I’m watching a show on the Discovery channel about the tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean two years ago. They have some footage that I’ve never seen before and a lot of it is hard to watch. Home video is so ubiquitous these days that it’s hard to understand that the people meandering along the beach like your run-of-the-mill tourists are about to die. The waves rumble toward shore and the people look out at the horizon and have no idea that they’re doomed.

And then, after the first wave hit and receded, lots of people walked back to the shoreline, thinking that it was over. It wasn’t over. Another big wave came and killed lots of those people too. I think I would’ve kept running until I hit the other side of the island.

So I’m watching the show, which is about one of the most horrible natural disasters in human history, one that killed hundreds of thousands of people…and it goes to a commercial for Fancy Feast cat food. They show a chef grilling a piece of salmon and spooning a citrus reduction over the crosshatched fish, and then it’s served to a white Angora cat. I found this juxtaposition somewhat pornographic. I like my cat, and I feed him tidbits from time to time, but why the hell would Fancy Feast want to advertise during a program about the tsunami?

Permanent link to this post.