Something worth watching on your Made-in-Taiwan TV.

ABC News is running an interesting series this week: Made in America. They went to a home in Dallas where the family agreed to remove everything that wasn't made in American and replace it with something that was. Tonight's episode only dealt with the removal, which was extensive. No surprise to find that very little in their home was made in America. So out went the knick-knacks, furniture, fabrics, toys, kitchen appliances, just about everything. The family came home to an empty house.Now it will be interesting to see if they can replace all the removed items with American products. This is serious stuff because it proves what idiots we are to have let politicans sell our country out from under us. America is get weaker and weaker and it's our own fault. We didn't care when they stopped manufacturing products here and we didn't complain when practically every item in every store came from some other country. I, for one, will make every effort to purchase products completely made in he U.S. (not just assembled here) even if they cost more. The only products that I'm aware of being made in America are all the clear plastic storage bins I have made by Sterite. They're strong, they're good quality and they don't cost very much, at least not at Big Lots. Sadly I use them to store all the crap I've purchased that comes from China, India, Bangladesh, Mexico and other countries not us. I really plan to change that.

Why "Why" Puerto Rico?

This is a print campaign that completely mystifies me. (This by the way is just one of many posters, most without the Expo sell at the bottom.) Surpringly it's for Puerto Rico which has done excellent campaigns in the past. This one, however, seems off-center. As you can see the slogan is "Discover Why Puerto Rico Does it Better." Shouldn't the line be "Discover How Puerto Rico Does it Better"? How can you discover a why? That suggests a motive and unless some hotel maid of beach boy is willing to reveal the secret, I don't see how you can find out on your own. The only possible why is to keep you coming back, which is true of any resort island. No great secret there. Shouldn't they be promoting how they do it better? I don't see any logic in this campaign. If you do, please tell me what it is.

Why I'm mad at Martha.

I have a gripe with Martha Stewart, one that I addressed to her company without ever receiving a reply. So I might as well tell you why I am so annoyed. Recently I had both of my bathrooms redone. All I had to do was paint them. I went to Home Depot and purchased Martha Stewart paint at the exhobitant price of $27.00 a gallon. Since the areas to be painted were primed, I didn't anticipate any problems. As you can probably imagine, painting a bathroom is a lot more work than painting a larger room and, like all painting, preparation is everything. So once the tiring job was done, I began to remove the blue painter's tape and was amazed to find the paint was peeling like skin from a bad sunburn. The $27.00 a gallon paint was not adhering to the primed wall. After exhausting repainting, the same problem. I e-mailed a complaint to Martha Stewart's paint division and got no reply. So, if you're planning to repaint a room in your house, I encourage you to avoid Ms. Stewart's paint.

When did everyone become a star?

When I was a kid in the 50s and 60s, movies had stars. They were the leading name actors and actresses of their times. They earned their billings from years of admired performances in many other films. They were often why you went to see a film. The others in the cast were supporting players or bit players or the bottom of the barrel extras. At an awards show you would never refer to a supporting player as someone "starring" in the film. That sure has changed. It seems if you even had a single line in Harry Potter Meets Indiana Jones, you were said to be "one of the stars of this blockbuster film." Of it you had the lead in a single movie that made money, you received the same kind of accolades as if you had a proven track record. Ridiculous. That's another thing. Back then a film was a blockbuster if it was hugely popular and made tons of money. It didn't even have to be a big film. Now it's a blockbuster just for being big. Films are heralded as blockbusters before they even open. Even if they're miserable failures, they're blockbusters. Ridiculous. That's another thing, back then a film became a classic with time. Citizen Kane or Casablanca did not open as classic films. They earned that designation through time and by appealing to new generations. Today the ever-deceptive Disney studios announce the release of every animated bit of fluff as a "new classic." All the same nonsense applies to television. The week before the new Hawaii Five-O premiered, it was heralded as "America's most popular new show." I guess most people are comfortable with this kind of dishonest exaggeration and willling to accept that The Princess and the Frog is as much as classic as Bambi. I'm not. Nor do I consider supporting players stars. I'm sure that even a super-talened professional like Timothy Spall would never claim he starred in The King's Speech, though I am sure he is constantly introduced as one of the stars of that popular film. Oh, well. That's how it is today. So might as well get used to it, and expect to hear that a blockbuster new classic will be coming out this fall. I wonder who will star it in it.

M-I-SS-I-PP-I....

This commercial is creepy for all kinds or reasons. The idea of jumping rope for a sandwich is pretty weird, even when the sandwich looks like it was just prepared at the deli counter. Then once the boys have at it, they seem to be more into the jumping than the winning. And finally it's another commercial where young people having no morals and apparently desperately hungry and too poor to have their own food are willing to tie up those whom we assume are their friends in order to steal their sandwich. Pretty ridiculous. But forgetting all that this is another case of acceptable male abuse. Switch the roles and have the girls tied up and the commercial—like so many commercials—takes on an entirely new slant.

Hillshire Farm Commercial

A good commercial off to a terrible start.

This Duracell commercial is fine, except for the first line. What idiot would pen a introduction that says,"If you thought heroes were only in movies..."? Who in the world conceivably thinks that heroes are only in movies? Nobody, of course. So why write such an idiotic line? Especially for a commercial that promotes, and rightly so, the sacrifices of firefighters who we all know are heroes just as we all know that heroes are not only in movies. Sheeesh!