don't be strident

By ( articles ) | Jan 27, 2010

Have you ever watched a professional football game? It's violent. Grown men, uniformed and helmeted, smash into each other at full force. The fans-- at the stadium or in front of the television set-- roar in approval after each new collision. Trumpets blare, whistles blow, players curse and grunt and scream. Sportswriters often use military imagery to describe the game; the comparisons to actual combat are too obvious to warrant explanation. 

With that in mind, consider the argument that by airing a pro-life ad during the Super Bowl broadcast, the CBS network will be injecting a "strident" note into the day's entertainment. Why would it be inappropriate to show a "strident" ad during the game? What could be more strident than the football game itself? 

Actually the ad in question highlights the gentlest of all human sentiments: an expectant mother's love for her unborn child. There's nothing strident, nothing violent about the message. If you wanted to make a violent advertisement about a mother's relationship with her unborn child, you would... Well, that's too obvious to explain as well.

In other news, a young New York woman bled to death during a "safe, clean, legal" abortion. Media coverage of the tragedy was not strident.