Osama's Secret Meth Labs!

First guns, now crystal meth—pretty soon they'll be saying muzak is a weapon of mass destruction.

Comments

[Ron Hardin]

Hey, Joan Baez is playing in Kroger’s muzak. Those are songs of revolution.

[Mike]

I’ve heard “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” And they’re playing this stuff to children.

[AJB]

KISS has been co-opted into Muzak. No wait, that’s an improvement. Never mind.

[dhex]

weapons of meth destruction…has a catchy ring to it.

i like o’reilly. he’s like a modern day oracle of delphi, minus the ergotine.

[Plutarck]

Brady: Indeed, but you miss perhaps the most illogical point of all – if no one bought drugs, there wouldn’t be a drug problem. However, it is patently untrue that if no one sold drugs there would be no drug problem, as is absolutely proven by paint, market, gasoline, and white out huffers; unless you are going to illegalize anything that can get anyone high, the drug problem doesn’t go anywhere. If no one wanted to buy them, no one would sell them – both directly, as in you can’t have a sale without a buyer, and indirectly, in that no one would bother to so much as make drugs if no one wanted them.

Of course, the illogic goes even further – what happens when people grow, or otherwise create, their own? Are these people guilty of pushing drugs on themselves?

And of course on yet another point of illogic (damn, he really is good at this!), he seems to conflate people who OFFER drugs – including those who won’t even tell anyone they have drugs unless they are asked by someone they trust – with some storied people who go out and actively try to push drugs on people and get them to do them, even if they don’t want to. Hardly accurate to call them “pushers”, eh?

You have to hand it to O’Reilly – he’s got a gift.

[Brady]

Plutarck:

I enjoyed your final 2 points, and actually your first is kind of what I was hinting at…that as a people we seek things to make our lives more convenient and more “fun” at the risk of safety. This is part of human nature. Hence, we drive, swim, drink, and eat unhealthy foods while knowing there is a risk of injury or death (of course in the short or long-term depending on the activity).

So, I was going beyond the drug debate to a debate on human nature in general. The bubble comment meant that since human nature has a tendency to bring us to injury or death (not many of us maintain our bodies with 100% efficiency, mostly b/c it’s not “fun”), that by his logic the government should completely shelter us in order to prolong our lives.

[James Merritt]

Speaking of Muzak, I will never forget the day when I was browsing inside a Thrifty (now Rite-Aid) drug store in Morro Bay CA. As usual, Muzak-like sounds wafted down from the ceiling, like the scent of stale pot pourri. Then, as if in a Terry Gilliam movie, I heard a “101-strings”-style instrumental version of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy,” the original version of which had been on the Top 40 lists just a year or two previously. I was rather surprised that something so contemporary was being covered by the “elevator channel.” And almost exactly as I thought that to myself, I realized that the corresponding lyrics at the moment — had there been any singing — would have been, “and if ‘the elevator’ tries to break you down … go crazy!”

It was a true moment of surrealistic irony. I laughed so hard I started to choke. My girlfriend of the time, who later became (and is still!) my wife, slapped me on the back and asked what was so funny. She didn’t laugh as hard as I did at the explanation, but she still also remembers the day, and agrees that it was among the weirdest pop-culture clashes we have experienced.

I await the day that we’ll be in the upscale suburban clothes emporium, when an instrumental version of “Walking on the Sun” begins to play over the store speakers. I’ll try not to lose it at the part where the sung lyrics would be, “fashion is smashin’ the true meaning of it.”

I have lately come to the conclusion that the extreme cynicism of young and hip today — something I personally find quite off-putting — is actually a good thing, in at least one respect: it will keep them from giving their hearts to works of art (especially pop music) that will invariably be turned against them when they reach the place, as Jacksone Browne warned, “where the ads take aim, and lay their claim to the heart and soul of the spender.”

[Highway]

Oh, but Muzak IS a weapon of massive (hope) destruction. I see it in the faces of my co-workers, and have felt the liberating effects of headphones myself. I’m sure it contributed to this statement from another co-worker: “You can feel yourself dying every minute you’re in here.”

[Brady]

oh boy, i should have seen this one coming.

[joe]

I’ve hears “The Crystal Ship” by the Doors.

[Plutarck]

Given O’Reilly’s insistance that a voluntary exchange of drugs between parties is actually a violent crime, you’re right – we really should have seen this one coming.

[Neil Block]

I saw a documentary on how Muzak composes its songs — they have teams sit down with a product (say, a sweater) and analyze it, then use some sort of canned phraseology to compose music to fit the analysis of said product. Weird.

Oh, and the crystal meth thing — they should just continue the trend and call anything that’s not an apple a weapon of mass destruction to appease the CSPI.. wait, apples have pesticides on them? Shucks.

[Plutarck]

Don’t forget Alar! An apple a day…could KILL YOU! Wooooooooooooo! Scary! Scary!

[joe]

At least when Kucinich does it, it’s a metaphor.

[Brady]

Plutarck:

Good point on O’Rielly.

Here’s an article where he discusses this topic:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/billoreilly/bo20020518.shtml

“Some will argue the pushers have no responsibility, that the users make the choice. But that is nonsense. If nobody sold drugs, there would be no drug problem.”

By this logic automobile makers should be liable for all car wrecks, pool makers for all drownings, gun makers for all shootings. Let’s just all live in government mandated bubbles, it is much safer that way.

This way of logic astounds me every time I hear it.