spend the night in my room. The venture was not a complete waste though thanks to the wonderful fellows over at Gillette.
Five blades! What will they think of next? Sign of the apocalypse, or merely a very clever marketing ploy directed at the male audience? And I'm still using three blades. It seems I'll never keep up.

4 comments:

troutsky said...

Buchanan in my opinion is an intellectual who almost gets it.He believes, against all available evidence and history, that a true free market can exist with no State interference within a capitalist framework.He sees the right problems but refuses to see the corporation and global capital as the problem.

How many gallons of beer and tons of potatoe chips were consumed yesterday? How much of that marketing was actually effective?

A Wiser Man Than I said...

I don't think Buchanan is a believer in the free market as a solution to all our problems. He is, after all, a protectionist. He seems to be leery of power being accrued by the federal government. I need not mention the plutocracy to you, or what it has given us.

Honest intellectuals should be skeptical of capitalism, but that does not mean we should throw it aside. A responsible conservative, like Buchanan, could work wonders for this Republic of ours.

Also, I noticed your South American buddy called Bush worse than Hitler. I've tried to give Chavez the benefit of the doubt, but this certainly isn't helping his case.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-02-05T014850Z_01_N04360949_RTRUKOC_0_US-VENEZUELA-CHAVEZ.xml&rpc=22

Your thoughts?

Oh, and yes, the Super Bowl is a massive orgy of the consumerist culture. I had a nice dinner of homemade pizza with my family and tried not to be too bitter. I suppose it worked well enough.

troutsky said...

You are right ,the whole Hitler thing is over the top.Chavez enjoys hearing himself speak and the imperialist card plays well in Latin America (everywhere?)I think Napolean would be a better analogy.

So, where does Buchanan come down on labor rights, unions, protecting labor? If we give the State the power to protect trade, in the form of tarrifs, subsidies etc we the people have conceded quite a bit to a plutocracy, havent we?
Classical economic theory places over-production and over-accumulation as crisis producing aspects of capitalism, forcing state -backed capital to penetrate new markets.Hard to get away from that military-industrial complex Eisenhour warned against.

A Wiser Man Than I said...

Buchanan's position on "labor rights, unions, protecting labor" are unknown to me. He often sides with union heads when it comes to things like protectionism.

Ben Shapiro has a rather pathetic column that attempts to pin Buchanan as a liberal.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48773

Dratted neo-cons.