Last week, we posted an item about an ad the History Channel was running that seemed (to us, anyway) to be in bad taste in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Maybe all the images we’ve seen in the last week and a half from the Gulf Coast have played with our minds, but now we think we’ve seen a few more ads that, on second thought, shouldn’t be running right now. You tell us whether we’re being too sensitive. First, Gatorade is currently running that commercial about an ironman competition that features the Animals track “House of the Rising Sun.” You know the lyrics: “There is a house in New Orleans, they call the rising sun. And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy, and God I know I’m one.” At the least, the song is a distraction. Seems they could've swapped in a different song. The second is the new campaign for the Hummer H3, which has been on the air for at least the last two nights running. Granted, the H3 is a smaller, and therefore, kinder, gentler Hummer at a—relatively— fuel-efficient 19 miles/gallon (though the spot doesn’t focus on that increasingly salient fact), but, who, really, is anxious to run to their local Hummer dealer right now? For the time being, it seems a waste of money to even be airing these ads.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor