Used into oblivion

Watching TV the other day, I noticed a commercial for P Diddy's line of "Ultra Premium Vodka." That got me to thinking. Are there really, say three levels of vodka quality: Regular (for lack of a better term), Premium, and Ultra Premium. Why not Super Ultra Premium? Or what about Mega Super Ultra Premium? Where I ended up in my thinking was that what I was seeing was evidence that advertising destroys words.

If calling your product "premium" improves sales, hey call it "premium." If everyone calls their product "premium" however the word starts to loose the cache that it once had (i.e. the meaning of the word has been destroyed). Thus you need to find other ways to distriguish your product from the glut of other "premium" products on the market. Enter "ultra premium." It's like Disney calling their latest animated film an "instant classic." The words no longer have meaning.

What I don't think the ad wizards behind this get, is that every time they up the ante, they lower our expectations with regard to their claims. The more you promise, the less we buy it. They find ways to scream louder and louder for our dollars, only to find that we turned them off a half hour ago.

Try just selling me a good product. Don't talk to me about more taste, whatever that is? And don't try to string together enough adjectives that you think I will finally want a bottle of Extreme Mega Super Ultra Premium Vodka.

More Lessons in Not Getting It

While checking my yahoo e-mail account for the latest random "See my pix" spam, I ran across the following new item: "Obama's choice of evangelical pastor draws ire." It seems that Obama has selected Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration. "But the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights organization, said Warren's opposition to gay marriage is a sign of intolerance."

So let me understand this, the Human Rights Campaign is intolerant of Rick Warren's intolerance, right? Now no one in the media is going to make this connection. Intolerance only works in one direct anyway, right? Since those who believe the homosexuality is a sin are already branded as intolerant it is therefore fair game to be intolerant toward them. The only flaw in this logic is that the very groups making a major issue out of the toleration of others are the ones themselves who seem least capable of demonstrating any tolerance of others. And Christians are the ones called hypocrites. Hey pot, what color are ya?

Proof of Freedom in Iraq

Since the shoe throwing at President Bush, I have been thinking that what this shows is that Iraq has a much greater level of freedom than in the recent past. What do you think would have been the reaction of Saddam had this been done to him?

Random Fact from History

December 11, 1792 Josef Mohr, German Roman Catholic priest and hymnist who wrote the words to "Silent Night" was born in Salzburg, Austria.

A Black President as Envisioned by Richard Pryor

Found this and just had to. Enjoy!