While we are not wealthy we do have enough of what we need. I am very happy with my family and what we have. We enjoy a comfortable living and have good food on the table each day. We have extras like cable TV and new cars. We are doing better than basic and that is fine.

This friend of mine said some pretty evil things to me and then she dipped back 30 years to toss out more mean things in my face just to try to hurt my feelings.

I honestly did not know what to say or do.

Her position was that I was trying to make myself seem better than her because we were discussing the bank bonuses and I said that I would have given mine back.

Her thought on this were that I would be making a stupid decision because my family would suffer if I made a choice like that.

Well I would think that my family would be just fine without millions of extra dollars.

Now don't get the wrong idea. Money is great to have because there are lots of things to see, do and have when you have more of it.

But if you think that you are blessed because you have it then you are looking wrong at what blessings are and that can lead you to say and do evil things to protect that financial blessing.

In any religion that I know of the simple things in life, the ones you can't buy are the most important things in this world and, most importantly, in the next, or in certain cases in the next incarnation.

Because you can't take it with you defending your money to the peril of the feelings and lives of others is the very definition of evil.

This defense of money drifts off into sub categories. Like thinking that if your children have the best toys that you are blessed. What happens when your children grow up and are very unhappy because they later tell you that they would have rather had you there then out working for 16 hours a day to give them things.

What happens when you start avoiding people because they may ask you to share you wealth. You become distrustful and selfish. You start to guard that fortune just to prevent others from having even the tiniest part of it. That selfishness, when others are in need is evil.

Yes. Money is the root of all evil. Because it is so easy to say it's mine, not yours and go against every spiritual principle of caring for others when you have it. And when you have more of it it adds to the other vices.

You have more money you have more power. Power corrupts. We see that everyday.

You have the ability to indulge in more things and Gluttony is a sin all over the world. Except if you are Hedonistic. Well, even they have rules on that subject.

You may kill to protect YOUR THINGS.

Money may become so important to you that you practically worship it by taking time from other spiritual duties to make more of it.

It can become idolized. People pride themselves on the amount of large bills that they might have in their wallet as a status symbol. Status symbols and some people go to any lengths to have these.

You might do things that are dishonest, unethical or just conniving all these things dishonor your parents. The most basic desire for a parent is that their children be good people FIRST. Doing these things to get money does not make you good.

People want to be with you so it makes adultery more of a possibility.

Money makes the world jealous and thus not only you are in jeopardy of committing sin but by flaunting you may tempt others into envy. Which is a sin because it can cloud your mind and distract you.

You will bear false witness in many matters when the loss of money is at stake. If you boss asks you if you did not do that job or your partner. you might choose to keep your pay rate safe and say your partner, so that when reviews come up you will get that bigger raise.

If you see a beautiful person money makes it easy to think that you can have that person. In reality money can't buy friends. But having the ability to buy just about anything will make you think and even give you the illusion that it can.

Last but not least without money there would be no need to steal.

I just went through the basic 10 that we all follow. Yes ALL. No one can dispute the basic morality of the ten commandments even atheists.

I suppose I could have gone point by point through the Egyptian version of sins which has over a hundred points to follow.

And the last thing that makes me think that money IS the root of ALL evil. Is the first thing I saw when logging on to my computer today and checking my email was this Plinky prompt after I had been praying all night.

That is more than a sign to me that I don't need to allow myself to be treated badly by people with money. The way that you try to make others feel that they are less than you because in your eyes they are NOT blessed if they don't have money. Is the ultimate, the most evil thing you could EVER so to anyone.

I love the banter between a couple that is not perfect but obviously loves each other and have lots in common as well as their own personalities.

Will that Mighty Putty really fix that leak? Will my cat really enjoy a manicure and will I feel better about trimming her claws. Can I really get ballads from my entire teen years all in one CD collection for less than $100? WOW. The possibilities seem endless.

That steam machine can cut down my cleaning time by hours. And I can get it on installments.

My mind releases all of it’s tensions, I forget about my daily worries and take on a new thought process. I am now thinking of how all these things can help me. How this latest gadget can give me more time in my day.

Other people are saying that it helped them. I know that these are most often paid spokesmen but it doesn’t matter. I can see how the product is working with my own eyes.

If I get the Roomba it will vacuum my floors even if I am not home. And maybe even exercise my cat. It bounces off of the baseboards in my house and will cover the entire square footage in about two hours, if I figured this right.

If I order this thing I can afford to pay for it if I don’t go to the movies for three months. I can do that.

You start to get giddy with the thought of what this product will do for you. It will make my skin clear overnight so I don’t have to spend time at the dermatologists office. That saves me about two hours a month.

You distract and distract over and over again this little mini foray into shopping land comes to you, right to you, via your television set. No interruptions from salespeople. And the person who is telling you all about this great item seems to have all the answers to all the questions that you are think of as the commercial goes on. Wait. You tell yourself this is a commercial. They are trying to sell me this. You rationalize. This is not going to be as good as it seems on tv when I finally get it home.

More examples of the benefits of having the SpaceBag are touted. You can really de-clutter if you got a few of these into your closets. This will be great. If I de-clutter I will be more relaxed and then I will be more productive.

WOW! Again they pull you in. Snap out of it. You are only thinking of buying this because you are bored and it is late and maybe you are half asleep and you are probably more easily swayed in this state.

time goes by…
So now it has been decades of the infomercial. You have become a bit stronger. Then they hit you with the As-Seen-On-TV aisles and whole stores even. You walk into your local pharmacy and there it is. THE ROOMBA! OK. You think, if I don’t like it I can bring it back, this is a store after all, a real place. So you go for it. You get the thing home and put it in the closet. Weeks go by and you still have not found the time to try it out. But you know you have it. And there is a little bit of uncomfortable satisfaction that goes along with that fact.

Maybe you do eventually incorporate your new purchases into your daily routine. Maybe at 2pm everyday you let loose the Roomba on the first floor while you are in the basement doing the laundry or maybe it ends up with a bow on it under the Christmas tree for someone’s Christmas joy whey they tear open that paper.

Whatever the draw something made you smile about that purchase, even for just a minute.

Maybe it was Vince who has some odd charisma when it comes to Shammies? Maybe it was seeing those stars without their make-up trying to be sympathetic about zits. You know that there was something about that guy on the Mighty Putty spot that made you remember what Mighty Putty claimed to be able to do. Even though his gestures were very weird and repetitive. Sometimes it is just because you like the spokesman that makes you even consider the product at all. Actually, when I watch the Mighty Putty guy, I recalled these stories of how Hitler used to over gesture to better connect with his audience who often were too far to see him but could make out how he was moving for interpretation of what he was saying. Some connections in the mind just pop in there.

I personally could watch Vince shammy a car or chop veggies all day long. If he were selling shoe horns I think he could get me to want one. He is a natural.

Another thing that can happen with a spokesperson is genuine and complete turn-off. I keep seeing this horrible series of Quiznos commercials. I mean stop with the ads save your money and just give me coupons. Whose idea was this ‘Stick it in me’ campaign? It is offensive. It makes me say to myself every time that I think of going into Quiznos, nah those commercials are strange and make me feel uncomfortable.

But also another food chain I don’t recall the name because it was not in my area so I decided not to remember the company name, but the commercial rang so true to me, as a woman. It was a model type eating a hamburger, it was very messy and she was getting pieces of the burger all over her arm and licking it. OK. BUT WE DO THAT! So that is the difference between innuendo with cute and innuendo with just plain creepy. It is all in the way it is presented that makes it hit a spot that connects with each of us on that purchasing level.

So how do you know what kind of effect your spokesperson will have on your audience? Well there is a snake oil sales script that you could follow in real time, you watch closely what your audience is reacting to. You just have to have that ear and that eye to capture the little nuances. BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! You also have to be able to change lanes on the fly while traveling the side streets at 90mph. Some people are born natural sales geniuses others are very good at a set script and others are just good at ringing the register. So you have to have all the right players in all the right places at the right time.

In this series I will talk about a specific ad campaign each article and give my thoughts on why it made me buy or not. Or just why I plain loved or hated the entire ad itself, in spite of the product. Also I will be following on The Discovery Channel the new show ‘PitchMen’ and talking about what they show each week.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Ok. He just doesn’t get it. If you have to make the choice not to kill someone then the thought was being contemplated. Most people don’t even have that thought as a serious contemplation. If you do really have to make the conscious choice not to commit violence then it is somewhere in your current nature and therefore can be accidentally triggered. So you should seek help.

Like they say about hypnosis, if you would not normally do something then you cannot be made to do it. But if it is something that you might do, if not for deciding not to, then you can have your inhibitions released through suggestion or in most cases by an overwhelming surge of emotion. This is how people commit crimes of passion. So I would just say to Hogan and his daughter, that you just don’t understand. Accidents can happen when you ignore the signs that are being pointed out to you. You are a drunk and people keep telling you not to drive. You insist you would never drive drunk that you would know better and that you choose not to do stupid things. Then boom one day you decide that you are not really drunk, hardly buzzed. You see where this is going. You are being told that the actual thoughts of killing someone are the problem and that this should be nipped in the bud. OJ was not OJ the killer before he was… I am sure we would not like to open the papers years from now and see Hulk in the news for an accident where he lost his temper and body slammer someone who was paralyzed or killed by that action.