While getting ready for work this morning (with the TV on, of course) I stumbled across an infomercial for some new motivational speaker/pseudo-guru. The ad featured clips of him lecturing large crowds and a voice over that praised his wisdom and inspirational ability or something.

The kicker is that this guy was spouting common sayings, that's it. He was walking around on stage telling people that "the best way to know how your spouse will treat you in the future is to see how he treats his parents now." I've heard that, and the other words that came out of his mouth, hundreds of times. Have we become so alienated from the past that a guy can bottle what people used to hear from their parents and grandparents and actually sell it to an eager public? It's positively shameful that folk sayings and common colloquialisms no longer belong to the folk and the common people, but are now yet another fad product people buy over the telephone.