"This depiction is soo absurd it should be an offense to anyone's intelligence. If you can't cook pasta without being driven to suicidal panic you should be institutionalized." SuperGoober commenting on my Ad post...
See, SG gets it. He was referring to those ads for the microwave plastic pasta cooking devices. The ad shows some poor, harried Housewife desperately trying to cook spaghetti for her brood the old fashioned way; you know a pot of boiling water.... Apparently this woman is so uncoordinated that she just can't seem to carry a pot of water/with cooked spaghetti in it to her sink and poor it into a collander. She splashes, she struggles, her hair is all unkempt and it looks like she's about to take Hubby's shotgun and suck on the business end of it and end it all!!! Yeah, good point SG.....totally nuts. A lot of ads have stooped to that level; the scare tactic. Take the Netflix ads.....some poor soul forgot to take back the movie they rented to the video store, or some poor soul just HAS to get a movie NOW!!!! and they go rushing to the local store all unkempt (I've used that word twice now.....) and stressed out. The tagline is "Take the drama out of renting..." What drama? Nothing against Netflix, it's a great service from what I've been told, but give me a break. I know from friends experiences that sometimes you have to wait for those "hard to find" movies to arrive from Netflix just like when they are all rented out at the store. Yes there are not late fees, but whatever. Hollywood video gives you 5 days for movies and games, even new releases. If you can't get around to watching something or playing something in 5 days, you shouldn't have rented it to begin with. The one's that really get me are the Pharmaco ones. We have two new vaccines now that if you don't get them or someone you loved vaccinated it will rain fire and brimstone, dogs and cats will live together and there will be mass hysteria!!!! Enter Gardasil and Menatra (sp?). The first is for Human Papalova Virus....essentially the virus that causes Cervical Cancer.......not sure of the percentage chance of getting CC, but apparently because this company has now created a Vaccine for it, the percentage chance is much higher than it was.........same with Menatra(sp?) which is for Menigicacul Menigitis......basically Mono.......their ads bascially make it sound like all teenagers should be decontaminated on a daily basis because they are writhing crocks of Menigicacul Menigitis. How many people do you remember getting Mono in school? I remember one, and she recovered and didn't die or have any long term effects because of it. Apparently though because of this new vaccine, Mono is rampant in the current teenage population. Let's see, I have a 14 year old Step-Daughter, she has some teenage friends and a boyfriend her age. I've met all these kids and not a one of them are a writhing crock of menigitis; of any kind! The one billboard ad I saw that was this bad was in Cookeville, TN. There's a local pest control company who put up a billboard that has a sleeping, precious little snowflake of a blonde blue-eyed infant sleeping. Crawling near said precious little snowflake is a HUGE (in comparison to the baby) Black Widow Spider......the tagline says something to the affect "Sleep Safe?" or something like that. In other words....if you don't hire these folks, giant Black Widow Spiders (in comparison to the baby, about the size of a silver dollar....that's a damn huge Black Widow) will sneak into your home and kill your baby.
Now to the next item on the agenda. Businessweek published a list the other day about the Unhappiest Cities in America. It used the criteria of crime rates, divorce rates, suicide rates, unemployment, etc. Portland was apparently number 1 on the list because of the weather....and Nashville was number 8. Now alot of people out here were annoyed by that; I look at them and say "what they Hell are you smoking?" Nashville, the City where a couple of years ago two spoiled, rich, youths were walking along the riverside one frosty winter night, high and drunk, and decided to roll some poor sleeping homeless woman into the river. They thought it was funny. She ended up drowning. They are now in jail screaming everytime Bubba anally rapes them. The same City where gang banging thugs abuse the privalige of After Hours clubs by always getting into fights that end in a shooting or a stabbing. Yes, out here there are clubs that re-open from 2am to 6am after clubs are supposed to be closed by law. The catch? They don't sell acohol during those hours. The problem? They allow you to bring your own alcohol in. Yeah, that's not going to be a problem.....noooooooo not at all. High divorce rate, oh yeah. Lot's of Teens who are repressed by parents who just tell them "it's a sin to have sex so don't do it" and don't actually talk to their Teens about the real consequences of having sex before you are ready. So far our talk with my Step-Daughter seems to have sunk in. These same Teens then rush to the altar to get married and end up divorced years later because the person they slept with and that got them pregnant/they got pregnant wasn't Mr/Ms Right but Mr/Ms Right Now. The same City where just last night someone shot a homeless man in the face. The Police say it was an apparent robbery. Now let me get this straight, you are trying to rob a HOMELESS MAN.....for what? His cardboard box???? The poor guy is on the streets...that means he has enough change to by booze and that's it. The same City where little punks don't even wait anymore for people to be away from their house before they rob the place. No, these punks bust in, tie everyone up, sometimes rape the women, then rob the place blind. Oh yeah, and they usually shoot someone even when they are being cooperative. The weather in Middle Tennessee is weird to begin with....I can see that being a factor. The freeways are in need of some serious fixing in places. Heck, for awhile there it seemed like there was nothing but construction delays and that certain projects would never get finished. The same City where Downtown is loaded with tons of vacant buildings that seem to have been empty for years. Don't get me wrong, at least Nashville isn't Memphis.....Thank God it's not Memphis. Let's just say that Memphis is a cross between Oakland, Harlem, Brooklyn and Detroit. The City just needs a change that's all...yeah if there was any money.....I'm glad I live in the Burbs.....I've always been glad I've lived in the Burbs actually.
4 comments:
Actually, cervical cancer is the 8th most common cancer in women and kills about 5000 per year in the US. It's the one that your sweetie gets the Pap smear to check for, by the way.... and Human Papilloma Virus (or HPV) is believed to be a necessary factor in nearly all cases. HPV immunization may be able to eliminate about 70% of cervical cancers.
As for Meningococcal meningitis... that's NOT mono. Epstein-Barr Virus infectious mononucleosis (to use the full name) is caused by (no kidding) the Epstein-Barr virus, a ridiculously common virus, and has symptoms such as sore throat, fever, and fatigue, and is generally considered a benign disease of adolescence. Meningococcal meningitis is an inflammation of the meninges (tissues surrounding the brain) caused by meningococcus (also known as Neisseria meningitidis). Symptoms include a headache, stiff neck, fever and a rash. It is highly virulent, especially among people living in close quarters (students and soldiers in dormitories), and is anything but a benign disease. Death can occur within HOURS with bacterial meningitis. ANY kid with a headache, high fever and a stiff neck – especially if the headache intensifies by bending the neck forward – should go to the ER IMMEDIATELY for evaluation and treatment (LP and antibiotics).
Does the meningococcus vaccine make a difference? Dunno. Education on what to bring your kid into the ER for (and what not to!) would be a better use of the advertising money, and this is definitely a scare tactic... which was your point, I suppose. But these aren't bullshit diseases.
Besides, I have to use the biomedical part of my education for SOMETHING, don't I?
Yes you do, and your expertise is noted. You're right, these are not BS diseases and my point is that the ads use scare tactics to get the uneducated and easily scared masses to go rushing to their Family Doctor and demand that their child get these vaccines because there's apparently an EPIDEMIC of Biblical proportions.......probably why the rate of Malpractice suits are on the rise......
Yeah, your point is the same one I've been making for years. There's a comedian (can't remember who) who noticed a few years back that a lot of these diseases are pretty broad and/or desirable.
"Do you wake up tired?"
Hey! I've got that one!
or....
Hey look! That disease comes with a hot chick and a puppy! I need that disease!
It's all a far cry from my dad's old complaint – the dinnertime ad for Primatene Mist. "This is the inside of a congested nostril...."
Eww.
Oh... yeah. Malpractice suits are on the rise primarily because we think that doctors can cure everything with the right pill or drug. When they don't, clearly the doctor is the one who fucked up.
Let's not mention that your loved one was a noncompliant diabetic who decided to experiment with a combination of bourbon and his friend's oxycodone. Or someone who presented with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. Or a 95-year-old lady with Alzheimer disease, congestive heart failure, and acute pneumonia. Or even an 88-year-old with mild CHF, senile dementia, and acute bradycardia (slow heartbeat), but a firm desire not to undergo any invasive procedure.
That last was my grandmother six weeks ago. (We didn't sue.) But the whole MD-as-infallible-god thing? Yeah, that has a lot to do with malpractice suits, just as Merck and Pfizer and J&J's attitude of "just take our little pill and all will be well" does.
Um... what am I doing on top of this soapbox?
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