Colour

It all started with an ad during the super bowl for Audi.

The ad came to me via the internet and is, at least to me, uproariously funny. It was a take off on the tune "Dream Police" with lyrics being changed to "Green Police", and featured people being arrested for such "crimes" as selecting paper instead of plastic at the supermarket check out or being in posession of an incandescent light bulb (the detainee was Steve Martin). The message was that Audi has a "Green" diesel vehicle which allows its owner immunity from the "Green Police".

Then came the e-mails.

My right-wing correspondents were aghast that the ad was shown as it was a foretaste of what would be if the looney left wing were left to its own devices. Further, "Green" is now considered as being the new "Red" as in communist "Reds". Something having to do with former Soviet leader Gorbachev moving to San Francisco and plotting revenge from his left-wing hippie pad in Haight-Asbury. It's all very psychiatric.

Let's try this again.

I got an e-mail from someone trying to start a "new" symbolic salute to our military. Some church somewhere has decided that we should honor our men and women in the service by wearing blue shirts on fridays. Not really a bad idea, but, someone apparently forgot to tell this well-meaning group that there is already a red shirt salute to those in the military which was started by those in the military. Co-Worker David Pidgeon informed me of this custom some months ago and I thought it a good idea and adopted it. I've never been in the military, but I have a number of friends and acquaintances who either are or have been (including David) and I have every respect for anyone who has or had volunteered to take on what could be, at times, a thankless job. Red seems appropriate.

So, I'm trying to figure out the angle of these people who have decided to make blue the "new" red. An aversion to out-of-control communism, perhaps? Would they take offense at the Boston Red Sox or the Cincinatti Reds? How about a compromise? Purple. Oh, wait, that wouldn't work on a couple of levels, purple being associated with the homosexual community, you know. And where is the locus of those awful beings? Why, San Fransisco, of course! Right next door to Mikhail Gorbachev!!!

Am I on to something, or what?

Well, if blue is the new red and green is the new red, what happens to red? Are we now expected to go on red and stop on green at the traffic signal at the end of the street just to show that we won't be easily intimidated into bowing to the communist "Fifth Column"? How about heading to Cincinatti to watch the Blues on opening days, or to Memphis to listen to some of the famous "Delta Reds" (musicians being nothing but Bohemian commies, anyway). And what were my parents thinking, anyway, when they allowed me to watch "Mr. Green Jeans" on Captain Kangaroo (or was that Kaptain Kangaroo - toned down to de-emphasise the connection with Karl Marx)???? And shouldn't we have been warned that Canadian actor Steve Smith's character, the loveable "Red Green" was just a "front" to get us in the mindset that Canadian "Socialized Medicine" would be just the ticket for us here in the USA? Oh, those clever and perfidous frostbacks!!!!

Oh, the possibilities, oh, the silliness!

I'll just go back to the story of the politician who, after a press conference where he waffled on just about every concievable issue was asked his favourite colour.

"Plaid".

Be Seeing You!