Radio and TV ads: I've noticed that many ads have one thing in common. In a lame attempt to be funny, they use the smart person-dumb person comparison. The dumb one says/does something incredubly, unbelievably stupid. The smart one shows the dumb one the "way," using the product/service being promoted.

This'd all be ok, if not very smart, clever or original, except for one thing: the dumb one is always, ALWAYS a white male. The smart one is usually a woman (his wife), sometimes a kid (his son or daughter), or sometimes it might be a man (his friend) of another race). The entire idea is to get us used to the idea that white men are weak and stupid.

Years ago, up until maybe as recently as fifteen or twenty years ago, they were doing the same thing to women. We all remember the house-bound wives, the sexy, but ditzy girl friends and the simple-minded office girl. Well, I'm sure that wasn't any fun for the woman who wanted to be taken seriously as an attorney, a doctor or a business executive. As I started paying attention to it, I didn't care for it then and I don't care for this turnabout either.

Like it or not, and for reasons unrelated to such superficialities as race and gender, but rather to the way things were as mankind emerged from the Dark Ages of mysticism and feudalism. Men were in charge during those times, and momentum kept it that way for centuries. Mysticism and feudalism were (partially) conquered first and best in Western Europe. Thus, it was Western Europeans who first learned to use their minds to understand reality and to learn to use it.

Men of other races and backgrounds have followed and, at times, led. Women finally got their start, mainly in the twentieth century. They're catching up fast, and rightly so.

None of this makes white men stupid. We're the same as we've always been.

No conspiracy here, but there seems to be a mindset that wants to undo the Age of Reason and return humanity to a new Dark Age. I reject it.

My personal plan is to keep track of those firms who produce and use those kinds of ads and not patronize them.

Col. Hogan