"Merda taurorum animas conturbit" (Bullshit baffles brains). T’was even so when Latin educators ruled the world.
Now that Mad Men is over, I worry about the ad industry. Has there been a greater Coke ad since Don Draper retired. . . well, there was that cute Nationwide commercial that used a baby as the metaphor for a man’s car, but I’m not concerned with the obvious ads. Yes, we know that blondes have more fun and that Certs is both a breath mint and a candy mint. I’m worried about the insidious green ads that are permeating the none too functional brain cells of the newly arrived ‘adults’ struggling to find meaning in their lives. Each generation has its own foibles, and so I present the following:
“Sustainable cashmere” While thumbing through a catalogue, I noticed the various flowery descriptions for cardigans included the words “sustainable cashmere”. What do those words imply? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines 'sustainable' as “able to be used without being completely used up or destroyed; involving methods that do not completely use up or destroy natural resources”. Since cashmere comes from goat hair, how does “sustainable” apply? Goats are not killed for their hair, instead, the hair is clipped, which then grows back, is clipped again, etc., or is this a reference to the licentious behavior of goats. Are they allowed to “free-range” procreate and thus sustain their cashmere legacy?
And while I’m on the subject of the absurd, may I introduce the spanking new concept of “Solar shelf” - overnight our pool has become eco-friendly, regardless of the fact that the pool guys routinely pour noxious chemicals into the water on a weekly basis. So much so, that we frequently find dead frogs that have innocently jumped in to their early demise. Nonetheless, we have a “solar shelf” that warms the water via the sun’s rays. The warm water is then distributed throughout the pool, says the ad. It seems like only yesterday that the new ‘solar shelf’ was the old fashioned shallow end of the pool.
Likewise, the “gluten free” label is now found on food that never had gluten. Cranberries, for instance.
My pyjama label not only bears the size but includes a note stating “green cotton”. I googled the words and came up with ---- nothing. Cotton is a perennial crop that grows from the ground. Cotton is no more green than beets. That said, I’m pretty sure there are many fairy brains (not to cast any disrespect on Peter Pan) out there snapping up “green cotton” pyjamas because they are sustainable. If only their brains were so.
While opening a package that contains a can of sardines, I noticed that they (the sardines) were ‘sustainably harvested’. Personally, I think it’s cruel to be nice to sardines that will be killed and eaten.
