Wrong in so many ways

There are a couple of ads in the latest Alaska Airlines in-flight magazine that had me scratching my head.

1) An ad for a Spanish Language CD learning set that showed a picture of the Chichen Itza Mayan Pyramid with the tag line:

They used to sacrifice people here...
If they start old habits, wouldn't you want to know how to talk them out of it?

How this kind of thing got past any kind of person who didn't say "um...do you think that might be considered just a teensy bit racist?" is beyond me.

Maybe some of the tour guides at the site are still Mayan, but a majority of those would be catholic and still speak Mayan as well as Spanish and English.

I would think that if you found a Mayan that was still somehow into a human sacrifice to the Rain God, he is not going to be appeased by your begging for your life en espanol.

2) An ad for the "latest non-gaming hotel in Las Vegas." A google search shows there are a lot of these hotels with rates in the hundreds of dollars a night.

What the hell is the point of that? Why else would you be in the middle of a freaking desert if you weren't there to gamble?

If your convention is in Vegas, it is because folks want to gamble, otherwise you'd be in New York or San Francisco, or some other civilized place.

Is it a way for the compulsive gambler to tell his wife that going to the convention in Vegas will be okay, because the hotel won't have a craps table? C'mon! The airport there has dozens of slot machines. I won $11 there the last time I had a layover. The purpose of Vegas is to get drunk and gamble. If you aren't doing that, you just plain shouldn't be there.

Is it a snob appeal thing? "We will put you in the middle of hell on earth, but at least you won't hear those awful slot machines on the way up to your room?"

For the more puritanical visitors just seeing a relative? Look, you are in both Sodom AND Gomorrah at that point, visiting a relation that you no doubt see as some sort of degenerate. Get over it and just stay at the Stardust. The rooms are only $29 and you will have something to be outraged about when you get back home and go to church.

(and sorry for taking the week off, one too many people coughed on me on my trip and I have been pretty out of it since I got back.)

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