Yes, Burger King's Mary J Blige ad is racist. But not for the reason you think

This commercial for Burger King's "chicken" strips is getting a lot of attention these days.  Apparently, a whole lot of people out there think that it's racist because it depicts a multi-millionaire who happens to be black singing the praises of fried chicken. 

I think this ad is racist, not because Ms. Blige is singing about fried chicken, but for two different reasons altogether.  First, she is cued to sing by a fat, balding, pasty white manager in response to a question put by another doofus white guy- "what's in these new chicken wraps?"  So we may presume that Ms. Blige is absolutely immobile until a white guy wants some information, and another white guy snaps his fingers and sets her into motion.   Hey, bet you thought that career of yours had put you beyond having to play Stepin Fetchit to white males, didn't you, Ms. Blige?  Sorry to inform you, it just isn't so.

Second, Ms. Blige's job here is to sell the fatty junk as something the white customer would really, really like to eat.  In other words, her job is to lie.  Burger King figures black people are really good at lying, so why not, right?  Just throw them a few quarters, and they'll jump, sing, dance, and bleat whatever BS you want them to.  Even if they are already wealthy, like I presume Ms Blige is.  It's in their blood, right, Burger King?

Actually, neither of these examples really explains why I think that this ad is racist.  I think that this commercial is a vicious, outdated attack on an entire race of people, just like a whole lot of you out there do.  However, I don't think it's black people who are being targeted here.  I think this ad is intensely racist against white people.  I mean, check out that ridiculous head-bobbing thing that the manager does during Ms. Blige's performance.  White People do not act like that in real life!  White people are perfectly capable of keeping in rhythm, and moving to music as smoothly as black people, thank you very much!

As a White Person ( I think citizens of Italian/Greek heritage have been considered "white" in this country since the 1920s or so) I deeply resent this ad, and call for Burger King to do the honorable thing and issue an apology.  And allow embedding for the even more obnoxious Jay Leno Drives Into a Burger King in one of his Many Sports Cars ad, which is not only offensive to all races, but to a large number of house cats, plants and rocks, as well.

Well, it is a week to celebrate Miracles, right?

I bet you never thought you'd see the words "Miracle" and "Socks" brought together like this in an advertisement, did you? After all, there aren't that many products out there more mundane than socks.

Until now. Introducing Miracle Socks, the most recent Late Night Bet You Didn't Even Realize You Needed This product, most likely from the same people who brought you Miracle Sunglasses, Miracle Non-Stick Diamond cookware and the rest of the Miracle Garbage cataloge.

Miracle Socks end the many hassles that come with regular, everyday non-miracle socks. Like slipping, and holes in the toes. And the cutting off of the blood supply we all get from normal socks, which cause massive swelling, hemorrhaging and the all too typical leg ruptures, which in turn lead to very expensive surgery, amputation and even death.

How much would you pay to avoid all of this? Well, similar socks have been advertised on Make Believe Websites for upwards of $70 (probably the same phony sites which offer $300 sunglasses and $1000 nonstick pans.) Because you were lucky enough to be watching this particular station, you've stumbled right into an Available For The Next Six Years Only offer. Even better, you can get double the offer for "free"- except that of course the outlandishly expensive Shipping and Handling charges make any extras a very, very costly trap. But hey, how can you put a price on a Miracle?

And best of all- these socks are discreet. I don't know what that means. People can't tell you are wearing socks? Is this something you want to keep secret? Or is it that if someone asks these socks about you, they ain't talking? What?

Big Brother Is Watching You, and her name is Flo

As it turned out, we didn't need a nuclear holocaust or a 40-year war to enter the world of George Orwell's 1984. Just a promise of lower car insurance rates.

We've become such pathetic, Eager to Get Along by Going Along, Privacy is So Yesterday sheep that we have absolutely no problem accepting Progressive's "convenient" little Now You Don't Have To Tell Us If You Are A Good Driver Because We'll Already Know device, which you just clip to the interior of your car. And then forget about it, please- don't worry, Progressive will take it from here.

What does this thing do? Monitor your speed? Count how many times you apply your brakes, and how aggressively? Keep track of your midnight journeys to 7-11 or keep tabs on how many taverns you visit, and how often? Use wireless technology to tell Progressive when you've made "potentially hazardous" long-distance trips on holiday weekends? Because this is all information that you'd like your insurance company to have, right?

How secure is this information? If Progressive finds out that you hit McDonalds four times a week, will the company pass this little nugget on to your health insurance provider? Will you start getting e-coupons from McDonalds?

Coming next- this fun little gadget will include a listening device so it can monitor your level of "distracting" conversations. How about a built-in camera so it can catch you changing radio stations a little more than Progressive thinks is necessary? Apparently all of this is just fine, as long as it saves us a few bucks a year and it's served up to us with a smile by everyone's favorite pasty-white, red-lipped, smiling insurance hustler.

I'll say "pass" on this awesome new "service"- while I can. Because you just know this is going to be SOP for every insurance company in about fifteen more minutes. And we'll be fine with it- hey, if both Flo and that adorable little lizard think it's cool, who are we to disagree?

Dairy Queen's Got Our Number

This is one of the most realistic commercials I've ever seen.

I have absolutely zero doubt that the moment easy, cheap cloning becomes available to the masses, Americans will use this amazing breakthrough in science to invent copies of ourselves, which will in turn allow us to perform multiple pointless, time-sucking and health-injuring "tasks" at the same time.

The average American will have a clone who will do nothing but text and blather commands into his I Phone all day. Another will stare at his television, developing callouses on his thumbs as he jumps from one brain-dead sitcom to the next (when we learn how to clone our televisions, we'll be able to watch everything at the same time, and won't that be wonderful?)

None of our clones will ever do anything productive (after all, they are supposed to be perfect copies of ourselves, right?) They'll spend all their time slacking off at the office, muttering "so forty-two seconds ago" and playing Angry Birds while reminding themselves that it's not the one day of the week that they all shave yet.

Oh, and each and every one of our clones will have the same taste in food. How awesome will it be when one of us decides to go to Dairy Queen and we don't have to give up the Cici's, Golden Corral and KFC experiences? When we no longer have to make that agonizing choice between the Double Down Chicken "sandwich" and the All You Can Eat Endless Pizza Buffet? When we are really in the mood for a bacon cheeseburger, but man that other place has that Chocolate Wonderfall thingee and all meatloaf you can choke on.

And later, Maybe we can all get rooms on the same floor of the same hospital when we all suffer identical heart attacks (after spending years sharing the same prescriptions for medication to manage our diabetes, of course?)

Congratulations to Dairy Queen for cutting through the crap and allowing us to accept ourselves for what we really are- a nation of fat, sweaty loafers looking for the next excuse to avoid doing something worth doing, the next plate of warm garbage to shovel into our faces, and a quiet place to die. Someone had to do it; might as well be the good people at DQ.

If you're so great, Citi, why didn't you invent Sun Chips or Double-Stuff Oreos? Oh wait, maybe you did...

Wow, this is so embarassing. I'm a high school US history teacher; more than that, I'm an Advanced Placement US History teacher. I've been teaching this subject for seventeen years. I'm even one of the 1200 teachers who travel to Louisville, Kentucky every June to grade the million-plus essays written for the AP Exam. When I was a little kid, I'd grab an old textbook and sit with it under a tree for hours, soaking up as much history as I could. For fun. I can't remember a time when I did not love to read about the past.

And yet, I never picked up how Citibank was always at the center of it all. According to this ad, pretty much everything of any significance that has taken place in this nation since 1812 happened by the grace of Citibank. The Trans-Atlantic cable. The Panama Canal. The Marshall Plan. ATMs. The collapse of the Berlin Wall. All made possible, somehow, through the auspices of a massive, money-grubbing, blood-splattered corporate monster which I suspected all along ruled the world in partnership with Queen Elizabeth, the Masons and the Trilateral Commission but, as it turns out, was doing it all by themselves.

I'm certain that the long version of this commercial reveals that Citibank also brought us Currier and Ives prints, the telephone, roller coasters and transparent cola. Not to mention the Titanic, bobbed hair, hula hoops, lava lamps and two Gulf Wars. And I'm sure Citibank being responsible for the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy, and the Area 51 cover-up, were the first clips to hit the cutting room floor.

Thanks for humbling my pride, Citibank. I had no idea how little I really knew about history. No wonder my kids don't do so well on the AP exam. It's too late to undo past damage, but next year I'm going to end each lecture with "...of course, Citibank was primarily responsible for all this..."

The Marshall Plan and ATMs. Seriously amazing.

And if you have Direct TV, you get subjected to stupid crap like this

"When you have cable and there's nothing on, you get depressed."

Hopefully, you "get depressed" not because there's nothing on, but because you realize that your happiness depends on being able to sit on your ass watching television.

"When you go to seminars, you feel like a winner."

Sounds like a darned good seminar. But of course, this is Teh Evil to Direct TV, which only wants you to be happy while you are becoming part of your couch, developing callouses on your fingers from lovingly stroking your remote (I mean that thing with buttons that controls the tv- what is with your disgusting mind these days?)

"When you feel like a winner, you go to Vegas..."

Really? People who feel fulfilled and happy go to Vegas and gamble? Never knew this. I thought that those who went to Vegas to gamble were either comfortably well-off people who saw gambling as a form of recreation or entertainment, or sad losers addicted to a lifestyle that was sucking them dry. I never associated gambling with feeling "like a winner." I learn something new every day.

"When you go to Vegas, you lose everything."

Eh, maybe. Most people who go to Vegas certainly do lose, but the vast majority don't lose "everything." I imagine that the Vegas Chamber of Commerce will be having a word with Direct TV in the very near future.

Anyway, this all boils down- again- to reminding us that our lives are certain to spiral out of control if we don't invest in Direct TV. Because all good things come from watching the time-sucking idiot box- obesity, social isolation, dulled imagination, etc.

I have a different take: If you have Direct TV, you waste your life sitting in your dark living room watching crap. If you waste your life sitting in your dark living room watching crap, you don't get outside and get exercise and make friends. If you don't get outside and get exercise and make friends, your life isn't worth preserving, and might as well be wasted watching television.

Waste your life watching television. Get Direct TV.

AT&T, 4G and Facebook- your recipe for a lot of lonely weekends

Let's cut to the chase right off the bat- the day I sit down with a speed date who instantly begins to compare what I say about myself to what my Facebook status says about myself is the day I get up from the table and walk away. Because why do I want to spend more than five seconds with this freakishly paranoid, judgmental weirdo who doesn't get that the only attractive thing about "speed dating" and "It's Just Lunch" is that they give you a license to blatantly lie your butt off about yourself- if this gets at all serious, we can start amending the mountain of manure you buried your date with in order to make a first good impression at that time. If it doesn't go beyond that first encounter, well, nothing lost, right?

Let me amend that first paragraph. The day I find myself speed dating, I'm just going to go home and cry myself to sleep anyway. And not because I'm afraid that someone I meet speed dating is going to check my Facebook status while I'm trying to introduce myself, because I don't HAVE a Facebook status (someone took care of that- you know who you are...) It's more because...well, jeesh. Speed dating? Really?

Anyway, is this REALLY an advertisement for AT&T's 4g connectivity network whatsamahoee whateveritis? Seems to me like its more of a "stop putting every stupid character flaw on the internet for the world to snark on, idiots, unless of course you WANT to be laughed at on the off chance that you ever actually meet someone you might like to get to know outside of a chat room" public service announcement than a commercial for anything.

And if you insist on putting your profile on line, at LEAST make up crap about yourself that might actually attract pretty, intelligent girls you'd actually enjoy being with. Like having multiple degrees and belonging to National Honors Societies and running for Congress and being a successful High School teacher (assuming that there are people out there who think that the words "successful" and "High School teacher" go together.) You know, sweet, innocent BS like that. Don't show your dark side- that will become starkly obvious anyway, probably before the dessert arrives (hey, I'm starting to see an upside to this whole "speed date" thing.)

Come to think of it, if you are willing to date techno-addled jerks who insist on researching your life while they are sitting at the fricking table with you, maybe none of this matters anyway. Just bring your own 4G phone, so you can respond by sniggering at her High School yearbook picture and her inferior-looking Facebook "friends." Or bring the report you printed up from eVerify.com-- "yeah, ok, so I totally invented my online profile- at least I'm not a serial killer wanted in five states. Now that we've cut through the crap, what are you doing next Friday?"