Cigarettes That Cure Cancer

That’s right. Cigarettes actually cure cancers of all kinds, if you are to believe doctors in Indonesia (whom are supported by Philip Morris.) Billboards and TV ads for cigarettes are everywhere in that country of 237 Million, according to the new Vice documentary Tobaccoland. Ten year old kids who smoke a pack a day are encouraged to smoke by adults. Don’t care about Indonesian kids, and believe American tobacco companies need to make profits there, since we no longer export much else?…other than bullets and…oh wait…there’s more news related to soda, our third major export these days: Taking up the Philip Morris strategy here in the U.S., Coke has launched a campaign to promote drinking Coke as a cure for obesity! Sure, why not? Are you diabetic? Are you a spoon, fork, and knife shy of a full place setting? Drink more Coke! Just switch to Diet Coke, and get some artificial sweeteners suspected of causing…CANCER. (Wow, there’s an irony! Especially considering PHILIP MORRIS ONCE ADVISED COKE ABOUT MARKETING.) How stupid do they think consumers are? (Not completely, that’s why they spend billions on ads, in effect buying our brains.) Only it’s not working as projected anymore. So here’s what Coke says about its new Come Together campaign (what, are they like John Lennon smoking something other than tobacco? “Our ambition is to grow servings across the entire portfolio and for people to understand that Coca-Cola is right for certain occasions and perhaps not right for all occasions. We are a multi-beverage company. If more people drink Coke that is not a bad thing, but drink Coke in the right way. More people should be aware of the choices they have in the beverage category across our portfolio.” (Note he used the word PORTFOLIO twice…must be a very important word to him, like BONUSES.)
NY Times food journalist Mark Bittman responded to this statement: “So professional. So brilliant. So smart. And so deceitful. Soda is the biggest single source of calories in our diet, and the most harmful. It’s good that Coke recognizes that and is beginning to apologize. But all calories are not the same — those from soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages are actually worse than others. So it’s up to us to remember that Coke makes its money selling sugar-sweetened beverages, and even when they’re apologizing for that, as they appear to be doing here — they’re still selling them.” Marilynn Marchione of Reuters:  “The more sugary drinks someone consumed, the greater the impact of the genes on the person’s weight and risk of becoming obese. For every 10 risk genes someone had, the risk of obesity rose in proportion to how many sweet drinks the person regularly consumed.” And Dr. Mark Hyman (whom I’ve interviewed about his book The Blood Sugar Solution) said THIS about high fructose corn syrup, contrary to Coke’s campaign to make people believe HFCS is the same as sugar (just cheaper.) BTW, Coke is asking for your ideas about getting more active, too…just don’t say anything about lowering your dosage of soda, or they’ll censor you (they screen all comments to their youtube videos as well.) And don’t mention that health care costs are projected to BANKRUPT Social Security and Medicare within ten years, too, unless Congress funds it (and stops buying jets and tanks the Pentagon admits they don’t even need.) Fat chance of that. Congress can’t even agree on booze and deck chairs.

As penance for harping about health related eating habits, I am forced by law to eat a pint of Delish All Star Apprentice Ice Cream.

Bored? There’s a Widget for That

There’s a widget for everything, now. Or, as they say, “there’s an app for that.” Whoever they are. There are widgets for every possible interest or sport. If your life revolves around Scottish curling (and why shouldn’t it?) they have a widget for you to track those all-important scores 24/7. Our culture has largely given up on human progress (in favor of entertainment), and is instead engaged in finding a tailor-made escape from reality, with the help of advertisers who are all too willing to produce a feedback loop allowing you to avoid what you don’t care to hear about. (Listen to the audiobook Brandwashing and the even scarier The Filter Bubble to hear how people are encouraged to stay ignorant of their neighbors by ever-increasing customization and personalization, which facilitates antagonistic groups to believe they are superior, which in turn leads to violence.) Now, I’m all for entertainment. People have to unwind or they’ll pop like (any day) I expect Glenn Beck to do. You can’t blame them. People are bored silly by real news, and so they seek out all the mind-bendingly moronic special effects which clueless directors like J.J. Abrams foist on them. And these days you have to actually crash the Enterprise into the city where someone lives in order to keep them from nodding off. Blaster battles and supernovas in outer space just don’t do it, anymore. Or as The Filter Bubble puts it, “A squirrel dying in front of your house is of more relevant interest to you than children dying in Africa.” Wow. Maybe this is why Kim Jong un shoots off so many fireworks. And what happens when our attention spans reach zero? Maybe that’s when someone truly nuts pushes the button to end it all. (Never fear, Glenn Beck will volunteer for this, as a self-fulfilling prophecy.) I predict we may all, indeed, end with a bang AND a whimper…but please not before my final coffee at Starbucks. (We are programmed to march in lock-step there too, and need this caffeine kick in case NBC and CBS and ABC provide no new ass-kicking accident or scandal to rubberneck that day. Or as the song goes, “Kick’em when they’re up, kick’em when they’re down…We got a bubble headed bleach blonde who comes on at five…she can tell you ’bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye…we can do the innuendo, we can dance and sing…when it’s said and done we ain’t told you a thing…all we know is that crap is king, give us dirty laundry.”) Starbucks should team with BuzzFeed and hit people three ways from Sunday when they enter their stores. As it is, they are too lazy to provide condiments like ketchup for the bland, dry egg sandwiches they said they’d never carry again. In the meantime, why do so many young people believe that the new Star Trek movie is the best ever (and not derivative)? For the same reason that many watch The Apprentice instead of trying to learn what “derivative” means…or “derivatives” (noun), those financial instruments of corruption employed by friends of The Donald after kicking your ass to the curb.  

 

Randy Jackson Disappears After Idol

Upon leaving American Idol, Randy Jackson has disappeared, and Sylvia Browne is wrong again about where…only NEN has the scoop on where Jackson and the other original cast members have gone: That’s the signpost up ahead, their next stop…the Twilight Zone. No, this doesn’t mean they’ve become vampires. (Everyone else has.) In truth, they’ve all been sent to the cornfield…(that’s where Coke gets the “sugar” for its high fructose corn syrup, so this is also very appropriate or ironic, as Rod Serling would put it.) Details in the video below. Taking Randy’s place next season will be motivational guru Anthony Robbins, who long ago made a pact with the devil (Rhonda Byrne.) Due to this, Tony will, no doubt, bring back those ratings being lost to The Voice. Tony’s barber, Carl Wishnick, succeeded in getting him the job by telling Yahoo that he believed Robbins was the AntiChrist. “Oh God, well, he’s got these numbers on his scalp, you know,” Wishnick confided. “Looks like three sixes, but they could be nines. I did an etching, using a newspaper, when Tony fell asleep once in my chair. I’m offering to sell it for, say, fifty grand, if anyone’s interested.” When asked if that was the going rate Carl placed on his own soul, Wishnick got nervous and claimed the three numbers he found were part of a series, perhaps of a numbered Swiss account related to his Coke contract. Next year American Idol is planning to have judges catapult up onto swings, propelled by light fountains (whenever they choose a singer.) “These will be called ‘chariots of fire,’” says Ryan Seacrest, “so we won’t be singing ‘swing low, sweet chariot’ next season, I can tell you that!” Robbins will also fix it so that Seacrest can win a seat in Congress, since he has big plans for Washington as well. Stay tuned.

Bizarre Solution to Fix POSTAL SERVICE Proposed

The U.S. Postal Service is losing $25 Million per day because it is the only government entity which is actually required to fund the future health care costs of its retirees. (Every other agency merely kicks the can down the road for future deadbeat politicians to deal with.) Time and again the USPS tried to eliminate Saturday service in order to save hundreds of millions by taking a million gas-guzzling vehicles off the streets. But since “never give an inch” is the motto of our culture (esp. politicians and unions, who view the word “compromise” like they view the word “shit”) it’s a non-starter. So Not Entertainment News suggests that instead of raising postage rates to European standards (a one-ounce letter mailed in England cost 94 cents,) the USPS should be incorporated into the NFL, which is a rock solid financial dynamo able to pass out $50 million plus contracts as standard practice. Coaches in the NFL make million plus salaries, and top coaches get $500 grand-plus bonuses for each win. (Shit, even referees make $150 grand, part time.) As part of the NFL, the postal service’s goals could be achieved, union demands met, and Coke and Pepsi would finally have their emblems on the sides of postal delivery vehicles, which has been their goal all along. (The U.S. Government, by contrast, is a badly mismanaged and losing team…they win games but not rings because they don’t understand the playoffs, and have no playbook or silver lining (ie. exit strategy)…even after spending more than everyone else in the world combined.) We suggest recruiting Zen master Phil Jackson from the NBA to mojo the USPS’s full transition into sports. (Sorry Lance Armstrong didn’t work out.) Maybe the Pentagon could be part of the NFL next! After all, as shown elsewhere in this blog, everything is a sport in our culture anyway, and so the goal here is to prevent people from going postal at being hit with a .94 cent stamp featuring Goldman Sach’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein, (which is Plan B.) …Oh, and you’ll also have to get used to hearing and using the word “SHIT” regularly and often. (It is, after all, an innocuous word meaning “feces,” and is also an anagram of “hits.”)  

Order Postmarked for Death ebook here.

SEA HUNT the Movie?

A feature film based on the classic TV show SEA HUNT is being pitched in Hollywood, but so far no luck. Producers are hoping that their appearance on Shark Tank will lure one or all of the sharks to bite, and that they’ll fund a sequel at the same time. James Cameron is a possible director, and could film both the original and sequel simultaneously (along with Avatar 2 and 3.) “He should be able to squeeze us in for a possible 2015 release,” script writer Walter Witty is suggesting. “If not, we’ll try for Woody Allen.”

Secret History:  Walter Witty, otherwise known as the Homeless Comic, purports to know the answers to all of life’s biggest questions. He’s not particularly proud of this, and just calls it “uncommon sense.” Go figure. But here’s the thing: the news media are starting to catch on. And they NEED answers badly. So while the police keep arresting him for acting like he’s an authority or something, (and telling jokes without poetic license or the use of talking fruit), Witty is being sought out on such wide ranging subjects as politics, culture, and (as Woody Allen puts it) “the ability of leprechauns to locate gold.” (Note: Woody was trying to say that leprechauns, vampires, and zombies don’t actually exist, so the referenced gold is fool’s gold…unless you’re a Hollywood producer, in which case the gold is real.) Witty is often forced to use disguises and pseudonyms such as Ryback Solomon (lending him the more respectable title “reporter,” which also sounds better to those geniuses on TMZ, who just stand around trading verbal snipes at celebrities while drinking soda.) Witty is the cousin of one Walter Mitty, although Walter would claim that this claim is a figment of his (Witty’s) imagination. To sum up, both nothing (and everything) anyone named Walter says can be construed as both fact and fiction, both satire and deep truth, but this particular Walter disclaims responsibility for any and all consequences resulting from incorporating his (or Entertainment Tonight’s) views into their personal value system…which system, as we know, is already pretty much written in stone, thanks to years of subliminal (or otherwise) advertising. Just so you know.