Signs of the Apocalypse, Super Bowl Edition

These two news items have nothing in common, except that both relate to the Super Bowl, and both say something about the current state of our culture. First, the latest Super Bowl ad to be rejected by Fox is this extremely low-key Christian ad, which looks for all the world like a potato chip commercial; how anyone could find it offensive is beyond me. Fox rejected it because it “advanc[es] particular beliefs or practices.” (They don’t mean, evidently, the practice of eating Doritos or drinking Coke.) Here is the ad that Fox found too hot to handle:

Item number two is this headline by the Associated Press: “Black Eyed Peas anecdote for geriatric halftime.” They meant “antidote.” That’s right: the nation’s number one news organization doesn’t know the difference between “antidote” and “anecdote.” There was a time when journalists could be assumed to be literate, even if perhaps deficient in more specialized areas of knowledge. Those days are long gone.
As I say, other than the Super Bowl connection, these stories have nothing in common. But neither reflects well on the state of our culture.