Advertising Age

So I am watching the SciFi Channel this weekend, and an ad comes on TV for their new series "Sanctuary." In the ad, they tell the viewer to watch because there will be a preview of the new movie "Quarantine." Then then showed about a ten second snip of the movie.

YES! They have done it! They have not only put an advertisement into an advertisement, they put a clip of a movie into a clip for a TV show. I had never seen the double with a full twist done outside of a diving competition before, but there you have it! My marketing professor would be so proud!

The Power of Comedy

Who watches the watchmen? Some of the best reporting on TV is done by ComedyCentral's The Daily Show because they are beholden to the power of comedy, not the comedy of power.

Love and Fear

I am reading The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, 2008) because one way to preach better sermons is to expose yourself to better sermons. Whether listening or reading, finding better semons improves preaching.

Coffin was Senior Pastor and Head of Staff at Riverside Church in New York City from 1977 to 1987. Riverside is one of America's premier pulpits. Harry Emerson Fosdick preached from this same pulpit.

Reading the other day, in a sermon named "A World Fit for Children," I found this gem: "love seeks the truth, fear seeks safety." (vol. 1, page 11)

Go in love, not in fear.

When Lynn Spears Is Right...

Lynn Spears, the mother of Brittney and Jamie Lynn, grandmother of an ever growing brood, made a point. To paraphrase, she said it is rather hypocritical that Sarah Palin is a brave woman and she is an awful mother because of their pregnant, unmarried, underage daughters.

Hummm, one woman is "brave" and the other is "everything that is wrong" for the exact same reason.

The moral to this story is beware the high horse, the fall is bad and getting kicked by the horse is worse.