"I have often depended on the blindness of strangers." - Adrienne Gusoff

I got a fairly lengthy email from my older brother discussing the conduct of waitstaff per last night's post. Among other things he posits that their behavior can be charted as a bell curve. As appearing on the X axis, go to a really cheap joint and they'll never come to your table (Burger King). Go to a really fancy restaurant and they'll come only when necessary and do so unobtrusively. They're paying attention and can tell when you need your water glass refilled, your salad plate is ready for removal, etc. It's those places in between where they come to your table repeatedly because they're working a set of tables - probably too many for one person - and the prescribed routine says it's time to stop by your table without regard for anything except that routine.

Two observations:

• Pam and I either need to stick to cheap joints or pony up for tony. You can guess which direction this is headed. 
• The excessively analytical approach? Turning waitstaff into entries on an x/y graph? Yeah, it's genetic. 

Years ago I subscribed to Sports Illustrated and enjoyed the magazine. Then it seemed like the publication went downhill with fewer serious articles about sports and more of the type you'd find in PEOPLE. I dropped my subscription when Rick Reilly left for ESPN the Magazine. 

I remember when they began allowing subscribers to opt out of the swimsuit issue and add an issue to the end of their subscription instead. I immediately took that option.

I stop by SportsIllustrated.com every morning, sometimes twice a day, along with ESPN.com, to keep up with happenings in the world of sports. But for the next week or two I'll skip SI and stick to ESPN. 

No, I'm not, nor have I ever been addicted to porn (by the grace of God). I do, however, find the SI swimsuit issue offensive on several levels. It's a HUGE money maker for them and, besides the print edition, it features prominently on their website, which is why I won't be there for awhile. 

• The swimsuit issue in all its media forms is prurient, appealing to the base instincts of man, what the Bible calls the lust of the flesh.
• It demeans women, treating them as objects valued for their appeal to those lusts, not as individuals created Imago Dei. 
• It is, by any objective measure, pornography as defined by the laws and statutes of the land. I do NOT understand why images that would appear on the pages of Playboy and the like are acceptable in mainstream media without warning or filter.
• It's pandering at its worst. The swimsuit issue has nothing to do with sports and is nothing more than an admittedly brilliant marketing move. 

I also don't understand why TV shows that would howl and scream at any similar form of the exploitation of women gleefully jump on the Swimsuit Edition bandwagon with interviews and feature stories (cf. The Today Show). Yes, of course it's about ratings. But does the hypocrisy occur to them? 

OK, the verdict is in. I am a curmudgeon, at least by contemporary standards. But at least when it comes to this matter I am so unashamedly.