Some ad campaigns take a while to explain. It's not so easy to make the connection between Fabio and margarine, for example.
They can handle the accusations about clogging millions of arteries each year. They can take the rap for slaughtering more than half a billion animals annually.
For the last few months, record numbers of TV viewers have been asking, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" And according to the hit ABC game show, the final answer is: upper-middle class white guys. While it's unlikely that the show's producers consciously practice gender, racial or class discrimination among their contestants, so far "Millionaires'" players have been suspiciously monochrome: Of the 85 winners featured on the game's official Web site, all but one is white and only nine are women.
Scapegoats are as American as apple pie: Salem had witches, Joseph McCarthy had the Communists, Rock and Roll and Rap were each accused of corrupting society, and, recently, school officials and lawmakers began hinting at the Internet's evil influence.
Some of the Internet's biggest names came to last weekend's e-summit@virginia and discussed the dangers and potentials of the Digital Age.
You might have missed the headlines, but last week a Dallas federal jury heard opening arguments in a case that could determine the rights of publishers and the fate of free speech as we know it: Pizza Hut brought suit against Papa John's, insisting that its competitor's slogan, "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza," constitutes false advertising.
Don't blame Jesse Ventura and Bill Bradley if sports and politics are becoming indistinguishable.
Check your local listings; chances are there's a documentary all about you on TV tonight. The show will feature some of your favorite memories, recount pivotal moments in your life, chronicle your changing interests over time and, fortunately for you, conclude with a happy ending.
It will probably come as a surprise to learn that Starbucks has better taste in music than it does in coffee.
Maybe more people would trust this country's legal system if Supreme Court justices felt free to say things like, "Look at me sir, do I have `stupid' written across my forehead?" People who haven't been near a television at noon for the last few years may not recognize that quote, but Judge Judith Scheindlin's candid and brazen words are becoming familiar to a growing audience of viewers. Over the past few years, daytime television has undergone a major transformation.
