Loud music, bright lights ‘unacceptable’ torture

I watched all of the Super bowl commercials. I’ve read, seen and heard all of the comments about which ones were good and which were bad.

My favorite, however, received not one second of comment from not one ‘critic.’

The best commercial, in my humble opinion, was ABC’s promotion of its hit show “Lost.”

Just in case you missed it, the spot featured clips from past shows in sync with Robert Palmer’s song “Addicted to Love.”

Ah, but the kicker was that ‘love’ was replaced by ‘lost.’ “Might as well face it, you’re addicted to lost.”

Some other clever aspects included showing scenes of the castaways listening to a radio, but instead of distress calls, they heard the song. Another scene was of several of them watching an old film for clues to the bunker, but in the Super Bowl spot they were watching a video of Palmer’s song.

And of course, the clips from the show were paired to the lyrics. For instance, when “another kiss is all you need’ was being sung, the clip was of two castaways kissing.

Brilliant!

My judgment of the promo could be clouded by the fact that ‘Lost’ is one of my favorite shows.

Speaking of favorite shows, two others on my ‘must watch’ list sent diametrically opposed messages this week.

On “Law and Order,” the message was the United States is torturing ‘prisoners’ at Guantanamo and other locations around the world and not only is that type of behavior unacceptable, but it does not work. Even worse, it causes permanent damage to the recipients.

The ‘unacceptable’ torture? Loud music and bright lights.

On the other end of the spectrum is “24.”

In Monday night’s episode, viewers were shown firsthand that torture, or the threat of it, can wring reliable information from the ‘bad’ guys. Counter Terrorism Unit agent Jack Baur used his methods on two terrorists and got the information he was after. Viewers also saw how ‘warrantless’ electronic surveillance can be successful in uncovering terrorists’ plans.

Back to the real world and we see how those who agree with the message of “Law and Order” are agonizing over President Bush’s authorization of intercepting messages to or from known or suspected terrorists.

Congressional hearings into the practice are currently underway, precipitated by those who are outraged that the president would dare do anything like that without telling them first.

These are the same types I saw whining last week on a show about the 9-11 Commission Report — “Why didn’t we know this was coming?” — and they’ll be saying the same thing after they tie the intelligence community’s hands and we once again are attacked by terrorists.

U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is apparently one of the few in Congress who is willing to do what is necessary to prevent another attack.

This is part of what he had to say about it:

“After September 11th, Americans expect President Bush and Congress to use every tool available to stop future terrorist attacks. The terrorist surveillance program is exactly the type of measure that helps us gather vital information before it’s too late.

“We must be clear: the program applies only to international calls with suspected terrorists. Previous administrations, Democrat and Republican, have taken similar actions and court rulings have upheld their actions. The president has briefed Congressional leaders of both parties many times on the program, and he is acting in the best interests of our security.

“Any Member of Congress who does not want the President to intercept and respond to international calls from terrorists does not understand the true nature of our enemy or the imminent danger we face.”

I value my privacy as much as the next person, but I value my life even more.

I don’t have any communications with terrorists so I don’t believe some ‘spook’ in Washington is going to be spending any time monitoring my telephone conversations or e-mail.

When I think about the most recent episode of “24” and what is going on in Washington, the saying ‘truth is stranger than fiction” comes to mind.

“Fiction is more sensible than truth” might be more apropos.

(Cody Sossamon is publisher of The Gaffney Ledger. You can contact him via e-mail at cody@gaffneyledger.com)