AARCHERD @armyofone. Not sure, but I think Gloria Swanson has had some work done. #ReadyForMyBotoxMisterDeMille JCAZALE @fredocat Where's Brando? Grandstanding by his absence. #custerslasttango BOBGARFIELD @bobosphere RT@fredocat. You mean by his absinthe? loL

Well, I suppose I've lost. Despite years of crusading -- in print and onstage and even before a major, major government agency -- I have proved pathetically impotent against the forces of so-called "native advertising."

New from Samsung: SmartAleck TV - yes, a television that eavesdrops on your conversations, then sells the gossip to outsiders. You are being monitored, like Winston Smith, by your telescreen. The idea is for the device to gather as much spoken language as possible to help the voice-recognition software learn your vocabulary, speaking patterns and accents....as well as your pet names, dirty secrets, criminal confessions, safe words, Tourette's blurts and Fantasy League strategy.

Disqus offers "native advertising at scale," which is like offering locusts at scale. But putting aside the pestilence that is native, can we for a moment contemplate the thing that gives native its supposed power and its very raison d'etre? Namely: editorial environment. I'm going to random search Yahoo for comments about the "Seattle Seahawks" in advance of the Super Bowl. Then I'm going to search YouTube for, oh, I dunno, Miley Cyrus. Then I'll search Vice.com for "Iran." I have not scoped these out previously.