Sunday, February 8, 2009

Enhanced techniques

Between Friday and Saturday evening, I finished Heroes Volume Three in its entirety, and watched the premiere of Volume Four, so I'm completely caught up now.  (I thought that Three was definitely better and more focused than Two, but not quite on par with One, and they really need to consider permanently killing off some characters before the cast list hits fifty people, but that's beside the point.)  During one scene in the show, one of the characters refers to the practice of waterboarding.  For those who are unaware, waterboarding is a torture method that has been euphemized into an "enhanced interrogation technique" through enhanced PR spin techniques, not an exciting event on ESPN2 sponsored by Mountain Dew.  This got me thinking today: what other "scary" things can we soften in the same way?
  • Speeding—enhanced transportation techniques
  • Theft—enhanced property acquisition techniques
  • Embezzling—enhanced accounting techniques
  • Racism—enhanced demographic targeting techniques
  • Cannibalism—enhanced survival techniques
  • Rape—enhanced seduction techniques

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