This is just an observation from ealier today while visiting with some relatives.

Being a Sunday, there was a TV on. Being a guest, this gave me the largest single-stitting dose of exposure in quite some time....sort of put me to mind of a spin on an old Dangerfield quip "...went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out". Adjusted for the times, this reads "sat in front of a cavalcade of nfl-sponsored televised advertisements, and occasionally interlaced were snippets of pro football". Seriously, there is and has for decades been 60 minutes of game time... from which, on average, roughly, only 5 to 10 seconds out of every 60 actually are made up of action, the rest is mostly huddle time....what else does one suppose there is to do with those extra 120 minutes in the typical 3-hour slot? It is interesting, with the change in perspective gained from going tv-less the past few years, the overtness of tv programming is much more noticable to me now. In a way, it kind of reminded of back in the day of tv watching, of one of thoese scenes that repeated often in the Flintstone household; Fred chasing Dino through the livingroom for what seems like 25 - 50 yards of livingroom, and in the background can be seen the images of the same photos, lamp on end-table and cracks on the wall that repeat every several steps. Just taking a rough estimate, over the course of this one game today - that's approximately 3 hours of programming airtime to people in tv land, there was the same recurring handfull of 'messages from your sponsors'..... about 10 commercials give or take that were featured for constant replay .....for embedding ......and engraining....and reinforcing the programming by way of the viewers consumption of their intellect, over and over, repeat, bread and circus and dumbing down ad nauseum.

One number in particular struck me as a not-so-transparent plug subtly programming the beauty of "cashless" into viewer's consciousness. The commercial scene - somewhere in New Orleans, a dixie street band was belting out a snazzy version of When The Saints Go Marchin In. There is a voiceover in the background, the distinguished baritone solo voice of one Louis Armstrong. The foreground - the business end of this particular ad - a mythical commercial utopia, filled with throngs of retail-happy humanity, neatly being herded through a checkout line gayly skipping and dancing towards checkout where they then proudly wield their plastic....until, horror of horrors, a lone white guy brings all this splendid harmony to a crash by tending cash; that bastard!.... the band cuts off, falling silent mid tune, the scenery dims, suddenly many sets of disturbed perturbed eyes are casting daggers upon said cash-paying custoemr, who glances nervously around, abashedly snatches his receipt and slinks off in shame. His place in the checkout line is quickly filled in with more ranks of the plastic-wielding herd, the band starts up exactly where they left off, and the cashless utopia resumes.