Toyota Highlander Kid Sucks

I don't think I could write anything new with regard to contempt for the recent advertising for the new Toyota Highlander. (If you haven't seen them, the ads star an eight-year-old boy with messy reddish-blond hair disparaging other vehicles: his message to parents: You don't have to be lame, buy a new Highlander.) In fact, when it comes to Internet "rant" articles on the subject, it's impossible to tell whether the authors have plagiarized one another. This fellow pretty much word for word sums up why the ad is so annoying and presents the wrong message to parents: Ad Rage. It has received widespread condemnation, including online parents' magazines and even Time. It's hardly a favorable message about American culture when one of the world's biggest manufacturers thinks that this ad will boost Highlander sales.

Update: I don't know how I missed this article from AutoTrader.com: "Is Toyota Lame for Calling Parents Lame?" (November 10, 2010). That article quotes a Toyota spokesperson who responded, in part, "Our values as a company have always been to put our customers first and provide them the highest levels of respect and understanding." But just a few sentences downstream (after blathering about "research") he includes, "While we regret that the ads have been misconstrued as insensitive [and] we don’t have any plans at this time to discontinue the campaign (emphasis mine)." So much for providing the highest levels of respect and understanding. C'mon, Toyota, you don't have to give us an apology on the front page of the New York Times, just yank the damn ads! The only car that brat would inspire me to buy is a secondhand Buick Roadmaster station wagon.

Nostradamus? More like Nostradangerous

"When ancient prophecies and current events begin to intertwine, that's what we call the Nostradamus Effect." That is The History Channel's advertisement for its series The Nostradamus Effect. In it, the writings of Nostradamus as well as creative interpretations of the Mayan calendar hint that the end of the world will be December 21, 2012.

I say, when Christians forget Christ's warning about false prophets (Mt 7:15-20), that "you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet (Mt 24:6)," and "but of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only (Mt 24:36)," and instead turn to "prophets" whose ambiguous writings can be molded to have "predicted" numerous calamities, and ignoring artifacts that don't fit the doom-and-gloom (some Mayan artifacts indicate the world will still be around in 4772), that is what I call the Nostradangerous Effect.

Following Nostradamus may indeed be dangerous: How many people have committed suicide, ignored health problems, let their houses fall apart, pour money into smart phones, self-navigating cars and other here-and-now luxuries they can't afford instead of saving for the future, because they believe there is no future? Could this be adding fuel to the fire of the consumer credit problem? How many marriages and other relationships between believers and nonbelievers have broken up? I shudder to think.