Thursday, January 21, 2010

Are Public Service Ads Supposed to be Scary?

I just think if public service ads make people panic, they might be doing less of a "public service" than they think.   

For the past week or so, I've been hearing a particular ad on Denver radio stations about water tampering.  In a very calm and tranquilizing voice, a woman says something to the effect of -
"if you see someone tampering with a fire hydrant, or a city water supply, call authorities immediately.  It's up to all of us to stay safe."

Wait ---
Did she just tell everyone in the greater Denver area that there's NO SECURITY at the City Water Supply?  and does this strike anyone else as a particularly self-defeating ad? 

Here's an idea - why don't' we just paint a big red X on the water treatment center roof so that at least terrorists can find it easily from the sky, and save everyone the trouble of watching by land.

As far as fire hydrants, If someone will tell me what to watch for, I'll definitely monitor the one in my yard, but can you really  poison the water supply at a fire hydrant?  It seems like that attempt would be kind of obvious, what with the water geyser that would shoot out into the street and all... but I don't really know enough about it to be able to reason it out. I only know enough to have my imagination carry me away with all the horrible things that could (probably not) happen.

And here's the scary part.  Well the terrorist thing is the scary part... but here's the OTHER scary part.   If  *I* can figure out that this ad is possibly getting out more and different information than was intended,  shouldn't our elected officials and the crazy person who thought this as was a good idea be able to figure that out, too?

I mean, I'm not the brightest crayon in the knife drawer, but you know.

13 comments:

The mad woman behind the blog said...

One word, girl: Zanax!

Kevin said...

Don't worry about the water. Just drink more Diet Coke!

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

Err...yeah...let's not give the bad guys any ideas...

Millie said...

You have crayons in your knife drawer?

mormonhermitmom said...

This is me slack jawed that someone felt the need to do a PSA like that :()

Melissa said...

I love stuff like that! Our "brilliant" news crew did a report on ways to break and enter into homes. I get that they were trying to show you how to prevent these things, but they also did a bang up job of educating the criminals too! They even showed this cool trick where you could stick a small tool into a lock, hit it with a hammer and... WAHLAH! Lock opens up! These people are amazingly smart :)

Loralee and the gang... said...

ANOTHER reason why the government needs to stay out of healthcare. (And banking. And auto companies. etc. etc. I would say stay out of defending this country altogether, based on the past year's performance of the current Commander-In-Chief, but that IS really one of the real jobs of the Govt - according to that "Outdated Document", the Constitution of the United States...)

Also, I saw a website that offered a video for sale on how to hide your guns so no one could find them. So I just HOPE they won't sell any of these to the bad guys who might come looking for them! Duh!

Loralee and the gang... said...

ANOTHER reason why the government needs to stay out of healthcare. (And banking. And auto companies. etc. etc. I would say stay out of defending this country altogether, based on the past year's performance of the current Commander-In-Chief, but that IS really one of the real jobs of the Govt - according to that "Outdated Document", the Constitution of the United States...)

Also, I saw a website that offered a video for sale on how to hide your guns so no one could find them. So I just HOPE they won't sell any of these to the bad guys who might come looking for them! Duh!

Yvonne said...

I always wonder if someone thinks the terrorist aren't listening to the same things we all are.

If you have crayons in your knife drawer, you really do need the info from my recent organizing class ; )

Rhonda said...

I just found your blog and I just love it. I agree about the panic that the ads cause. I saw one about global warming and even though I don't really BELIEVE in global warming it was TERRIBLE. A little child waking up and then BAM! All of a sudden the planet is gone and she's alone on a deserted..ummm I don't know what because the planet was gone. lol
Stupid PSA'S!

rocslinger said...

I would not worry about giving our enemies ideas, they have plenty and much better ideas than trying to poison the water supply through a high pressure outlet.

I think of most PSA's akin to having brail on drive up atm's, might be a good idea, just in the wrong place.

kristi r said...

pretty funny. on the front page of the paper here last week they were telling everyone how high tech and neat the new wing of the hospital was. Then the proceed to tell and show a drawn map of exactly where the helicopter fuel tanks were stored and how they traveled up to the top of the hospital where the helicopters land. I'm sorry, but the exactly location of highly flammable/explosive things right next to a hospital seems more like need to know information. And the general public and all of it's pyschotic people don't need to know. . .

goddessdivine said...

Wait; you can tamper with the city water supply?

See, they just gave me an idea. ;-)