Shingles. An unfortunate truth. A suspected lie.

These are interesting commercials. I don't doubt for a moment that shingles is very painful, so I got the shingles shot even though I never had chickenpox. (My doctor assures me you can get it anyway.) So I feel comfortable knowing that's one less thing to worry about. What I don't believe is the claim on these commercials that 1 in 3 people will get shingles in their lifetime. If that were true, we would all know dozens of people who had shingles and, at 70-years old, I have only known three. So, I suspect this is a misleading claim by another greedy pharmaceutical company to increase their profits through the use of scare tactics.

You probably haven't seen the funniest comedians.

I have a very low opinion of most of the highly admired American comedians like Steve Martin,  Steve Carrell, and those not named Steve. And I have a super low opinion of the skits on Saturday Night Live. But maybe that's because I have such a high opinion of British comedians who seem to be far more brilliant than any of our stars and so admire their skit programs like The Fast Show and the Big Train.  The first salesman in these outtakes is Paul Whitehouse, who I think if by far more talented, versatile and funnier than any American counterpart. This is a regular bit from a popular past sketch program called The Fast Show. but it's just one of Paul's amazingly creative characters.  I would encourage anyone to look up The Fast Show on YouTube to see the wide variety of hilarious sketches, especially those featuring the absolutely fabulous Paul Whitehouse

Moments great and moments absurd.

As long as I am criticizing American theater, I will relate the worst moment of theater I have ever experienced.  Like many lovers of theater, my favorite play is Tennessee Williams'The Glass Menagerie. Like any true fan I wish I could could have seen the original 1944 production In Chicago with Laurette Taylor.  But without a time machine that's not possible, so I try to see as many new productions as possible. I was particularly excited when my friend Angie Radosh, a truly great actress, was scheduled to play Amanda Wingfield. She was superb, of course, but sadly in a production that was not worthy of her talents. Now, for that worst moment I mentioned.  If you know the play you know that Tom Wingfield is the dreamy and lost hero of this sad story. To open this production, the director had Tom coming down the main theater aisle flicking his Bic lighter and strutting with the same attitude as every gang member in West Side Story. It was the most ludicrous moment of theatrical direction I have ever seen, and a sacrilege to so corrupt this classic American masterpiece.

Note: the photo above of Laurette Taylor is a scene from what is arguably the greatest theatrical production in American theater history: the debut of The Glass Menagerie. Those who saw it, claim nothing can surpass it. Those who didn't more often than not put it at the top of the list of plays they would most like to have seen.

The plays the thing....the unread thing.

American theaters says they are looking for exciting new plays to produce. In many publications they plead for such exciting new plays, promising to respond in three to six months. That's a long time, but not really when you consider that most never respond at all. Why? Did they not read the play. Possible. Did they not like it? If so, why not send a quick rejection?  I think the answer is that most theaters are run by pretty ordinary people. The kind of people who wouldn't recognize an exciting new play. Or don't have the confidence to produce it. Or prefer to play it safe with all the endlessly performed tried and true productions of the past. Or are just too lazy and rude to even read many of the submissions they received. I am particularly annoyed by this because my play The Gray List is a proven crowd pleaser. It was done in New York twice by actors and producers who appreciated its value. And it was well-received both times. But I have sent it out to over 50 theater companies and have not received a single positive response, which suggests to me it went mostly unread. Our local theater, The Actors' Playhouse in Coral Gables has never read it, though I have sent it three times in ten years. Part of their mission is to support local playwrights. But it would seem they prefer to do tried and true Broadway musicals and plays, especially if there is a lead role for the Artistic Director. Bitter? Of course I am. I have a powerful play that isn't even being considered for production. And I, like hundreds of other playwrights in America, are spending my time and money to send out plays which are completely ignored. And, in most cases, we do not even receive the courtesy of the promised reply. On the few times when I have challenged this rudeness, I was told there are so many submissions, we can't read them all. I submit that you can tell in five pages if a play is any good. Thus one could review dozens a day.  I think this dismissal of playwrights speaks very badly for theater in America.

Note: The above photo is from the most recent New York production of The Gray List. The three brilliant performers are Kittie Hendrix, Thomas J. Kane, and Marilyn Duryea.

StUPid Pr0ggram

A CAPTCHA is a program that protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. For example, humans can read distorted text as the one shown below, but current computer programs can't:

This is absolute bullshit. Captchas are the most annoying and maddening "protection" I can imagine. More often than not once you have typed the damned distorted text, you are told you didn't do it right and another equally annoying captcha appears. Many times I just give up since there is no satisfying whoever has devised this idiotic test. Also more often than not, the captcha appears after you have typed your complaint, comment, or request. And when you don't get the captcha exactly right, your text disappears and you have to start all over again. I will never use another website that requires a captcha. Note: the two words shown here are relatively clear and nothing like the complex captchas you are more likely to be cursed with, 

Holy mackeral, that was funny.

Between 1951 and 1955, there were 78 episodes of the tv version of Amos and Andy. Like the earlier radio shows they were hilarious. In most cases Kingfish (Tim Moore) was out to bilk trusting and naive Andy (Spencer Williams) while good friend Amos (Alvin Childress) looked on and  Kingfish's wife Sapphire (Ernestine Wade) and her fiery mother (Amanda Randolph) added even more comic relief.  But somehow the censors and those who know better decided that this program was insulting to blacks, though Kingfish was the only less than honorable person on the show. At any rate, it was removed from the airwaves. What replaced it?  Even more exaggerated stereotypes in such shows as Good Times, Sanford and Son, and What's Happening. Oddly nobody complained about these programs or the many other series that have been shown since. I think The Cosby Show is the only program that didn't have at least one or two black stereotypes. What's the point of this rant? Just to remind everyone that the tv series Amos and Andy was damned funny and its removal wasn't fair to viewers or to the talented African American actors who made up the cast.

Give me a break!

I don't think any commercials are stupider than the ones like this. It's a snack food, not an aphrodisiac, not a vitamin supplement, not even a drug. The concept of people eating a mundane, ordinary food item that suddenly fills them with incredible enthusiasm, boundless energy and a coterie of new friends is so absurd that I marvel at how often it is used for pastries, soft drinks, and any number of other mundane items.

VW got the word.

Somebody must have beaten me to this complaint. When I first started to see this commercial the young woman said, "I wish we could lay here forever." Grammatically incorrect, of course. I was going to post on this commercial, but when I got it off of YouTube, I noticed that she now says "lie". Good for Volkswagen. By the way, I think this campaign is very clever, though if I were the dealer I would want to strangle these people.

Having been a Stephen Sondheim fan since 1970, I can say no person I have never met has given me more pleasure in the past 43 years than he has.  It constantly amazes me that everybody doesn't respond to his music and lyrics, and stuns me that some people have never even heard of him. I have seen at least fifteen productions of Company, my favorite musical. But was fortunate enough to see the original Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd and Passion. But I've seen at least one production of all his major shows with the exception of Merrily We Roll Along, which I doubt will ever be done in Miami. Not that I think Sondheim is perfect. I don't. Because over the past four plus decades there has been one lyric line that I never understood. That's right. Just one. And it occurs in Follies. The song is "I'm Still Here" in which Carlotta details her long and often turbulent career. The line that bothers me is this: "I've stood in breadlines with the best; watched while the headlines did the rest." I don't know what he means by "watched while the headlines did the rest". What rest? And how did the headlines do it? Am I just being thick? Or just being petty? And as long as I'm being petty, I have another complaint. I have every DVD that has been made of his shows, and there is only one moment in one of them that drives me mad. Yes, just one. The DVD is SONDHEIM, The Birthday Concert, and one of the young male singers, who is super-talented, says "pundints" instead of the correct "pundits". I cringe every time I hear it. And I always wonder if it bothered Sondheim, who is such a perfectionist with the language. Okay, so I'm neurotic. But then Sondheim's songs are written for people like me.

There are no fallen soldiers.

Today is Memorial Day, and like every Memorial Day, there is a great deal of jingoism and flag waving and celebrating the sacrifices of our armed forces. There is no doubt that our armed forces deserve to be honored. After all they are the ones who placed themselves in harm's way to protect us so we can completely pretend that they don't go through hell to do so. But what annoys me is hearing the offensive euphemism for their sacrifice. They are not "fallen" soldiers. They are dead soldiers. They had their lives ended while they were very young because so many of our politicians are warmongers and armchair warriors. Those who are not dead are often crippled or blind or mentally disturbed while the cowardly Congressmen who created the wars are in great shape, have tons of money and lead highly enviable lives. Because of this, I think Memorial Day is rather an obnoxious holiday

Lesson learned.

During an Australian rules football game  Friday night,  a teenage spectator called Sydney Swans forward Adam Goodes an "ape" as he ran by. Goodes, and Indigenous, responded by pointing the girl out to security, who then escorted her off the premises. This was especially offensive since the match was meant to be a celebration of Indigenous players. The girl who was 13 seemed stunned to be so called out, but went peacefully. She later called Goodes to apologize, and he, of course, accepted.

It's not complicated. It's simple, very simple.

This adult is the luckiest guy on television. All he has to do is say a few words in a bunch of lousy commercials, and he doesn't even have to act well and they pay him a fortune, considering all the residuals. As I mentioned before, Ally Bank did this kind of commercial years ago and they were brilliant. Now A T & T is doing this crap, and Ally is doing some of the dumbest commercials on the air.

"Look at the face, just look at it..."

While it's cruel to attack a person because of his or her face, it is also often true that people earn the face they deserve. This is not a kind face, not a tolerant face, not the face of someone you would trust or regard. In short, it's a face that is a cruel billboard for the nasty creature behind it. Unpleasant as it is, I am sure Jan Brewer paid for this face with any number of treacheries, backroom deals, bigoted comments, and hundreds of wrinkle-causing sneers. It was probably a nice face for many years after she was born Janice Kay Drinkwine in Hollywood, California, in 1944. To bad she had the kind of character that does a terrible job on faces.

She beat him up. It must be a good car.

I haven't got a clue what this commercial is supposed to suggest. I guess, it's some kind of a s-m fantasy. The fact that the dominatrix is a robot design we've seen in many movies most animated Japanese is already a cliche. The fact that the victim is a nerd—another super cliche—is to be expected. So he's pawed the car, the robot is annoyed and beats the crap out of him. I get it. But how does it sell cars?

Of comical trios.

Come on now, who's really funnier?

Oh, no Oscar, not again!

This commercial (saying "yes" in a world of "no") made me both annoyed and embarrassed. Annoyed because it's so trite, so overused, so old, and so weak you wouldn't think anyone would use it anymore. And embarrassed because I remember using this terrible cliche myself more than 40 years ago for a Springfield Institution for Savings campaign. The bank was more sophisticated than our admired ad agency and immediately thought the idea was hokey and sent us on our way to come up with something more imaginative, which we did. Since then I have seen this bad idea used dozens of times for any number of products, and it always makes me uncomfortable because it's always, always a bad idea.

Becoming paparazzi-proof.

Here's something I don't understand. Many celebrities complain—and rightly so—that the paparazzi invade their privacy, assault them on the street, follow them in cars, spy into their homes, all to get photos which they can sell to the media. Often they get into altercations with these aggressive parasites. But it seems to me there is a very simple solution. Why can't they, when they go out, wear tee-shirts or headbands that say "fuck you". If the paparazzi gets a photo of them, it won't do them any good since no magazine or newspaper can print the offending expression. Ergo they would have to retouch the photo, which is costly, and it would still look weird. So with a single article of clothing they can ruin the business of these creeps. They could also put obscene signs on their cars, their front gates, etc. I am sure the public would be on the side of the celebrities and not be all that offended by the foul language knowing why it's being used.

This is humor?

What the fuck is wrong with these sadistic moviemakers?  I just saw previews for the new Hangover film during a station break. Apparently one of the "hilarious" scenes is that the guys are driving along a highway with a giraffe in tow. But they are speeding toward an overpass, which means of course that the hilarious joke is that this beautiful animal, this noble and elegant creature is about have his neck broken in the most hideous and painful way. I don't know if that happens in this film, but even to suggest the possibility as humor is warped. I may not be a PETA member, but I think assholes like this director should be stopped from such comical setups, and I am disappointed in anyone who would participate in such a gross and sick gag.

A sad fact on a sad day.

When you see news as horrific as today's coverage of the Oklahoma tornadoes, the childish behavior of the Republican party becomes even more unfathomable. There is entire country out there that needs attention. It needs to be fed, housed, protected, and given constant nurturing. It is a nation of 300 million people. But while the citizens of the United States are victims of tornadoes, blizzards, gangs, hunger, homelessness, uncovered illnesses, and other assorted horrors, their elected and well-paid and coddled representatives are engaged in petty rivalries and childish time- and money-wasting feuds.  While these spoiled-rotten Congressmen are being chauffeured to elegant lunches and lavish Washington galas, the people that depend on them are balancing budgets, working several jobs, and worrying constantly about bills. Congress has never been more of a disgrace, never been populated with such narcissistic ne'er-do-wells. So while residents in Oklahoma are grieving over the loss of their homes, their jobs, and possibly even their children, Republicans will mostly be spending every valuable hour they could devote to helping  trying to find still more ways to vilify the president.

I'm not there.

People keep writing to me to join them on Linkedin or Facebook, and I can't find a way to tell them I don't actually belong. I did belong once, but I forgot my password (I detest passwords) and both these sites make resigning a pain in the ass. Not that I want to belong anyway. I don't. Facebook seems to be mostly people I hardly know telling me where they had dinner, or showing me photos of family members that are of no interest to me.I don't even understand their other features and don't want to. So if any of my friends are reading my blog, please understand I am not on Facebook or Linkedin
or any other of those social network locations. Sorry.

"Just a trim please."

In the tv series Spartacus, the gayest program on the air, and in such new series as Ben-Hur, many of the young men have buzz cut hair styles. They look great, of course. But I am curious how such cuts were possible in Ancient Rome. I mean they didn't have Wahl stylers like they do today, so how did the local barbers manage to cut every hair so evenly. I guess you just have to accept these things on faith, like the wrinkle-free clothing, smoothly shaven faces, and the fact that everyone in ancient times—except for villains—hard perfectly straight, very white teeth. Well actually, many of today's ancient heros have semi-shaven faces, which also requires an electric shaver.

Beep. Beep.

Poor Looney Toons Republicans. Forever trying out the latest Acme conspiracy theory to trap Wilee Obama, with no success at all. Each time they try with all their other cartoon pals: Ditzy McCain, Giddy Lindsey, and Icky Icky Issa to name just a few of the most hapless, they end up being crushed by a boulder, slamming into a wall, or stepping off a high mesa. And why are they trying to capture and destroy Wilee?  Easy. Because he isn't a coyote like them.

Where there's no will there's no way.

Lots of people don't have wills. And it's a huge mistake.. Because if you die nobody will know what to do with your estate, not matter how small it.  Or, worse, the will hand it over people you may not like instead of the family and friends whose lives you would like to make easier. Here are two horror stories about persons without wills. The first person is Lee, who was an alcoholic and drug user. He was forever in some kind of treatment facility. Fortunately he had a sane, well off, much older lover who kept rescuing him. When the lover, let's call him John, died, he left several friends generous amounts, but left the bulk of his fortune to his dissolute lover, despite warnings that Lee would waste it and be dead within four years. But John insisted he had Lee's promise that he would leave any remaining monies to animal shelters, a cause dear to both of them. The only problem is that Lee did die within four years without creating a will. Which meant John's remaining fortune went to Lee's greedy family, whom John didn't even like. So basically John worked his entire career to enrich the lives of people he no affection for. Why? Because careless drunk Lee didn't make a will. A second case was the sister of a friend. She died in Arlington, Virginia,without a will which meant her estate was to be divided between her four siblings. However, one of them who was being cared for by the state declined her share because of the complications. But the idiotic state of Virginia ruled that, in that case, her fourth share was to be divided among her three children, whom she hadn't seen in years. Her kids were all shiftless losers who deserted her when she was sick and didn't deserve a dime, much less thousands in unearned capital. To make matters worse, the sister who died detested, and rightly so, her nieces and nephew, which made no difference at all to the rigid, bullying and illogical State of Virginia. Those are two horror stories about people who died intestate. I hope it encourages you to get a will.

Of conservatives and closets.

Now that being gay is so accepted I don't know why so many Republicans insist on staying in that cramped and stuffy closet. You would think that Karl Rove would be eager to swing the door wide and rush out from under the wooden hangers into the arms of his male hustler protegee Jeff Gannon (shown here), or whomever he has a crush on at the moment. And when will Lindsey accept that John McCain will never have sex with him, and try to find some other bitter right-winger to share his lonely life? And what about Marcus Bachmann? Wouldn't life be richer if he just admitted that he has no sexual interest in Michele but does feel stirrings when treating his young male patients? True those are the most obvious examples who may actually be straight but seem to have glass doors on their closets. I'm sure the Republican party is rife with sexual repression. Why don't they just declare themselves like their log cabin friends?   After all once they see how free they can feel, how good it is to be yourself, and not have to watch ever word, date understanding women.  or even enter into a convenient marriage, they won't be so self-loathing. In fact, they might just become Democrats.

Republicans in Congress.

There used to be laws against conspiracies to bring down the government. But they don't seem to exist any more. Republicans are busy conspirators trying to bring down the President of the United States. They all lie, create rumors, exaggerate minor errors, and obviously meet in some manner because they use all the very same talking points and phrases. You can call it what you like, but when a coven of elected officials go out of his way to tar the President of the United States in a deliberate and malicious manner, I call it treason. And by that definition, we have many traitors to the U.S. government, including such Fifth Column slime as McCain, Lindsey, and Issa, plus such worthless media whores as Limbaugh and Beck.

The way we mistreat are language.

I can understand that the average American may not be terribly concerned about diction. But I am amazed at the number of persons who make their living as "voice talent" who are constantly mispronouncing common words such as those shown above. My latest annoyance is the word "ours". It's a nice-sounding word that is pronounced the same as the noun "hours" except by most people and lots and lots of announcers. I constantly hear it said is "ahs" and "ares" as in "are family are very close". Add this to the missing "t" in words like "innermet" and "innnaview" and the two syllable words that are pronounced as three as in "gambelling" "sparkelling" and "sizzelling" and you have me mystified.

The rewards of a driving ambition.

60-year-old Congressman, Darrel Issa, is Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as well as one of the most partisan Republicans in the Government. He's also the richest, with a net worth of about $450 million. What qualifies him for this position, you may ask. Good question. Here are some facts about his background. Issa says that when he was in the army, he provided security, including sweeping stadiums for bombs prior to Nixon's attendance of the 1971 World Series. The only problem with that boast is that an investigation by the San Francisco Examiner revealed that Nixon didn't attend any of those games. In 1971 a fellow soldier, Jay Bergey, accused Issa of stealing his Dodge Charger. When he threatened Darrell, the car miraculously reappeared abandoned on a turnpike. In 1972 Issa was indicted for the alleged theft of a Maserati. That same year he was sentenced to six months probation for possession of an unregistered firearm.  In 1979, we was again indicted for Grand Theft Auto, though the case was dropped. After leaving the military he and his second wife Kathy, invested in Quantum Enterprises. One of that company's clients, Steal Stopper,would become the key to Issa's fortune for soon it was supplying Ford with thousands of car alarms. But early on the morning of September 7, 1982, the offices and factory of Quantum and Steal Stopper, caught fire.  The fire took three hours to put out. The building an almost all the inventory were destroyed. An investigation noted "suspicious burn patterns" and the fire appeared to have been aided by an accellerant such as gasoline. Good thing that Issa had the foresight to increase the fire insurance policy by 462% three weeks before. And—how lucky can you get—he had removed computer equipment holding accounting information. The insurance company, being rightly suspicious, paid only one tenth of the insured amount. And that dear friends it the man who is Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"Your call is important to us."

You would think in the computer age everything would be easier, but it's the opposite. Technology has given us the ability to screw up more than we ever could before. Here's one example. I remembered writing a check to the Miami-Dade Water & Sewer Department, but couldn't recall whether I had mailed it. And, if not, where was it? And would I be dunned for non-payment? After a week went by I tried calling SunTrust. My effort was rewarded with a recorded voice whose annoying prompts kept me going in circles until it just hung up on me. My next attempt was to call the Miami-Dade Water & Sewer Department. Their recorded message assured me that though they were busy, they would be with my shortly. Twelve minutes later I was still being told, "Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly." I was about to hang up when I got this message, "If you would like us to call you back, please leave a message by pressing 5." Eager to put the onus on them to call me, I pushed 5 and this is the message I got, "We're sorry but that mailbox is filled up. Please try again later." These two incidents are not rare. Almost every big company, bank, or utility has a lousy runaround phone system.

Rape and murder as entertainment.

The American public is schizophrenic. Right now they are furious, indignant, outraged, offended and horrified by the kidnapping of those three girls (now women) in Cleveland. They are so disturbed by the incident that they can't wait to watch any and all details on the local and national news. But they really don't need to because every week of the year, our most popular crime shows on tv feature the murders, rapes, captivities, and torture of women. This week Hawaii 50 presented a harrowing show about such crimes. And I'm sure women suffered just as badly on all our other popular police and detective programs.
Then, of course, there are the movies. Hundreds of them with themes like, Who Killed Miss America, The Silence of the Lambs, Dressed to Kill, and many less known one like those shown here in a collection of films for those who love to see women murdered. Why is the suffering of women such a leading theme for entertainment? Why do pious mothers complain about nudity or swearing, but nobody complains about the epidemic depiction of women as victims? And who are these screenwriters that constantly turn to themes of sexual assault, spousal abuse, and the brutalization of females of all ages for their oh so saleable scripts? I don't get it. I particularly don't get why women watch such programs which only seem to make their destruction seem more ubiquitous, and thus more acceptable to the demented viewer.

"Curses, foiled again!"

John McCain is a pathetic man. Right now he is on ABC This Week pretending to care abut the Benghazi situation. I am convinced that he couldn't care less about the attack at the consulate or the deaths of  Ambassador Stevens, the three others who were killed or the ten who were injured. This bitter old goat sees Benghazi as an opportunity to step into the limelight and get revenge on the man who won the election and prevent Hillary Clinton from being president. McCain is a man without any real character or integrity.  He's a shallow opportunist.  And, I suspect that if we could really look into his confinement in a Vietnam prison, we would find that he was not as brave and noble as he would like everyone to believe. McCain is a desperate aging jack-in-the-box with one goal: revenge. And this 77 year old phony will pop up, grinning madly, every time there's a chance to denigrate our president.

I don't get it.

I don't get it. When people have a party at their house, why does the music have to be so loud that it can be heard for blocks away? And don't the party throwers have any sense at all that they are disturbing other people? Do they have a need to say to their neighborhood, "Look we're having a party, and you're not."? And can we assume that since they are not troubled by spoiling everyone else's serenity, that they are basically assholes anyway? And being assholes how did they find enough guests to have a party in the first place? And the guests must be every bit as inconsiderate to take part in this assault on the neighborhood. It's a mystery. My inconsiderate neighbors had a loud outdoor party last night that lasted till 2 am. What surprised me was that the incredibly loud music was no less loud when we suddenly had torrential rains. So the guests must have gone into the house, but obviously these—as we have established, assholes—saw no need to lower the volume of the outdoor speakers. As I said, I don't get it. But if I heard this morning that a meteor crashed into that house and the hosts and all the guests had been crushed to death, I wouldn't be the least bit sorry.

"Yes, darling, I'm a liar."

In a new booking-com commercial, a man is the phone to his wife. He tells her that he missed his plane and has to stay overnight at a hotel. He suggests that it's a bit or a burden, that the hotel room is small, and the experience is not welcome. But of course he is in a luxurious room, swathed in a white terry robe, and about to dine on a lobster feast being served by room service. So, it's another commercial that thinks it's comical when people lie to each other, especially a man and wife. I really detest this trend in advertising: that deception is amusing as well as selfishness, greediness and putting others down to bolster your own ego. I suspect that today's creative teams, unlike in the past, are younger, less sophisticated and less well-paid ad school graduates who lack any kind of worldliness and give very little thought to the psychology of advertising and can always be counted on to go for the cheap shot.

Practically twins.

Darrell Issa recently announced that he is often mistaken for John Hamm. You  have to agree it's very likely except that John is handsome and Darrell is only moderately attractive. John has the glow and charisma of a matinee idol, while Issa has the look of a small-time crook, which is what he was suspected of  before he crawled into the Capitol. Hamm has always been stealing the hearts of his many fans, while Issa was accused of stealing cars. Hamm's crime was setting hearts aflame while Issa's was very possibly of arson after upping his insurance.  Hamm looks somewhat younger than his 42 years, while Issa carries in an obvious manner every one of his 60 years. They do have one thing in common: They're both famous for being Mad Men.

Youthful voyeurism is so adorable.

I don't understand why so many commercials promote people with low or nonexistent morals as comedy. In a recent commercial for Allstate, a man is boasting about the tree house he built for his kids. He tells the neighbor that the kids love it so much, they spend all their time there. The neighbor points out that is because they can spy on the next door neighbor. We then see the young boys with binoculars obviously watching the woman next door in a state of undress. This is funny? The guys kids are peeping toms. Sorry, but that's very close to sexual perversion. Even if it weren't, these kids have no respect for anyone else's privacy. I don't find that funny and I won't accept that I am being prudish. I also can't draw the connection to Allstate Insurance. More and more there's a sad trend in advertising. It is that major companies like Allstate allow creative teams without taste or style to not only create juvenile commercials featuring characters of low or no character,  but actually spend millions to produce and run them.

Why don't we care?

I think Americans are in great danger of losing our country from within. While we talk a lot about patriotism, we don't really seem to worry about the lack of it. For instance, many of our congressmen have proven themselves to be completely self-serving, partisan and unpatriotic. They attack the president; they refuse to pass legislation that the majority of Americans want; they collect huge salaries while trying to undermine the man we chose to run the country. But we turn a deaf ear and blind eye to this treachery. We permit ever-increasing slurs and the most disrespectful lies ever directed against a national leader. George Bush deliberately lied us into a war which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans, and the maiming of many thousands more. Yet he is living a life of privilege in Texas, joyfully opening a new library which we will pay to maintain,  and getting off scot-free from crimes against America. He belongs in prison but we do not pursue his well-deserved confinement. The same is true of his co-conspirators: Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, and criminal of criminals, Dick Cheney. Not only do we not go after Cheney for war crimes, but our news media is nothing less than congratulatory when he replaces his black heart with a new one that he probably wasn't even entitled to.  Instead of reminding us that Condoleeza's incompetence resulted in America's greatest homeland tragedy, our networks promote her book and feature her sitting at a grand piano. One could argue that these are the signs of a forgiving nation. I would pose that they are the warning signals of a laissez-faire country that is more and more letting traitorous politicians get away with inuring us to what could become a disastrous manipulation.

McCarthy for President.

The funniest news item of the week is that Ted Cruz is considering a presidential run. Does he really think that America will elect a modern-day Joseph McCarthy?