Good day:

The joy of the public domain is that all citizens get to share in the great trust that is our cultural heritage: the music, art, poetry and literature that has not only helped shape us individually and collectively into what we are, but also points us toward our future to come.

The sorrow of the public domain is that it allows multi-billion-dollar corporations to twist mankind's greatest expressions of its soul into shallow, meaningless sales pitches. The priceless ingots carefully wrought from history's greatest minds, so carefully deposited into our common cultural treasure house, are instantly turned to shit in a reverse King Midas effect, and we are as a people cheapened by it.

The first time I saw one of these commercials I was immediately sickened. Now when I see one, I immediately turn the channel or at least mute the sound so I don't have to listen to poor old Walt Whitman turned into a whore for the people who brought us Dockers.

Truly sad, truly cheap, truly degrading to the human spirit.

With a heavy sigh,
Michael Carmody
Wichita, Kansas USA

Your point taken. However, on the other hand, millions of people not previously exposed to that poem now have been. Who knows if even a single person comes away from watching that ad with curiosity about its text's author, but still. . . . This country's been built in part on hype and hucksterism. (I bet we know who Walt Whitman is partially because of his own hype machine.) And for better or worse, so much of our country's great art has been built on the back of commerce, and sometimes commerce gets built on the back of art.

I get your point, but I seriously doubt Walt Whitman had a "hype machine."