Law and Order: SVU (TV program)

The Law and Order franchise was created by Dick Wolf, who is definitely a Democrat. In all of his franchises, "shots" against the Bush admnistration were taken. In one episode the prosecutor - I think it was Jack McCoy but it may have been his replacement - made some kind of crack about violent people being stirred to violence by "people like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly."

But the episode that really frosted my buttons took place on Law and Order; SVU. The episode is from 2007. It's called "Harm".
A New York psychiatrist goes on trial after her torture methods are cited in the death of a former Iraqi prisoner
Everyone is so outraged that she used torture in order to get information from prisoners. In one scene, she asks the male cop, Elliot Stabler, if he ever used violence to get a witness to tell him what he needed to know. Stabler says self-righteously, "Lots of times, but it always proved counter-productive.")

What makes his comment, and this episode, so hypocritical, is that he uses violence against prisoners all the time. When he's looking for a child who has been kidnapped, or trying to learn why someone could murder a harmless child, he's always using a little force.

(Having said that, I have no problem against torturing suspected terrorists (and yes, waterboarding is torture), the problem is I really doubt the competence of the people kidnapping these suspected terrorists. I used to think the US government anti-terrorists folks would be professional, like the IMF force (the original, not those abominable movies) but the more you learn about the sheer incompetence from the President on down (up to and including Obama, but every Pres has his faults and our system of goverment needs an overhaul) the more you wonder if innocent folks weren't kidnapped as well.)

In other Devolution news:

Mariska Hargitay, who is married to actor Peter Hermann and who has one child, was interviwed by a Devolution Media master, the New York Post, about returning to SVU for another season. When asked what she'd like to have happen to her character in that season:
PW: Looking ahead, what would you like for Detective Olivia Benson in season 12?
Mariska: A boyfriend! A baby! I don’t even have to get married. I just want a baby! Give me a baby!

Isn't that wonderful? In the country today 70% of African American children are born to single parents, and of those, 70% live in poverty. (It's like, you know, common sense. If you have a baby when you're 15 and dont' finish school, there is no job you'll be able to get that will get you above the poverty level. If you have a husband, or at least a live in mate, chances are you'll live better. Unless the man is a jerk who beats you, in which case why were you having sex with him to begin with?) Latino women are next on the list, for giving birth to illegitmate children. Caucasian women were the lowest percentage on the list...but that percentage is growing.

So, what do we have? We have a role-model - for Olivia Benson is a role model for girls - who wants to have a baby without getting married. At least she specified that she wants a boyfriend, which presumably means she doesn't want the relationship to be a one-night stsand.

Katt Williams: It's Pimpin Pimpin (supposed to be a stand up comedian)

I just turned on a show on "Comedy Central" called Kat Willimas: Pimpin Pimpin. It's apparently from 2009, because he talks about Bush losing his job and how stupid Bush is.

This African-American comic can't say one sentence... or even three words in a single sentence, it seems, without using mother-f*cking as an adjective. At least, I think that's what he's saying - the most ridiculous thing about this whole thing is that they are bleeping every time he says mother-f*cking , f*ck, and presumably the N-word. He is allowed to say God damn, however.

The man is getting lots of laughter, however, which is sad..

He's talking about "white people," and "black people," but of course he can do that because he is a minority.

His whole spiel seems to be about Bush, and how stupid he was.

He's talking about Hilary Clinton - whom he calls a bitch. (He can say bitch apparently). "She can't stand Barack's good-talking ass." He's also allowed to say penis.

"White people, haven't you had all the presidents. Give us a chance."

I can't stand to watch anymore. But yes, he is going to vote for Barack Obama.

Get Me to The Greek (movie trailer)

There are lots of movie companies that produce movies. And lots of these companies expect the movie to do well when it doesn't, and some that weren't thought would make a big splash do.

So it's hard to say, "Why don't movie companies produce good movies instead of wasting it on trash." when obviously they must think that they are producing something good.

But then there's the other side of the coin - movies that are trashy from beginning to end, and which are clearly designed to help devolve the American psyche.

Such a movie is Get Me to the Greek, produced by the same people who made that abomination, Knocked Up, a few years ago.

I've only seen the trailers, but they are disgusting beyond words. An overweight guy (you will never see an overweight woman in these movies - Roseanne Barr was one of a kind in that regard) is in charge of a stoned out, ex-rock and roll star, who needs to go to the Greek Theater in London to give a concert.

Utter, utter garbage.

Supernatural (TV Series)

It's 11:45 am. Presumably kids are still in school. But on TNT, they are showing a couple of episodes of Supernatural, from 2008. I just watched a guy knock another guy down and then bite great chunks out of his neck, lifting up his head to show half his face covered in blog. He's a "flesh-eating monster."

What an utter obscenity. Why would anyone in the world want to watch this crap? And why in the world is it being shown on TV, this early in the morning?

This is something that has always puzzled and saddened me -- people's obsession with fear. Every country has its own Horror film-makers - from Japan to Mexico to here in the good ol' USA. At least in the early days, in the US, most of it was left to the imagination, but since the 1970s, the more blood guts and gore, the better. But at least it was confined to the movies, where people under the age of 17 couldn't get in.

Now it's on TV, and anyone can watch.

Yahoo "News"

Each morning, when I sign onto my computer, Yahoo Messenger pops up, and then a box labeled Yahoo News. And 99 times out of a 100 this box is full of gossip news, not real news, and invariably what it's doing is dissing some celebrity's clothing choice. And invariably, that celebrity is a woman.

Who cares? What's frightening is that people must care. They must actually look at a photo of Katie Holmes wearing baggy clothing - perhaps she'd just wanted to go out and walk her dog at 6 in the morning and didn't feel like getting all dolled up to do it? (And is Katie Holmes really a celebrity? SHe's married to Tom Cruise. That's the extent of her accomplisments, as far as I know. No disrespect to her, but if she weren't married to him, she could wear what she pleased and no one would care.)

This constant - never, ever ending media scrutiny is probaby why so many actresses are anorexic.

It's a catch-22. They like the life that so much money brings their way - and no normal person wouldn't like that life, but to obtain that money they have to place their bodies on display 24-7.

Daily Mail Online (British Newspaper)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1280021/Adam-Ant-sectioned-Mental-Health-Act-days-screaming-abuse-Christians.html

It is not just the Daily Mail Online that is guilty of devolving humans, but all these types of sites - Yahoo News, TMZ, all full of gossip about the actors and musicians and public figures, full of salaciousness.

Who'd want to be a movie actor this day, when not only is every inch of your private life public property 24-7, but people actually care enough to read this pap?

On England's The Daily Mail site, this gossip crap is on the right side of every page, called the Femail Section.

This is an interesting article:
A playground for pensioners? They must have a death wish

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280111/MICHAEL-WINNER-A-playground-pensioners-They-death-wish.html#ixzz0oZXSazvZ

The equipment here would be dangerous enough for teenagers. For geriatics with brittle bones? Deathwish indeed!

Balls of Fury (movie)

I have to confess that Balls of Fury is a guilty pleasure. I actually like to watch bits of it.


It is a takeoff/spoof on those movies in which the world's greatest martial artists gather to fight to the death. Much of it comes from Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon.

Instead of martial arts, the contest is ping pong, and the "hero" is Dan Fogler, an overweight (or cherubic, as the IMDB calls him) entertainer who was beaten in the Olympics by a German rival. His defeat breaks the heart of his dad, who dies, and he turns into some nebbish. Then, 10 years later, George Lopez as superspy Rodriquez recruits him to participate in a sudden death ping pong tournament on an island belonging to Feng - the very American Christopher Walken. Feng is a gun runner.

It's Walken as Feng who makes the movie.

Overall I have to admit the movie is garbage, definitely devolutionary. But it just goes to show that some devolutionary movies can have good points. A very few good points.

Are We There Yet? (Situation comedy)

I haven't seen this show - it's brand new. It's a sitcom aimed at the African-American audience, but it's like any other sitcom these days. Single mother with two kids in their teens marries a handsome man.

The kids of course think they know it all, and see their new dad as just someone to take to the cleaners as he tries to become friends with them.

It's true that kids, once they reach a certain age, have always felt like they know best, better than their parents, on any subject under the sun, at the kids in this show would seem to be at that teenage level, rather than know-it-all 6 or 7 years old.

Nevertheless, based on the preview, this isn't going to be a show full of role models for African-American youth.

Burger King - commercials

I have found Burger King's series of commercials cringe-making for a long time. They have a Burger King, wearing a plastic mask, forever smiling, which is stupid to begin with.

Then they've got him breaking into insane asylums to give away free food, and running away from the police - devolution media right there.

And then we've got the latest version, because apparently Burger King is the official restaurant for the new Iron Man movie. So the King now shows up in a specially designed Iron Man outfit, which of course doesn't work properly. Which is supposed to be funny but merely promotes incompetetence.



The above ad angered "mental health" advocates, because they used the word "crazy." But I found the entire ad offensive regardless.

One Life to Live (commercial)

All soap operas are part of devolution media, without exception, but this particular postis about a commercial for One Life to Live which I just saw on the BBC America channel.

I had the sound down, so I couldn't hear it, but it looked like the advertisement for a musical. People dancing. Fine. But then, interspersed with that, were men and women passionately making love - the faces contorted in orgasmic delight, the bodies in bed, etc.

Now it's 12.38 and this commercial is being shown during Antique Roadshow, and I'm not sure how many young kids and teens watch this show, and thus will see this sex-soaked commercial, but what is it teaching them? Why, that sex is fun, that sex is pleasurable.

Which it is, of ocurse, but young kids also need to know that sex can lead to pregnancy, to a guy who says, adios, have fun taking care of that kid on your own, or failing that, to sexually transmitted diseases, if the proper precautions aren't taken.

Just as every single commercial these days that is trying to sell some kind of medicaiton has to list all the side effects, so these commercials should have to do the same thing.

But, presumably, the reason why they focus on the sex is because that is what young women (I believe the audience for soaps is mostly women - sad) tune in to these soap operas to see. And there is nothing left to the imagination in that regard any more.

The Golden Girls (Sit com)

The Golden Girls is an immensely popular situation comedy that ran from 1985 to 1992. It starred three of the best loved women actresses of the day - Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Bea Arthur, as well as the diminutive Estelle Getty, who achieved stardom because of her role asa Arthur's mother.

And indeed, I watched this series - and still watch it today - and for the most part enjoy it.

But there is no denying that it is part of devolution media.

The first episode explains that Sophia, the mother, has had a stroke, which has destroyed that part of her brain which monitors what she says. She is therefore free to be as rude as she likes, she "can't help it." This little condition of hers is never said again, so for the next 7 years viewers were fed on a steady diet of Sophia verbally abusing her daughter, the naive Rose and the sex-mad Blanche.

My own thinking was, if my mom said this stuff to me, I'd kick her to the curb! Too many people put up with verbal abuse because it comes from their parents or "loved ones," whom they don't realize are sucking the life right out of them.

Then there's Blanche, who can't be "without" a man for more than a week. We never hear that she practices safe sex, and she is obsessed with her looks, as if that's all that matters in getting a man (but not in keeping one, obviously, as she doesn't have a steady guy in the entire series.)

Rose, as played by Betty White is a naive character, rather than stupid (well, as these things go in situation comedies) and Dorothy (Bea Arthur) is the strong one - constantly teased by Blanche because of her looks and her lack of dates.

There is some wheat among the chaff, of course. Throughout its history the series dealt with some serious issues - Dorothy had chronic fatigue syndrome, and had to face doctor after doctor telling her she wasn't really sick, or if she was sick it was mental, Sophia had to help an elderly woman commit suicide (she had chosen to end her life on her terms. Unfortunately, the show cops out and lets Sophia persuade her not to do it).

Stride, the long-lasting gum (commercial)

Stride is, as its name implies, a "long-lasting gum." The advertisers for this product have long used the media to de-evolve potential purchasers of this product.

Their first set of commercials featured an innocent man or woman walking down the street, suddenly attacked and assaulted by various people, so that they are made to spit out their gum, which the attacker then takes and runs away. The punchline, "Chew another piece already. Or we'll find you." [The attackers and attacked have always been whites, if I remember correctly.]

This is supposed to be funny? Showing innocent strangers randomly attacked, in a "humorous" manner? What does that teach kids?

I just saw a new commercial today. 10.09 am, Spike channel, during CSI. I had the sound down and was just able to watch the action, which showed grown men and women throwing some kind of liquid on each other, in anger.

There is already too much random violence in the world...and in particular the US, with people attacking each other on the street because of a "look", or even just an insulting phrase. People no longer just ignore such provocations, they have been trained that they must not be accepted and that violence is the only appropriate response.

[These "Stride commercials" are so well known that people actually make parodies of them and put them on YouTube.]

Obama Warns Grads of iPad Perils

Republicans and such media as Fox News are mocking President Obama because of his warning to college graduates of the perils of iPad (in particular, apparently, because he has a Blackbetter).

Frankly, although I think the President is taking us down a road toward disaster, in this instance I think he is right.

Take a ride on a bus or a train these days, and you never see any kids reading, and you rarely see an adult reading. They are playing games on their phones, or talking with their friends obsessively. Go to a store and if kids are walking around with their mothers, if they are very young they may be carrying around a teddy bear.. just a bit older and they'd got some kind of electronic game with them to keep them quiet while mom does her shopping.

Then there is the news. People have a tendency to believe what they read if it appears in print, and the last few generations have a tendency to believe what they read on the internet without question - despite the fact that they surely must be aware that anyone can write anything on the Internet. But it would require thought and common sense to realize that if a piece of news doesn't come from a reputable news source, it should be dismissed. And when a piece of news conforms to a reader's beliefs, he or she is more apt to believe it without question.

Thanks to devolution media which has brought this about.

Obama Warns Grads of iPad Perils
BlackBerry-loving President Barack Obama declared war on technology, singling out Apple’s super-popular iPods and iPads for criticism at a commencement ceremony in Virginia.

BlackBerry-loving President Barack Obama declared war on technology, singling out Apple’s super-popular iPods and iPads for criticism at a commencement ceremony in Virginia, the New York Post reported Monday.

Obama -- whose election was credited in part to his skillful use of modern media, from smartphones to Twitter to Flickr -- on Sunday told college graduates that high-tech gizmos and apps were straining American democracy.

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said at Hampton University in southeastern Virginia.

Obama described the most popular offerings of companies like Apple, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo as distractions that are putting unnecessary pressure on the country.

Obama also lamented the spread of social media and blogs, through which "some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction."
"All of this is not only putting new pressures on you," Obama said. "It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy."

"We can't stop these changes," he said, "but we can adapt to them. And education is what can allow us to do so. It can fortify you, as it did earlier generations, to meet the tests of your own time."

The bolded sentences are the key. Obama is stressing that education is the key to success in life, to knowing good from bad, good from evil. And spending your life twittering it in 30-character increments is such a waste of time.

Biography and Biography Channel

Why would I include the Biography Channel, and the series Biography [which I think first debuted on A&E?) on Devolution Media? Well... because of its content. Every day for months, years, I click on a random episode of Biography...and it's always about an actor.

There are politicians. There are scientists. There are explorers. There are economists. There are aviatiors. There are inventors. All their stories deserve to be told, but all anyone ever gets to see are biographies of some of the most unimportant people on the planet.

But, of course, it's all about ratings. The sad - and the frightening - thing is is that people will tune in to find out the biography of an actor, but wouldn't life a finger to find out what makes a scientist tick.

Here's the biographies being shown on the Biography Channel on May 8, 2010:

10 - 11 - Charlie Sheen
11 - 12 - Joaquin Phoenix
12 - 1 - Mickey Rourke
1 - 2 - Robert Downey Jr
2 - 3 - A question of life or meth (doc of meth addicts)
3 - 4 - Jose Canseco
4 - 5 - The Unexplained: Moon Madness
5 - 6 - The Unexplained: Human Transformations
6 - 7 - Destination: Earth (extraterrestrials)
7 - 8 - Ghostly Encounters (half hour series, until 10 pm
10 - 11 - Celebrity Ghost Stories (celebrities from the 2000s, because I've never heard of them!)
Psychic Kids, Children of the Paranormal

and this is a typical broadcast day.

Utter garbage.

1,000 Ways To Die

The Spike Channel is a "men's channel." In the afternoons, it shows crime drama like CSI and so - with salacious commercials for it's prime time shows.

1,001 Ways to Die is a series that recreates the stupid ways that people have died over the years.

From Wikipedia:

1000 Ways to Die is a documentary television series that premiered on May 14, 2008 on Spike. The program recreates unusual deaths and includes interviews with experts who describe the science behind each death. Up until season 3, the final story of each episode showed actual footage of dangerous situations that almost ended in death, along with interviews with people involved in the situations.

1000 Ways to Die takes a frivolous approach to death with its presentation of recreated detrimental stories derived from myths and real-life incidents. Screenshots are shown conducted in a comic-like form of the date and location before an event, much of which are for the most part, seemingly nonsensical and outlandish fashions of death. They are explained and mostly ridiculed with sarcasm by the narrator, simultaneously while experts elaborate the science of the situation with a diagram being used to methodically play it out. Following each occurrence, it is labeled with a comical phrase that pokes fun at the incident.

Just what is needed. Teenage boys watching this garbage and laughing at it, growiming more and more immune to the tragedy that is someone dying before their time.

And it's been going on for three seasons. Tragic.

Ortho Weed Be Gone (commercial)

I've seen this commercial several times, most recently on May 6, 2010 at 1.44 while watching an episode of Yes, Dear. Features a husband and wife. They own a home, and the husband apparently killed all the lawn with a product that he hoped would just kill the weeds.

Wife is so sarcastic and smarmy, making jokes about the fact that it was he who killed the weeds. If their roles were reversed and it was the husband making fun of the wife you know feminists (in which camp I count myself) wouldn't stand for it, but because it's the wife putting down the embarrassed and humiliated husband, it's perfectly okay.

Most commercials which feature husband and wife are like this. Husband is generally portrayed as incompetent, wife as competent. Wife always talks to and about husband in a superior, condescending manner.

Presumably this is supposed to be humor, but it's just teaching the kids who watch these things that "superior and condescending" is good, and that they have a right to talk to their boyfriend/girlfriend in that manner, and boyfried/girlfriend must get upset about it.

Yes, Dear (situation comedy)

Yes, Dear was a popular comedy (I assume that if a show lasts longer than one season, it is "popular", and this thing lasted from 2000-2006, and is now syndicated, so it must really be popular).

Anthony Clark plays husband 'Greg' Warner who has a good job, a house, and a kid. Jean Louisa Kelly plays his wife, Kim Warner. Kim has a sister, Christine, played by Liza Snyder who is married to Jimmy Hughes, played by Mike O'Malley.

Greg and Kim are intelligent, "average" Americans, Christine is slightly less bright than her sister, and Jimmy is just plain dumb. Not to mention he's a freeloader.

Here's the plot:

Yes, Dear is a comedy about two young couples and their outrageously contrasting views on parenting. First-time parents, Greg and Kim Warner struggle on a daily basis to become perfect at the job. Kim is a neurotic, stay-at-home mother, and although her husband, Greg, is a success in his career, his more difficult job is keeping his wife calm as they raise their year-old son, Sam. While Kim is determined to be the perfect mother and perfect wife and to raise the perfect son, her sister, Christine Hughes, a very down-to-earth mother of two [four-year-old Dominic and one-year-old Logan], continually reminds her that life will never be perfect. Christine's husband, Jimmy, is employed as a security guard and unconcerned about living in Kim and Greg's guest house and feels compelled to share with his brother-in-law his philosophy about being a husband and a parent while still remaining a man

Doesn't that make is sound like Christine and Jimmy have it all together, and the well-employed Greg and Kim don't? In the reality of the TV show, Dominic is a brat, Jimmy Hughes feels that anything that belongs to his brother-and-sister-in law are his, and makes himself free with them.

In the course of the six year run, the Hughes' eventually move from the "guest house' to a house next door, but of course spend just as much time in Greg's house - making free with it as if it were there own. Jimmy eats all their food - and of course never buys any to replace it, sister Christine uses their washing machine.

But, of course, in the final episodes, it is the well-employed Greg who loses his job, and for some reason the couple lose their house, so they have to move in with Jimmy. Yeah, right.

The only good thing about this sitcom is that the actress playing Christine is "large." Not as large as Roseanne, but not a skinny stick, either. Of course she hides it by wearing draping clothing, but it's easy to see she is curvy rather than skeletal. That at least is nice to see.

Wife Swap ("reality" TV)

Reality TV is the bane of civilization, and Wife Swap is one of the dregs.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it.

Two families, usually from vastly different social classes and lifestyles, swap wives/mothers (and sometimes husbands) for two weeks. In fact, the programme will usually deliberately swap wives with extreme, polar opposite lifestyles, such as a dramatically messy wife swapping with a fastidiously neat one. Despite using a phrase from the swinging lifestyle, couples participating in the show do not share a bed with the "swapped" spouse while "swapping" homes.

During the first week, the new wife must adhere to exactly the same rules and lifestyle of the wife she is replacing. Each wife leaves a house manual which explains her role in the family and the duties she holds. This almost always determines what rules the wives will apply at the "rules change ceremony".

During the second week, the new wives are allowed to establish their own rules, and their new families must adhere to these new household rules. It usually takes a while for the families to adjust to this policy, meanwhile the wives disperse a sum of money to the family they have become immersed in, to do what the wives see fit to spend it on.

At the end of the two weeks, the two couples all meet together for the first time, and the wives, along with their husbands, discuss how they felt about the two weeks. This often descends into personal insults and has degenerated into violence at least twice. More often than not, however, both families reach toward a middle ground and express that they have learned from the experience. Sometimes, the table meeting is a very heartfelt and emotional time for the two families who sometimes have complete and mutual respect for each other. A few weeks later the cameras return to record what changes have occurred since the wife swap.

If a couple is having a problem with their relationship or their children, they need to see a professional, not broadcast their lives on public TV for all to see (which I daresay would scar the kids even more, as their peers will relentlessly tease them now until they get out of school, and maybe even on to college, kids being what they are.)

The show debuted in England in 2003, and proved to be so popular that an American version debuted in 2004... and is apparently still going strong.

Sad, sad, sad.

Reba (situation comedy)

Reba was a popular sitcom that ran from 2001 to 2007, for a total of 125 episodes.

A Southern soccer mom (Country music singer Reba McIntire) with three kids sees her life come crashing down when she finds out that her dentist husband has impregnated his hygienist. Meanwhile, her 17-year-old "Captin of the Drill Team" daughter is also impregnated by the captain of the football team and intends on keeping the baby

A situation comedy is fulll of stereotypes, which are the ones that bring the "comedy" to the show.

In this case, the "captain of the football team" is not very intelligent, and reveals this in his utterances, to the usual laughter of the studio audience. His pregnant girlfriend (whom he does eventually marry) is also not very bright.

The dental hygienist for whom Reba's husband leaves her is also not very bright. But she is pushy, and since ex-husband and new wife live right next door, the dental hygienist pops over all the time, obvivious to the fact that Reba doesn't like her.

Reba has two other children, a young daughter who is as snotty as anything, and speaks to her mom as if she were another adult. Her clothing, makeup and hairstyle reflect the prevailing styles of the day. Like most teens, she thinks she knows everything and that her parents know nothing.

The final child is a young boy, who grows 7 years as the series progresses. He appears to be of average intelligence, and so of course little attention is paid to him - no opportunity for humor there.

CSI: Miami "Meltdown"

In addition to calling out commercials that coarsen the viewer, I will also rant a bit about mistakes made in TV series that just grate on me.

Of course, criminals must make mistakes, otherwise they cannot be caught...but police officers shouldn't make mistakes.

They do it for drama, of course. Two cops walk up to a man and say, "Hi, we want to talk to you." No drama in that. So, they stop twenty feet away from the guy and shout, "Hey, we want to talk to you." This gives their suspect time to start running, and we get a nice exciting chase.

IT still makes the cops seem stupid.

I am not a particular fan of CSI: Miami, but I was watching it on Monday night.

Delko, who apparently had left the series for a while, returns, undercover, to the lab. Apparently when evidence from the lab has been sent to trial, evidence has been missing or tampered with. So he's volunteered to go to the lab to try to find out who is doing it (and who has stolen a million dollars worth of diamonds out of the evidence room.)

Now, I know that the police in various cities, and their CSI labs, have been revealed to be grossly imcompetent in real life lately, but I cannot believe that this actually flies.

An actual former member of the CSI lab, who could be expected to have friends among everyone there, is sent to the lab to try to find out who is stealing evidence? I do NOT think so.

In addition, had this been happening, after the first or second time, at the most, surely the big guns would have been brought to bear at that time, with everyone investigated immediately. (Or would police unions have prevented such an investigation from happening?)

I know it's all done for dramatic purposes, but it's just a case of the viewer either expected to be too dumb to realize how implausible it is, or the audience too dumb to realize it because of too many viewings of such shows.

"Where'd you get that sandwich?"

It's a Taco Bell commercial, which I've seen a few times, most recently at 4.20 pm on Monday, May 3, 2010, on the Spike Channel.

A white man is walking along with some kind of sandwich. [It is necessary to identify race in these commercials, because you would never see minorities cast in these types of commericals. Just as you never see them cast in those home alarm commercials, where some guy sees a woman alone in her home and breaks in, only to be frightened off by the home alarm. Yeah, right. Try to have a black man break into a white woman's house...and you know there'd be an uproar. Well, at least they don't have white men breaking into black women's houses.]

Anyway, a white man is walking along with some kind of sandwich. Another white guy yells out in a vicious tone, "Hey, where'd you get that sandwich?" There's dramatic music. Is there going to be a fight, a showdown, between these two people. Did the one guy steal the other guy's sandwich, and for that he deserves to die?

The guy with the sandwich turns around and walks up to the bully, unafraid. "It's not a sandwich, it's a tortada."

Then the bully says, more conciliatory, "Where'd you get that... tortada?"

And I watch this and I wonder to myself, exactly what kind of message is this supposed to give to the audience? That it's okay for a total stranger to accost another total stranger walking along the street, in such rude tones? That tough is cool? What?