If you’ve gone to the movies in the last month, you’ve probably seen the new JC Penney ad. It strangles The Breakfast Club, stomps out everything mildly interesting and replaces it with 60 seconds of brand powered suck. The ad threads blandified bits of several recognizable moments into its main appropriation, the scene where all of the detentionees dance all around the library. Of course, library dancing on a Saturday afternoon is the secret dream of every disaffected teen.

Which leads me to a few questions. Did anybody on the advertising team actually see The Breakfast Club? If yes, did they not remember that the characters started dancing around in the library because they were all high? Was this something that a hip young ad agency guy snuck past the corporate suits, or was everyone involved too strung out on quality Park Avenue blow to notice? Why does JC Penney want our childrens to be struck down by the demon weed?

As a side note, I am now determined to never get stoned, for fear of waking up in plaid cargo shorts and a polo shirt.

• Barney Frank and Ron Paul propose to limit enforcement of marijuana possession laws. (Frito-Lay stock triples. Phish announce reunion tour. World fails to end.)
• Catholic clergy group demands reparation for abuse of communion wafer. (Informal game of “Count The First Amendment Mistakes” finds six. In other news, disputed cracker still compost.)
• Texas high court balks at “chilling” religious freedom to conduct brutal exorcism rituals, throws out ruling in favor of victim. (Plaintiff appeals to Supreme Court. Blogger starts “Church of Everybody Has To Give Me a Dollar Or Get Stabbed.)
• American Family Association “ramps up” its boycott of McDonald’s, citing donation to 2007 San Francisco Pride Parade. (”Literally hundreds of families have promised to stop making purchases at the stores.” McDonald’s fails to end.)