Am I the only one disturbed by the Burger King Singing Cowboy commercial?
If you give it only the slightest notice, you might see a retro commercial with a nice modern twist of a black singing cowboy (yes, there were and are black cowboys, but there were no Black Singing Cowboys ala Roy Rogers). He is good looking and sings well about “the breasts that grow on trees.”
All around him are women moving to a slightly slower tempo. They are dressed in camp vamp. They seem to be pulled forward by their breasts and rearward by their asses. They touch their open mouths, faces, flowing hair. They display a different hunger. They are nubile and comely. They are very soft porn — the kind of images that make a 13 year old boy take notice and hope his parents haven’t.
I don’t know what to make of the fact that all the men are black and all the women white. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Yes, one woman is Asian. Notice she occupies the lowest point in the frame AND exaggerates her legs to hide the fact that her breasts and ass were inadequate for a standing role.
And, yes, there is a white guy, the Top Dawg: the Burger King himself (though under the mask could be any gender or race). The BK occupies the highest point in the frame, towering, lording over his frolicking, fornicating subjects as he bangs his wench from the rear. She, surely a real porn star, raises her arms and cries, “Come and get it.” In the Director’s Cut, she is topless and cries, “Oh, god, yes! yes!”
Think I’m over doing it? We all know that sex sells very well. What alarms me is the pornicious hiphopification of mainstream advertising. Hip-hop music videos always feature an endless herd of sexy women, provocatively dressed, thrusting their breasts and grinding their hips while maintaining a strangely blank expression , as if they couldn’t care less about anything, or as if on bear tranquilizers. At least the BK girls look happy — maybe they know they don’t have to have sex with the star and his entire entourage after the shoot.
After I wrote this, I did a Google search and found another commentary, which confirms a couple of my thoughts, but is quite a different reaction (good piece, though).
Also, the Burger King website (which I refuse to link to), repeats aspects of this commercial (starting with “the breasts that grow on trees”) without any of the people. They thoughtfully provide a link to Black History Month, though not to Women’s History Month. mjh
Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act of 2005
Guest opinion: Government openness ensures the consent of the governed – billingsgazette.com
By JOHN CORNYN, R-Texas
U.S. Senator
Just last month, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a longtime champion of open government at the federal level, and I joined forces to introduce the OPEN (Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National) Government Act of 2005, to strengthen and enhance our federal open government laws. It has been nearly a decade since Congress has approved major reforms to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). And the Senate Judiciary Committee has not convened an oversight hearing to monitor compliance with FOIA since 1992. So this week, I will chair a Senate hearing to examine needed improvements to our open government laws. …
After all, open government is not a Republican or a Democrat issue; it is an American issue. Indeed, the bill is supported by a broad coalition of open government advocates and organizations across the ideological spectrum.
Open government is a fundamental principle of our democracy. As President Lincoln once said, “No man is good enough to govern another without that person’s consent”-and of course, consent is meaningless if it is not informed consent. For that very reason, the cause of open government is as American as our commitment to constitutional democracy.
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Track S.394 OPEN Governement Act
Desert Snow
This may be the best snow storm in Albuquerque in the 20 years I have lived here. Certainly the best in more than 10 years. mjh
Flickr: mjhinton’s photos tagged with desertsnow (a subset of Flickr: Photos from mjhinton)
Around the local blogosphere:
General Quirk ‘Round Town: Snow Day in ABQ
Flickr: dangerousmeta’s photos tagged with snow
More in comments….
March is Women’s History Month
Noelle has a great series highlighting historical women from around the world for Women’s History Month at hedgeblog. mjh
From Hypatia of Alexandria:
All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.
To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing.
Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.
From Sojourner Truth:
Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Propaganda is the Destroyer of a Free Press
Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News By DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN
To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The “reporter” covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department’s office of communications.
Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed HUNDREDS of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government’s role in their production.
This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration’s efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source. …
A recent study by Congressional Democrats offers another rough indicator: the Bush administration spent $254 million in its first term on public relations contracts, nearly double what the last Clinton administration spent.
O, Ye of Too Much Faith!
ABC News: Answers Sought After Church Group Shooting
Terry Ratzmann, a buttoned-down churchgoer known for sharing homegrown vegetables with his neighbors, walked into the room and police said he shot 22 bullets from a 9 mm handgun within a minute.
None of those who knew him expected Ratzmann to be violent. Neighbors said he was quiet and devout, that he liked to tinker about his house and garden. He would even release the chipmunks caught in traps he set in his yard.
But Saturday, the Sabbath for the Living Church of God, Ratzmann turned on worshippers.
“He wasn’t a dark guy. He was average Joe,” said Shane Colwell, a neighbor who knew Ratzmann for about a decade. “It’s not like he ever pushed his beliefs on anyone else.”
The 44-year-old computer technician lived with his mother and sister in a modest home about two miles from the suburban Milwaukee hotel where police say he opened fire during service.
The Charlotte, N.C.-based Living Church of God is a denomination that grew out of a schism in the Worldwide Church of God, formed in 1933, and focuses on “end-time” prophecies.
This year, the group’s leader, Dr. Roderick C. Meredith, wrote that events prophesied in the Bible are “beginning to occur with increasing frequency.” The church has an estimated 6,300 members in 40 countries. …
“The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
North Jersey Media Group providing local news, sports & classifieds for Northern New Jersey!
Hence, the shock that came when police in Wichita, Kan., announced on Feb. 26 that he is BTK – the initials stand for Bind, Torture, Kill – architect of a murder spree that has claimed 10 lives and terrorized Kansans since 1974. Rader, we are told, was the very epitome of ordinary. He was a 59-year-old Boy Scout leader, a married father, council president of the Lutheran Church he has attended for more than 25 years and a compliance inspector for suburban Park City, where he was in charge of, among other things, animal control.
Two men. One a long time brutal serial killer, the other a spur-of-the-moment mass murderer. Both devout, regular church goers; one born-again, looking forward to the End of Days.
I do not mean to suggest that church goers are bad people. I wish to stress that going to church isn’t proof of one’s goodness — nor does it necessarily even prevent evil. I’m tired of the suggestion that I may lack values because I don’t go to chuch. Look who does. mjh
He’s Coming Back! – Updated 3-15
ABQjournal: Bush To Push Plan in N.M.
WASHINGTON? President Bush is expected to visit New Mexico? possibly next week? as part of his national tour to drum up support for his Social Security reform proposals.
In a speech in Louisiana on Friday, Bush said he was going to “head out West” to New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona after visiting Florida next week.
White House Spokesman Taylor Gross confirmed that the president would be visiting New Mexico as part of his Social Security tour but declined to release the exact date or town.
Update 3-15
ABQjournal: Around New Mexico
Bush Coming To Albuquerque
WASHINGTON — President Bush will visit Albuquerque next week as part of his national tour to promote Social Security reform, the White House announced Monday.
Bush will arrive in Albuquerque next Monday [3/21] and will spend the night at an unspecified location.
On Tuesday morning [3/22], he will lead a town-hall style discussion about his proposal to invest a portion of Social Security revenues in private investment accounts, said White House spokesman Taylor Gross.
Gross said details, such as when and where in Albuquerque the town hall event will be held and who will be invited to attend, will be released later this week.
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SENATOR JEFF BINGAMAN
SPEAKING ON SOCIAL SECURITY: A CRISIS?
Wednesday, March 23, 7:00 PM
UNM Law School, Room 2401
Stanford Drive, north of Lomas, south end of golf course
All are welcome ? bring your friends