Still Cranky

According to President Obama, "Americans don't torture."
I beg to differ.  Obviously,  our new president  has never sat through fifteen minutes of "Nancy Grace", let alone a full episode of "The Bachelor". 

Maybe we don't torture prisoners.  But every single day, millions of innocent Americans are subjected to all manner of excruciating mental and physical agonies, all of which are perfectly legal and sanctioned by our government.  The following are just a few of the places and situations where torture goes on right in broad daylight…and no one says a word.

The Multiplex

Going to the movies used to be fun.  But now, a trip to your local multiplex requires nerves of steel – not to mention industrial strength ear plugs.  I blame the advent of Dolby Stereo for much of the suffering we are made to endure today at the movies (I also blame Adam Sandler, James Cameron and  Jerry Bruckheimer, but that's another story).  It's bad enough that we have to sit through endless previews of really crappy movies followed by 90 minutes of a really crappy feature.  We also have to endure volume levels that would make the toughest Gitmo detainee beg for mercy.  This is all part of the "louder is better" philosophy that pervades most of our modern culture.  Clearly, for today's filmmakers, loud equals excitement.  I guess that's how they hold the attention of their most prized demographic: emotionally stunted teenaged boys raised on Grand Auto Theft.  But for the rest of us, loud just equals…loud.  Listening to car crashes and explosions in ear-drum-shattering Dolby Stereo is about as much fun as having an abscessed back molar.  Have you watched any old movies lately?  Or rather, have you listened to any?  They were quiet.  Sure, they had music tracks.  And sometimes, the actors raised their voices, or there was an occasional sound effect.  But in between, there were often long stretches of silence.  Today's movie-going public would never tolerate that kind of soundtrack  – too boring.  Now, we don't just have sound – we have Sound Design.  What this means is that every sound, no matter how insignificant, is exaggerated and heightened as much as possible.  The louder, the better.  It's like the Foley "artists" are on crack.  Painful?  You bet.  By the time you've endured ten previews and a  90-minute feature, all at ear-splitting volume, you'll wish you'd stayed home and ordered Netflix.

Business Meetings

Meetings have always been boring time-wasters.  What elevated them to official torture status was the introduction of "Corporate-ese"; the soul-crushing, pretentious jargon that has completely infiltrated conference rooms across our nation.  When this insidious terminology first reared its ugly head back in the early-mid 90s, it seemed innocent enough.  Someone would toss out a simple "let's drill down" or inject an innocuous "cost-effective" into the conversation, and we'd chuckle to ourselves and ignore it.  Big mistake.  Soon, we were exposed to regular, daily doses of bullshit-laced lingo designed to put a positive spin on something negative.  Now that these words have entered the lexicon, I dare anyone to sit through a business meeting or conference call and emerge unscathed.  You may think you can endure anything.  But until you've suffered through a Power Point presentation sprinkled with generous helpings of "transformative", "core competencies", "sub-optimal" and "ideation",  you haven't been tested.  At the end of the day…we're talking sheer hell.

The Mall 

Your typical suburban mall experience is not for the feint of heart.  These innocent looking torture chambers were designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain in the minimum amount of time.  The mall is a particularly treacherous place, as it combines several proven methods of torture – extreme crowding, uninterrupted exposure to Muzak, an overwhelming selection of predictable chain stores, large numbers of marauding teenagers and lethal food courts – all under one roof.  Think you're tough enough to endure an afternoon of shopping in one of these retail hell holes?  Don't kid yourself.  When Gitmo detainees were subjected to a visit to Juicy Couture, followed by a forced feeding at Cinnabon and a quick stop to Wet Seal, they displayed classic Post-Traumatic Syndrome symptoms and begged their captors to lock them in Solitary for an indefinite amount of time.  And that was just after a normal mall visit.  For those who had the bad luck to enter the mall at holiday time, the long-term effects were frankly too horrible to describe.

Airline Travel

Everyone knows that modern air travel makes waterboarding look like a walk in the park.  Its familiar terrors – from middle seats to endless delays, stolen armrests and rude flight attendants – have been well documented.  Realizing that your frequent air traveler was becoming immune to simple, tray-table-in-your-lap variety torture, those cagey airlines secretly conspired to up the ante.  These days, the torture begins long before you actually board the plane, or even set foot in the airport.  Their method?  An insidious technique known as "ARL", a.k.a. the Automated Reservations Line.  Anyone who has ever yelled back at the phone, after being prompted with a chirpy, electronic, "Sorry, I didn't get that…please SAY or SPELL the last name of the passenger…" knows of what I speak.  As if the byzantine rules of air fares weren't enough, the automated "Customer Service Agent" piles on the pain, and is guaranteed to drive even the calmest customer to the brink of insanity.  But beware.  Should you foolishly press "0" to speak to an actual agent, you do so at your own peril.  You will no doubt spend the next hour in another circle of Hell, having an agonizing conversation with a phone bank guy somewhere in New Delhi.  Yes, even torture has been outsourced.  Scary?  Sure.  But until you've paid ten bucks for an on-board "snack box", you don't know real fear.

VAPD (Vapid American Pop Culture)

This catch-all category covers a plethora of evils…everything from Us Magazine to "Entertainment Tonite" …even your computer search engine home page.  The relentless media attention to the purgatory that is modern pop culture is simply impossible to avoid – it comes at you in waves, 24/7, a veritable tsunami of mindless garbage and inanity.  You don't care about Britney's breakup with Justin? Well, you're going to hear about it anyway!  You've O.D.'d on Paris, Nicole and Lindsey?  Too damn bad – you're gonna shut up and take it!  Bored with Brangelina?  Of course you are!  Why should you be spared?  If you  hear one more word about Oprah's weight you're going to scream?  Go ahead…no one will hear you.  The coverage is relentless – you can't escape.  And don't think you can just change the channel.  Now, virtually every cable news channel is dispensing with this crap, as well.  It parades as "ironic" coverage of the tabloid stories – but it doesn't matter how they serve it up.  Irony or no irony, this stuff is sheer torture.  The media's insatiable appe
tite for the trivial has been known to break even the strongest among us, reducing once healthy, sane tv viewers to sniveling non-humans, begging for mercy.  And sadly, there's no end in sight.

Loud Cell Phone Talkers

I've reserved the final, and potentially most lethal, form of torture for last. Brace yourself, as this is the worst of the worst.  I'm referring to the awful fate that befalls anyone unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity of someone talking on their cell phone in public.  If you've ever been seated on a bus or train  next to someone having a loud, lengthy  conversation on their cell phone, you know the horrible, sinking feeling; there's no way out.  You're trapped like an animal.  You're going to hear every last, boring detail of someone's incredibly mundane  life, whether you like it or not.  In the early days of cell phones, most civilized people hoped and prayed that some shred of decorum, some modicum of simple, human decency, would accompany their use.  We couldn't have been more wrong.  Now, invading another human's personal space, and turning said human's morning commute into the Journey from Hell is an every day, totally acceptable occurrence.  You'd think this kind of shameless, boorish, barbaric behavior would be against the law in a so-called civilized society like ours.  Or, that this kind of mass suffering could never be condoned.  But sadly, you'd be wrong.  It's just one more example of legalized torture.  Better get used to it.

For those of you who say torture shouldn't be taken lightly, I couldn't agree more.  It's truly no laughing matter.  I should know.  I just got back from the mall.