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Monday, February 6, 2012

Super Bowl TV: Good game, wretched ads, pathetic half-time show - baltimoresun.com

Super Bowl TV: Good game, wretched ads, pathetic half-time show - baltimoresun.com:

'via Blog this'

My friend, Jeff, responded to the article with this response. As an aging woman (and there are many of us), I felt very proud of his reply.

Mr. Zurawik -

I am outraged at some of the hypocritical comments you made in your article "Super Bowl TV: Good game, nasty ads, pathetic half-time show."

In said article, you lamented that the Super Bowl commercials were "a barometer of our culture. And what they said to me is that we have become a truly dumbed-down, crass, trashy and even cruel society -- and somehow proud of it."

Well, sir, you apparently have inhaled the air of our culture and it is seeping its way out of your inarticulate pores.

After condemning the cruelty on display, you turn around and make ageist comments about the star halftime performer, calling her "an embalmed version of Madonna snatched off the undertaker's table." That is incredibly offensive for a number of reasons, but most importantly you are taking cruel pot shots at a person because of her age. That is dumbfoundingly inappropriate, rude, unprofessional and CRUEL for a person in the media to make a remark like that. I would expect that from some uneducated putz on Twitter with no sense of pride in himself or the establishment he represents, but not from a member of the media. If you're supposed to be a critic, then fine, criticize the performance all you want - but how DARE you mean-spiritedly criticize a person for aging. By making such a statement, you are essentially telling each of your readers that, at 53 years old, you are worthless, washed up and should rot in a grave someplace. Have you given any thought to the average age of your readership? All evidence would point to the fact that you have not. You owe every single one of them a sincere apology.

I have no idea how old you are, Mr. Zurawik, but you too will eventually get old. I hope when you get to a certain age the tide will have turned and people will no longer be chastised for getting older...but by then, if your attitude hasn't changed, there may not be anyone around you who cares how old you've become.


Jeff Kirkpatrick